attn: computer nerds; please help me make XP faster
 

Alright. So I've had this computer for like 4 yrs. But lately my XP has been running really slow. Way slower than usual. Besides adding more RAM or some other suggestions that cost $, what do I want to do to reclaim some memory and processing power? I really need to clean this shit up I think.

Download this
http://download.cnet.com/Glary-Utili...html?tag=mncol

Install and run the "1 Click Maintenance". Beware: Depending on how your computer is, it make take several hours to complete the first time.

I've always found registry cleaners to be idiotic at best and positively lethal at worst. Clear out the registry yourself, make sure you desktop is shortcuts only, defrag, clear unwanted backups (you should only really need the most recent one), move it all to an external hard-drive and do some Google searches on the subject before you download software that can potentially delete important system files. I've not seen this registry cleaner before but I've known registry cleaners that immediately speed up the computer but leave it entirely fucked within a week.

I've used this one for most of this year and it dramatically sped up my XP system.

I'm sure it did; I maintain that, without looking at the PC concerned, downloading these things should be the last resort. Unless Herr redux is a total fanny, in which case he's probably virussed up to the nines prior to either of our intervention.

nah, I'm not worried about viruses or anything. I run virus/malware/etc checks and all that.

I really think it's just a lot of bloating. I'm a packrat by nature, so I've got a lot of shit to clean out. I just went and uninstalled like 15 programs that I never fucking use.

I've never defragged my HD or cleaned my registry. Not even sure I know how.

Any other tricks would be appreciated though. Like startup settings, etc.

Defrag will work wonders. Make sure you have about 15% free space and back up seriously important files.

On XP, the Defragger is under Accessories>System Tools. Analyze first and it will tell you how fragmented it is and whether or not it recommends a defrag. Depending on the size of the drive and fragmentation, allocate 2 to 4 hours for complete defrag.

DON'T FUCK WITH YR REGISTRY IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YR DOING!

and yeah, like glice said, I'd be suspect at letting anything do it automatically. you run the risk of it never booting back up.

you can find defrag under programs: system tools. also, you might try taking some stuff out of yr start-up. go to run: type "msconfig" > startup > uncheck a bunch of shit that doesn't look important. hit "ok" > reboot. you can always manually start those programs.

Delete everything in your registry.

AWWWW YOU GUYS RUINED IT. NO FUN.

Oh yeah, I should probably have specified this. I tend to take a fairly laissez faire approach - but yes, the system registry is not to be fucked with. If you're at all concerned or suspicious, don't change it. And sit down with a pen and paper making a note of any changes you make in the system registry, if you decide to be heroic.

The thing to do is to get people to delete their sys32. The registry is too much faffing.

That faffing is the satisfaction of the purge.

You want purging, why not delve straight into the BIOS? All sorts of irreperable pain there.

That sounds very appealing.

alright, well I figured I'd at least get to page 2 before you jerks tried to get me to fuck myself. Oh well. Thanks Glice and SY37 for the actual trying to help.

SEE IF I EVER TRY TO HELP YOU AGAIN, UNGRATEFUL WHELP.

agh! I'm sorry man. I DID mean to include you as well! Seriously. You were honest and tried to help me.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to floatingslowly again.

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although it's a total pain in the ass, if you really want to make it better, back up everything and do a reinstall of windows.

most computers (that you buy--not put together) come with a factory reset disc. again, it's a pain in the ass to reinstall yr programs, but it will make it good as new (barring hardware problems).

heat can also slow you down, open yr comp up and (gently) take a vacuum attachment to it. my cat makes sure that I have to do that just about monthly.

so far, I uninstalled a bunch of shit that I never use. Then I did the msconfig thing, which I hadn't done in like 2 yrs. And already it's helped a fjuckin' bunch. I'm planning ona defrag. I think all of this will really boost shit. Like I said, I run anti-virus and anti-malwares semi-regularly, so........

what's the deal with virtual memory by the way? I mean, I know I should splurge on some physical memory, but I'm just curious.

it's a paging file that windows sets up on yr hard drive that acts as virtual RAM. if you have the drive space, you can increase this by going to programs > control panel > performance & maint. > system > advanced > performance settings > advanced > virtual memory (change) > try setting initial size to 1488 instead of the 744 that it's set to. getting RAM helps fix this. windows itself is the biggest RAM hog.

NOTE: unless you defrag after uninstalling, yr just making yr comp run even slower. that's the reason why windows gets so slow after time, everytime you install/uninstall it puts/leaves shit everywhere.

Install an operating system that doesn't use a retarded registry. But if you can't do that, the best options are to either wipe your HD and reinstall the OS, or at the very least defragment your computer

yr face uses a retarded registry.

as much as you don't want to admit it... we're buds, huh?

defrag is like washing your balls man. if you're in the shower, just soap up a washcloth and really scrub all of that shit. I mean I can understand... the night before... you went out on your vespa to the local lion versus billy joe fight match and maybe you had some nicotine, hell maybe you even had some devil's water! in a situation like that i can understand, maybe you wake up 23 minutes later than usual and you have to be at your Biology I class in 60 minutes and you have to pack your lunch and you haven't clipped your fingernails in three weeks; so maybe then you skip the ball wash. It's all good. But what happens when Stacy from Biology I turns around and says, "I heard you like Sonic Youth...and you're good at Biology... Can you come hither and twine your molecules against my sishasisha?"

Then it is do or die, friend. It is STACY! you don't want to be in the situation where you say ok but then when stache comes to twirl and you plop those cadburys on her eyes and the waft drifts slowly down, curling around like malscented candle hooks around her nostrils...

defrag it.

hehe, sorry I can't help it.

Gotta start with simpler things first, no messing with registry or O/S. That's the last resort. My mom has an IBM XP laptop i bought her. When i do a simple C Cleaner run every couple months it can free up gigs of crap! It has registry related things and and a bunch of other little utilities that may help. An app like that is great to run every couple days. What i do, got no issues for 4 years with my latest pc(knock on wood tho). Plus, i have Avast Home Edition and Komodo firewall. The point is i am learning to really stay on top of anything associated with being online in general. Crap gets in there big time and gotta clean it up all the time. That is my theory for increasing slowness.

if you say yr a packrat then chances are yr hdd is going to be hellish to navigate (for yr computer, not just you) and so you might have the best luck starting from scratch.

just back up EVERYTHING, FULL FORMAT and reinstal. Provided you have copies of all of your legally installed software handy to put back on. allow a couple of days or stock up on caffiene, rent a movie, and make it an all nighter with a geeky friend.

you know how stuff used to be made to last years, and now it isn't? It's bizness. I'm fairly sure the programming staff are well aware of how quickly windows degrades as an OS, and it is part of the marketing to ensure people who don't know much about their computers regularly buy new releases.

Generally people who buy mac's are more/equally concerned with how their computer looks and will buy the new ones anyway because it's kewl and all their friends have it. ;)

And anyone who uses an open source OS... likely know's enough about their computer and how it runs to be able to look after and maintain whatever type of combination they choose.

..... Problem Solved!

Get a better computer?

Seriously, I've done all this stuff before.. defragging, running reg. mechanic, and so on, and really, if there's any difference in "speed", it's not by much. Still, I don't mind (though it blows my mind when I actually get on a fast computer).

I agree w the first part and third part, but totally disagree with the 2nd part. Most Mac users just want a computer that is easy to use (me). The nice looks are just an added bonus. I'd still use my MacBook if it was literally made out of brick.

In NTFS defragmentation doesn't make much of a difference actually (except if the hard disk borders on being full).

nah there's nothing wrong with it. Really. It was just running slow. It's already speeding up from what I've done so far. It's fine. Got rid of stupid startup things I dont use. Got rid of programs I don't use. It's feeling better already.

I highly reccomend something called ATF Cleaner. Look it up on google. It's like, less than 1mb and it clears your cache and everything else really quickly. Quickest cleaning program ever. First time I used it, I cleared nearly a gigabyte worth of shit somehow! I run it about every 2 weeks and always end up clearing 300-400mb.

Don't believe it for a second.

From The Top Eight Computer Myths!:

You don't need to defragment your hard drive very often. Modern drive optimisers like Windows 98's Defrag which position program data according to how often you use it can, indeed, improve performance a bit, but there's no reason for even a heavily used computer to be defragmented every week, or even every month. Yes, it'll be faster if you do. But the difference will probably be tiny.
Hard drive performance in toto makes very little difference to system performance, on machines with adequate physical RAM. The difference in performance between unfragmented and moderately fragmented drives is small, and the larger the drive, for a given level of filesystem activity, the less fragmentation it will suffer.
If you're using Windows NT or 2000 and NTFS-formatted drives, bear in mind that NTFS is famously insensitive to fragmentation - which is just as well, because it's hard to do anything with NTFS without it fragmenting data. This is why Microsoft claimed for so long that NTFS was immune to fragmentation, and no defrag utility was needed at all!
NTFS performs poorly on old drives with lousy seek speed, but the trade-off is that its performance as fragmentation increases remains quite steady. Once the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) becomes fragmented, you can indeed lose performance, but how much you lose still depends on what files are where and how you use the computer. Look at overall system performance, rather than just disk subsystem performance, and the difference due to fragmentation often fades into the noise.
How much effect fragmentation has on performance depends heavily on what files are fragmented, where the fragments lie, and what filesystem you're using. Generally speaking, the upshot of all this is that frequent ritualistic defragmentation, in the absence of a significant measured performance loss (not just how your computer "feels" to you), is, obviously, unnecessary.
Fragmentation certainly can severely degrade system performance, especially on Windows machines without enough physical RAM, or which are doing very disk-intensive tasks like serious database work or high data rate video editing. Defrag weekly, though, and you're probably just going to grow hair on the palms of your hands.

im trying not to post anymore here but that piece of macbook pro ballsac just died on me.

i am getting the color wheel of death within 60 seconds of booting, no matter what i do.

so now i have to go to that craphole known as "the apple store". what a piece of shit afternoon this will be.

listen to me, you fucking fanboi fool:

APPLE HARDWARE IS A PIECE OF SHIT

 

Rob? Is that you?