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Five tips for speeding up a slow PC

I would just add two more steps, to a great list so far.

6? Check whats running at start-up. You can use the built in Microsoft configuration utility (Start->Run-> msconfig), or a third party tool, like ccleaner already mentioned. Get rid of those things that run automatically that you don't need, such as quicktime, adobe acrobat, instant messengers. They don't have to run at startup, since you only need them running when you are actually using them.

7? Restart the computer. So often, when I get these calls for a slow machine, the user hasn't restarted in 3-4 weeks. Not restarting regularly can leave old processes hanging in memory, using up resources, thereby slowing your system. A restart will clear all of that out.

Just my 2 cents.

Jason

While specific to the browsing experience of old computers, this does wonders. Run something like noscript that lets you selectively white list what domains can execute scripts in your browser. You'll find an incredible speed bump, it's amazing how much flash advertisements and poorly written js slow down and older computer.

How do you do this?

At our agency, we turn the PC's off at night. There's no sense in letting it run for 15 or so hours when there's no one in the building. I know about the old concept that that it's easier on the drive to let it run than to turn it off often, but today's drive are a lot hardier, and turning it on one a dy is not unreasonable.

If you turn your computer off every night, when does it do maintenance? Oh yeah... "Hey user... this computer is going to run slow for you most of the time because it is doing all of our domain administration tasks during the day while you are trying to work. Sorry about that, but you just keep shutting it down at night because it is not saving you any electricity but it's just better".

There's no real need to post like this. For a far less antagonistic way of making your point, try this, instead:

"I like the idea of running maintenance scripts overnight, which lessens the impact on users during their workday. Turning off computers every night can impede that."

However, I have a rebuttal: it's possible to use a Wake on LAN trigger, so the maintenance scripts will still be completed overnight. (My own company uses this, waking computers at 4 am to run maintenance scripts, so that they're ready to go by the time users start arriving at 6, and minimizing the time computers idly chew through the electric bill.)

Granted, for various reasons, not all computers respond correctly to that trigger, but still, for many companies, the electricity savings found by turning off several hundred (or even tens of) computers every night can be a big boost to their bottom line. Especially for large companies, the extra cost of making an occasional deskside visit to manually maintain those few computers that don't awaken is cheaper than leaving all of them on every night and weekend.

We do the same thing here at the office.

I've got a few scripts automating system, disks and registry cleanup. Usually last 1 hour so I wake all the PCs at 04:30 and every one of them are ready at 06:00 when the staff starts.

Makes my life a lot easier...

How much daily maintenance do you do? Run slowly "most of the time?"

Every night. Usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour for the virus scan to complete on the average machine here.

Bill

instead of letting them run all night

With today power compilant computers you can setup your power settings to leave your computers always ON at small power consumption. You can setup power settings in control pannel to turn off monitor at 10 minutes of no use, hard disk at one hour and suspend the pc after two hours of no use. A suspended pc have very very slow power consumption. You can buy a KillaWATT in amazon.com and check this by yourself.

We leave ours on. However, each computer goes into standby (ie min amount of power) about 2 hours after last mouse/kbd click and REBOOTS at 2am. This clears cache etc and loads certain updates. We don't defrag local disks as our users folders are on the servers. But all the above tips are good - I do them on my home PC's. And you know how bad techies are at looking after their own computers!

I've found that a fairly high number (well above 10%) of computers don't come out of Standby correctly. We advise our users to avoid using it, especially when they call to complain that their computer won't wake from it.

(Edited for clarity.)

Personally I have had better luck with newer operating systems, but I still tend to avoid standby where possible.

Bill

I have 100 pcs in the office, most of them have standby settings without issues. All are Dell computers.

I had standby issues with my Home dell computer with windows 7 but the problem was related with the upgraded HD Video card from ATI. Windows 7 do not have all the required drivers for this card (capture / export / hdmi).

Our office used to have a policy to leave machines on over the weekends, but too many would be dead come Monday morning.
Even in standby/hibernate modes, the failure rates were too large to be acceptable (power supplies mostly) - tech staff would have to do a mad rush to get people back to work.
Counter-intuitive I know, but technology can't always be predicted.

That sounds like bad power coming out of the wall plugs. Did you have UPS on the machines to smooth out the highs/lows and cover over the outages?

I have flaky power at home and have found a night and day difference since finally putting a UPS on the machine.

oh, five steps which I forgot... good to remmember actually.
I always was thinking about msconfig/update OS/check with antivirus, update it...

1-5 is a great start, but sometimes the problem is hardware related.
6. Check connectors, Yes you need to open the case for this. Sometimes, although this is rare any more, connector get corroded and loose contact. Pull cable out and reinsert them 2-3 times to clean them off. Use contact cleaner spray(not WD-40)

7. Reseat any cards in slots. The same principle applies with card as does cables. Memory modules may not give errors, but just function very slowly.

8. Clean or replace the fan. An overheating system may not crash just go slow. This is true especially in laptops.

My PC is slow to power up when on the network at work (I power up and shutdown daily). I'll confess up front that I don't defrag, etc. as often as I should.

However, I've noticed after using the notebook at home, that when I return back to work, the first power up back on the network is always significantly quicker than the subsequent one(s). Any explanations?

Thanks,
Anthony

Maybe your administrator put a login script , so during startup on your office network, your PC runs this script. It add few second to 30 second , depending the PC speed and script length. I use it to map network drives automatically in user's PC/laptop.

Another thing that may cause slow start up is automatic update of (corporate) anti virus that scheduled on start up.

Due to boot-up and shut-down scripts, our laptops bot up more slowly at home when the office.
We've put this down to the presence of a network, but no servers. The scripts time-out, then the logon carries on.
In these cases, we suggest to leave the broadband line out until you're rady to connect, abd unplug it before shutting down. This is for home-use only.

In your case, I assume your scripts are not run from th PC's side, but called from the servers. No servers = no scripts, so a faster boot up.

Do you have any work network drives mapped on the laptop? You may not be connecting at first boot but may access the drive there after and subsequent reboots might try and re-connect during boot = slower boot up.

If I put my laptop in standby before I leave work and then boot it up at home, as soon as I flip the wireless switch Windows Explorer (aka Taskbar) locks up for maybe 10 minutes. I fired up wireshark once before turning on the radio and witnessed Windows trying to contact every DFS mount point in the list - which in my case is around 100. I have to believe there is some configuration option that would prevent this behavior, but I have not dug into it and even if I did find the answer it would be ignored by our client configuration team. So what I do is wait for it to lock up, then switch off the radio. This seems to abort the process and frees everything back up. When I again turn on the radio it doesn't seem to start back up.

Note that this only occurs if I were first connected to DFS shares, put it in standby, and then bring it out of standby while not connected to the Windows domain. Also note that it doesn't seem to help if I undock at work (disconnect from network) before I put it in standby.

Oh by the way... this lockup sometimes occurs randomly - it just happened as I was typing this. Same solution: shut off the radio and within 10 seconds it starts responding again.

If you are running Windows sometimes it is necessary to restart the computer twice a day! Don't forget to reinstall Windows once or twice a year too......

I believe that your are acting under the mistaken notion that stems from the tech support folks at many of the big equipment manufacturers whose solution to a problem that they can?t quickly diagnose is to ?reformat and reinstall.? Reformat and reinstall accomplishes three things:
1) It gets you off the phone,
2) It always works,
3) It doesn?t create a need for them to perform any real troubleshooting.

A major bone of contention between a former supervisor and myself was that he thought defragging a computer was a waste of time.

In fact, he went so far as to say it was a useless program. Luckily, I no longer work there, although I do feel sorry for the users he no doubt is still abusing with his ignorance.

The same thing applies to some so called repairs services, most notably in my experience, the Geek Squad, who have told several people that in order to fix their machine they need to use a recovery disk. Since these users hadn't made one they were basically screwed. I fixed their machines in less than an hour and made them a recovery disk for less than GS was going to charge them for using a pre-made disk.

they got that name right, but instead of geek it should be rip off!
No seriously I figure there are some good techs that work for them and hopefully skirt thier rules now and then.

As an independent repairman for the last 10 years, reinstalling the OS is generally the last thing I want to do if possible.

It dosen't take to long to figure out if that's going to be needed or not.

But what I really wanted to say is as an independent, competeing with the likes of the geeksqaud, make it work, etc. that my clients truly appreciate that if I say were gonna reload, that all your data will be preserved.
I don't make nearly as much as I could in this biz becuase of that, but my clients love me and would call no one else.
I've been scratching my head a lot lately watching ad's on TV for PC fix it systems ect. I know there raking in the dollars, but I just don;t have the fortitude to be a bad guy, not to mention I do not want to hear the complaints when this crap dosen't work.

I would agree and reiterate:
see this youtube link, one of many like it... LOL. Nutin' like good old fashioned hard work to do it right the first time, making the next time that much easier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIJfuetJWSE

I had the misfortune of working for customer support for Stream who was acting as telephone support for a big PC manufacturer.

That was their solution to any problems that would take more than a few minutes to resolve. FDisk, Format, Re-Install the Operating System (or FFR as it was fondly referred to) using the System Restore Disks. "There! Just like new!"

I left after a month. When the number of phone calls is more important than actually helping the customer, it's not customer service, it's a scam.

Try a previous restore point if not try a repair before thinking of reinstalling backing up and reinstalling apps and data in stand alone systems. Remeber the backup can also have the problem.

Restoring from a "previous restore point" has never been successful for me (in Windows XP) not at least in my experience. But I've not done too many of these ...

or at least, my friends' collective bacon when I'm working on their machines, a number of times. I always set them after a good fix, you never know when they will come in handy.

maybe one out of 2 restores work. Viruses use system restore to come back & haunt you!

You're right, I have to routinely delete the restores as a part of virus cleanup. But on the problems where something has gone corrupt or a bad driver install, the restores work great.

And even after I've fixed a virus issue, I create a restore, because so many things can go wrong that may potentially be helped by it. Always a good option to have, just in case.

I never had good restore from system restore. The problem is always still there. I restore from Image backup instead

I have never been able to find any value in the restore points either. Never worked for me. But then I must admit that I never really took the time to understand what exactly was being restored using this utility. I guess since I don't understand it I don't use it much.

On one occasion I uninstalled an essential program by mistake. My client didn't have access to a replacement, and couldn't operate without it. Restore fixed the problem like magic and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And yes, it was a well maintained system, if I do say so myself.

System restore can be a great time saver when it works. I've found that it seems to work better on systems that were well maintained to begin with. On systems that have tons of junk running on start-up it's not very reliable. And for any type of malware damage no matter how minor forget it.

I think restore has worked once in 4 years on 25 machines

On PC's that are running slowly I have been having good luck running chkdsk /R on PC's running Windows XP.

You need to be more proactive when looking for early hard drive failure, if you want to avoid data loss.

If you have episodic slowdowns where keystrokes are delayed and the mouse pointer stops moving, you should suspect hard drive retries on failing sectors. Generally, this pattern of slowdown results when code is delayed within a section where interrupts are disabled, which is usually only within tight and critical bits of driver code.

When the hard drive gets a checksum mis-match, it will retry the operation until it works, or fail after X retries. If "too many" failures, it will mark that sector as bad, and map its address to a spare one; if this is during a read operation, it should try to relocate the contents from the bad sector, but this may fail. All of this happens within the drive itself, and is invisible to the rest of the PC.

If the OS detects a read failure, it will only be if the above mechanisms have failed. If the file system is NTFS, it will retry the operation in much the same way the drive's firmware did, though this time the results may be visible in the depths of the file system. Each retry attempt will likely spawn X retry attempts within the firmware, and could beat a sick drive to death; this is how those seconds-long stuck-mouse pauses arise.

When you format a volume, the same process occurs except presumably without attempts to preserve the disk contents. At least the number of OS-visible bad clusters are reported.

When you do a ChkDsk /R, it's the same sort of thing; nested retries, defects hidden if the drive's firmware "fixes" the problem, etc.

You can see into the firmware's activities via a SMART reporting tool. If enabled in BIOS, POST can tell you if SMART is "bad"; the OS seems to have no awareness of SMAT at all.

SMART tolerates a LOT of defects before it flags a value as "bad", so don't wait for a "bad" SMART status! The critical SMART attributes to watch are Reallocated Sectors, Reallocation Events, Pending Sectors and Offline Uncorrectable. Look at the raw data counters for these, which should all be zero, not just the Value or Worst columns, and least of all the Status column.

Here's how each SMART attribute is reported and logged. Raw events are counted up from zero in the raw Data column, and if these reach a certain number, the Value is reduced by one. Periodically, both raw Data and Value counters are reset, but the lowest-ever Value is retained in Worst. If Value or Worst every reach Threshold, the Status then changes from "OK" to "Bad".

But if the counters are reset before Data ever causes Value to be reduced, everything stays "OK" forever. As it is, several loops of raw Data and steps downwards of Value mean thousands of flaws are considered "OK", as far as Status is concerned.

So... don't wait for bad drives to find you, and don't use ChkDsk /R to paper over the cracks. Use a SMAT reporting tool to look into the raw data details, and act on what you see - first, file-copy the crucials, then file-copy all files, then image the C: partition, then run surface scan diagnostics.

A failing drive may die within an hour, and you don't want to be left only with diagnostic reports, or an unusable part of a failed partition image - that is why I'd do those steps in that particular order.

Oh, there is nothing that ticks me off more than someone suggesting I reinstall (or at work, "restage"). When I tell them just what I think of their "solution" they act surprised. That is what they do to everyone. Why do I have a problem with it?

I have a problem with it because I have several non-standard programs that I use to perform my job. It sometimes takes quite a bit of configuration of these programs and systems configured correctly. I tweak the um... "whizzed" up settings that come with the standard install to get the thing performing correctly. When I move into a new laptop I insist that I keep both the old and the new for at least 2 weeks until I get the new one where I want and need it to be.

I once had a sound card go out in a home PC that I bought from a major manufacturer (won't say the name but it has 3 letters in it). The PC came with a standalone diagnostic CD that also told me the sound card had failed. When I called to get it replaced the tech told me he couldn't send one out without my reinstalling windows first. When I pointed out that when I booted from the standalone diagnostic CD it also reported a failed sound card his reasoning was, well, maybe it is a bad diagnostic CD. You need to reinstall Windows. I immediately asked to speak to a supervisor who promptly sent me the new card.

So don't tell me to reinstall because you don't have a clue what you are doing!!! I don't let them get anywhere near my PC anymore.

On another note, I have noticed that people who have only ever known Windows tend to think the same "solutions" apply to all systems. I once had a site admin go around and reboot all the ethernet switches at the site because he couldn't connect to some service somewhere. This was probably a couple of dozen switches and a router! Hey - control-alt-delete always works (if not, reinstall!). Those of you who have been around long enough to remember mainframes - can you imagine rebooting the system to fix a problem?!?!? And if that doesn't work, reinstall MVS? You betcha.

==flame off==... whew. sorry.

In my experience, it seems that a lot of techs like to do the really hard stuff first and ignore or are ignorant of the simple fixes. I've had a number of issues fixed very easily by dropping in a good copy of a .dll or some other easy fix instead of overhauling the entire system. I am sometimes ridiculed until I fix the system with an easy method, and then they shut up...

If you have access to run non-standard programs then you can probably get permission to take or have IT take a fresh system image after a clean install plus your additional programs. Reinstall would then just be a drive image restore including your addons.

I'm spoiled in the *nix world, I can rebuild an install in about the same time it takes a drive image restore to run. Long as the user data is backed up; the machine can be rebuilt on a whim. (not that this stops me from trying to identify and solve issues before resorting to reinstall)

I am constantly adding and removing things, either in response to a unique one-time requirements or simply to evaluate a tool. And my corp. client team doesn't cater to the individual user by doing things like taking a system image. It is a cookie cutter approach where you are provided with a PC with MS office on it and maybe a few other standard tools like terminal emulation programs. Their attitude is if they don't offer it, you don't need it! It is the same mentality that leads them to believe that the correct solution to every issue is to restage the client.

The hard party might be getting approval for a second license to install inside the VM but it would give you a simple way to run your custom apps on top of the stock image. Then you just have to keep your own backup of the VM and manually install the VM app in the event of a host OS re-image.

Not sure if it'd work for you but it may help if your rebuilding that often. Especially with restore points for the VM if it's your extra apps that cause the issue.

Lazy OEMs leverage "restore" disks (that wipe and re-build the PC) to attain 1-call and zero-call support loads, despite selling on the basis of "excellent support". The "1-call" version goes like this:
- "just" wipe and rebuild
- only if that fails, consider bad hardware
- the adverse impact will prevent the user ever calling again

A refinement is the 0-call version:
- advise the user on the phone to "just" wipe and rebuild
- if they refuse, end of call (zero call load)
- if the rebuild fails, issue RMA and consider bad hardware
- adverse impact assures they will never call again

"Just" wipe and rebuild doesn't keep the PC malware-free either; as soon as "data" is restored, or the unpatched PC connects to the 'net, it's likely to be re-infected just as it was originally.

Restoring "data" isn't safe when apps default to "My Documents" for downloads and other incoming crud (e.g. "My Recieved Files").

This is not always true. My home pc is restarted once a month. I use this pc daily at night and suspend / Hibernate the pc only every single day. I restart only when new updates, required or after software install, etc.

In the other side, my office PC needs to be restarted twice a day, sometimes more.

My home pc is Windows 7 64bits. Office pc is XP pro.

Only get rebooted after kernel updates.

I've been using Ubuntu Linux exclusively at home since 2006.

At work they still insist on wasting money on proprietary software that doesn't work any better - and often is less functional than it's open source counterpart.

On the other hand, licensing fees are a large part of our budget. . .

"Microsoft delenda est!"

... when servers ran for 18 months without the need for a reboot (fond sigh...)

I have fond memories of Novell Netware 3 -- a couple of years between reboots was normal. Then we had one server that we lost when it was "temporarily" moved to a new location when the server closet was part of a rebuild program. For some reason or another, it was left on a shelf in the janitor's room plugged into it's UPS and a network node. Took over two years before someone asked where it was. I seem to remember that it was when we were moving to Netware 4 and going from bindery to NDS that we finally realized it had never been moved back to the server closet.

I have Server 2003 HP Proliant servers working without restarting for more than one year. I had a Server 2000 server with Cisco Call Manager working for 3 years without a single restart.

That may be fine where you work, but what about where there are several hundred PC's per tech or if there are apps installed locally that are time intensive? THe tech would be dedicated to this.

While this -may- have been an acceptable practice prior to Windows 2000 (and with Vista), MS Windows has been a stable OS since Win2000 sp3 onward. Usually the problem is a clueless sys-admin or a hack.

If you are running quirky programs, games, and/or quirky (proprietary) hardware such as Gateway or Compaq, then this might be true.

More often, the problem can be traced to the 'failsafe' system services which MS enables by default to cover all possible scenarios. Again, this goes back to -knowledge- of the OS... there are plenty of sites/blogs with excellent articles on what to enable/disable.

Select standardized hardware, configure only the services you need, follow these five tips, and your system will be rock solid.

With over 2000 computers to manage, I'm going to have to disagree. We still run mostly Windows XP SP3 and re-image at least once per year. The users notice the newly imaged machines seem faster and have fewer issues than one that has been in use for any length of time. Yes, we could visit each machine and have fun but it's just faster to re-image. 40 minutes for the imaging session compared to however long for the manual degunking. And remember that 40 minutes is for however many computers we stuff into one session.

Re-imaging is pretty easy -- just select the machine and configure it to wake up and re-image at some hour when it's unlikely to be in use. If the machine has been previously configured, just make any changes to the software packages to be deployed as part of the re-image. If not, spend 30 seconds more selecting the correct packages for the machine location.

With multicasting, we've done up to 120 computers at the same site/time with pretty decent success -- between 1 and 3 machines will require some manual work.

have some form of toolbars/unauthorized games/RAM devourers/iResourcehog/Skype etc. and I will show you a perfect human being.

The only ones I know of are those with completely locked-down systems. For those who have to live and work in reality, a once-a-week reboot is a sensible piece of advice.

When I setup new laptops for users in the office (personal use), I now create an admin account for me and setup the user account with limited permissions. This has prooved the machine works longer without issues because avoid spyware, malware, virus and software install. When they need to install something, they call me and I do it remotely via logmein.

Locking down a system in some form is the only way to ensure users don't put potentially dangerous, at worst, and speed-draining (at best) items.

Even on my own systems at home, I reboot once a week.

I've found that unchecking "Automatically search for network folders and printers" on home machines speeds up startup times on WinXP. Wouldn't do this on work place pc's but home users usually don't need to find or connect to a server on boot. (I'm confident someone will have a rebuttal.)

Thanks for the suggestions, free utilities, tweaks and hard learned lessons. The premise of this article may have been posted numerous times in different places on the web, but the comments here are (usually) as/more useful than the article.

I agree with you, srbryan (our shop regularly disables this option), and I have a few more.

1) Check swap file size. This is especially true for computers that have very little physical memory. Raising this is an easy, inexpensive way to boost performance - provided that the hard drive has enough space to accommodate the swap file.

2) This is especially true for computers that seem to lock up when the user tries to save: check for drive letters mapped to nonexistent shares. This usually occurs for old shares that were mapped locally, with the 'Reconnect at logon' box checked. Of course, if it's a login script doing this, a script edit would be in order.

3) Make sure the user doesn't have a large number of files on their desktop. Too many users save EVERYTHING there. A large desktop folder can slow boot time, and if there is enough data there, it also affects performance.

I've seen users with several large folders on their desktop. In those cases, the fix is easy, and completely transparent to the user: move the folder to a different location on the drive, then create a desktop shortcut to it. (Granted, this bypasses the opportunity for training, but many users don't seem to believe me when I explain the issue of large desktop folders.)

and affect performance?
just wondering about this...is this true?

Yes. if a user have a desktop with lot of shortcuts and icons, the bootup proccess is slower. At start up, windows needs to reach all the locations on the shortcuts to open the proper icon and update status of desktop.ini

The Desktop folder is what is displayed on your desktop (icons, files, etc...)

The things that appear on your desktop are located in a folder on your system drive.

Since the contents of this folder are displayed everytime you load up your system, it is plausible that having many things loading could hamper performance... It's a good adjustment.

Although I hardly use my desktop for anything but a nice picture from time to time, I disable viewing desktop icons. That way, I don't have to worry about it at all...

If you really need the things that are on your desktop, just make a toolbar that shortcuts to the desktop and your convenience will remain while improving your start up time...:-)

.

-Open Windows Explorer
-Tools menu - Folder Options
-View tab

'Automatically search for network folders and printers' is the first check box on this tab.

I didn't realize that was checked on my home PC. Is that Win XP only, or Win 2000 also (work PC?)

Unless you have a small workplace, this option isn't going to come into play. Joining a domain automatically disables this option and if your computer finds more than 32 shared resources (not sure off the top of my head if that is 32 computers sharing resources or 32 shared resources). As usual, you can also use group policy or registry edits if the spirit moves you.

I don't use Windows much anymore, but I recall the following (or have heard from others):

- take advantage of a fast USB stick for accelerating Windows (can't remember the feature name that the marketing dept came up with for this)

- optimize at the hardware level - e.g., RAID your hd, or move your swap to a 2nd hard drive separate from your Windows programs

- a RAM disk; no, I'm not phoning this in from 1997, if you have plenty of memory, there are still some situations where a RAM disk can actually speed things up considerably

Note that none of these are Windows specific, really -- you can use a fast USB stick for your Linux swapfile, you can obviously RAID your drives, etc.

But that will restart my uptime timer. I'm going for a record.

1. Go to the MY PC icon, right button, properties and select the performance tab. Select optimise for maximum performance and apply.

2. From there proceed to the advanced settings and find the virtual memory settings. Select Allow system to choose optimum setting and apply.

3. Check what antivirus you are using. Some products are badly compiled and use a huge resource footprint, while others which are just as, if not more effective, run in a fraction of the ram and slow down your pc much less. (note to av programmers, your compiler has an option called "model" which allows you to scale resources to your real needs)

4. Programs like msn messenger like to open automaticaaly when your pc boots, but this slows down the boot process a lot. You can go into tools, options, general settings, and unmark the option that tells msn to open when windows starts.

5. Check you have your disk transfer set up correctly for IDE drives. In device manager select primary IDE controller, advanced setting and make sure it's allowed to and using DMA. If it's only running PIO you may need to download a driver for your chipset controller, also check that UDMA is enabled in the bios. This really makes them crawl if it's wrong.

6. RAM, even a Pentium 3 will still run quite nicely if you give it enough RAM. Anything less than 512 nowadays is a really slow coach. A miniumum of 1gb will probably get you through another 6 to 12 months before your av program grows again.

7. Check you are using the right operating system for your hardware. AMD processors have been supporting 64 bits for several years now. If you are a ubuntu fan you can download the 64 bit version. XP64 wasn't a great success however if the rest of your system is up to it consider windows 7 64 bit.

8. Hard disk cables. Really goes with the note above on UDMA. If you have an older pc make sure it fitted with an UDMA cable if the disk is IDE. IF you have sata disks, make sure the cables have no knots or bundles in them, clean the contacts with electrical contact cleaner (without grease), and anchour the cable in such a way it won't move around too much and break contact at either end.

9. Take out all CD and DVD media ! Often a defective CD will cause the reader to seek endlessly and slow don the whole windows explorer enviornment and all it's dependent threads.

10. Check the fans. An overheating CPU will crawl. Typically if you go into Task Manager and look at the graphic you may see the CPU is at 100% all the time.

7th step is also necessary for the system to work proper, and 6th one should be adopted in the organizations(Like institutes) where multiple users logs in the single computer and want system start up quick, in emergence they input number of clicks and esc key strikes which disturbs the regular startup of the system which causes hang! So, avoid start up programs like messengers.

1. Cleanup disk
2. Cleanup registry (may include reg defrag)
3. Run anti-malware
4. Checkdisk (before defrag to ensure only good disk space is used)
5. Defrag disk

For the first 3 steps I typically use more than one freeware for each category. Each package finds slightly different intersecting sets of results.

Granted, some people with badly fragged disks should defrag before anti-malware to speed up the am, but since I defrag regularly I'm not too concerned about fractional improvement.

You could always empty your start up file.Maybe this has undesired effects in Windows? Start up speed is not that important. Removing ALL temp. files might clear things up, from a script.

Fred.

Thanks for your tips. But for me this is all to complicated. I have used a tool which i have found at: http://www.pc-speed.co.uk/
It cleaned the pc for me and after that my pc was running ver fast.

So for people who are not computer experts this is great solution!!

Cheers!

It might buy you a second or two across a days operations, but that's it. And it's not safe. I frequently see ccleaner trying to remove registries that are still valid, often file extensions as well. For a novice users, the risks out-weight the unlikely gains.

Also, a backup of the registry, that's a nice thing, but how can you restore it if your registry becomes ruined. Windows won't boot and not many people have a recovery console or know how to use it.

Registry backup, that is.
My registry wasn't wrecked though, just messed up by an AV program failing to uninstall it's low-level safeguards properly, big mess.
Somehow I got it working though.

Word for the wise... do not try a new AV without first finding and downloading the "forced uninstall app" or "AVPROG cleaner app" that may very well listed on the company website, even if somewhat oddly placed.

Those safeguards can do as much harm as can a virus, AND - an AV program won't find them. Nor can you count on fixing them in any reliable way.

stuff your just trying out or run a VM(virtual machine) or sandbox.

no sense scrambling a perfectly good machine on something like try outs. Some AV are hard to get rid of. Thank you norton removal tool.

At least not if you want to see how they work out.
But I could be wrong.

Some say the AV safeguards are akin to a root kit.

Sandbox sounds too small for a AV

a Virtual Machine.

I would like to know which AV Program you used so that I can be sure to steer clear of it...

I've used CCleaner registry cleaning on a fifty or so computers safely and without a hiccup.

In several cases it has improved boot times on old laptops 5+ minutes, and left them running acceptable instead of crippled.

Two days ago it scrubbed the remains of old CAD software off and allowed a reinstall to work.

If you feel insecure using it then set a restore point. Its simple and easy to do a last known good boot instead of using the recovery console in depth.

Save the registry changes so that if it has broken something you can reload the original.

Neither has been needed in several years of using it.

In the past I used spy bots registry checking feature and broke a machine.
Guess one bad reaction was not enough to break me of cleaning machines.

I never see CCleaner trying to remove registry entries that are still valid.
Wonderful free application.

Everytimes when we get a call on "My computer is very slow, could you please take a look?", CClearner is one of my tools.
I always run Windows/Applications Cleaner, till it cann't find any more Junk. Then Run Registry Clerner, always run save first backup regstry file. I never run into a problem with CClearner and it is free, thanks to the developer team! Also under Tools Cclearner has Startup feature that you can shorten the startup time. Certian programs don't need to be loaded at the startup as you all know. This last feature is quite faster that doing "msconfig". In certain suspicious cases of virus/malware, Malwarebyte does a pretty impressive job of getting rid of those, the license is worthed to pay for. Process Explore is another one that is free by systemternal now Microsoft. It is free and is a must to have to find the culplit for your system.

I have not used Ccleaner enough to venture an opinion, but I do like Glary Utilities. It's free, effective, safe -- at least it hasn't bricked any machines for me yet -- and it has lots of useful tools. Pretty easy to use, too.

I don't trust registry cleaners either. I've tried a few and they'd cause problems. It will kill user settings from one app or everything from another [re-install time]. Don't remember if I tested CCleaner.

Unsure about Norton Utilities now but it did a nice job 5-6 years ago.

always give me problems. in time to time I tested this apps new versions, I always see issues after run registry cleanining apps.

In my job role we clean up and repair about 15-30 home and small office computers a day.

Registry cleaners are not worth the potential trouble they could cause. Especially Vista+, with XP the are more potential benefits for cleaning the registry. Still in my option not worth the risks.

Hi Hazclan13, please tell me what you use if you don't use a registry cleaner? (I backup reg & use ccleaner)
Registry 'bloat' seems to cause a lot of performance issues with XP & I have not found anything better than ccleaner - used to use Advanced Windows/ System Care, but not as easy as ccleaner.

That's Win98 stuff, really.

The WinXP registry self-"cleans", not perfectly, but safely, and well enough.

Registry fragmentation may be a problem, but that's a different bottle of lard.

He has come.

the fact remains that the always registry grows (& never shrinks) in size.
I have seen the growth (by checking the backup copies of the registry in the system restore snapshots in C:\System Volume Information).
My registry has grown from 23mb to 49mb in 8mths.

The windows registry is a random access database with which, size shouldn't noticably affect sear/read times. registry bloat does affect other things but not read times so much.

Deselect "Unused File Extensions", "Fonts" and others from Registry cleaning part of CCleaner.
Also deselect "Last Download Location", "Recent Documents" and/or anything else what you like preserved - in cleaner part of it.

CCleaner is costomizable enough to satisfy most of users.

I have burned my fingers using other registry cleaners, but not yet with this program.

I agree. I've seen registry cleaners hose the registry so badly that not even a repair installation could recover the PC.

It could be the virus scan, so using Clamwin could help.

Also, when all else fails, reformat and defrag.

I used one to many poor registry cleaners in my ricer days and ended up reinstalling about once every three months. CCleaner is probably the only reg cleaner I trust but even still, it makes me itch to use and it's note remotely a weekly maintenance run. Now, CCleaner's file cleanup.. oh yes.. set that to run at login. Just be mindful of reg cleaning.

4. remove malware/spyware

I'd extend that to "remove all unwanted software". if one is not using Picassa, uninstall it. Not using Kazaa anymore, uninstall it. Limewire (for the love of baud) uninstall it.

It's amazing the old unused software you can find by glancing through the add/remove list. Nothing like eight or nine (run at boot) unused programs to slow things down.

Milspec quality multi pass scrubbing is good stuff for paranoid parents of pirate prone children.

Start up editing is the other tool in CCleaners box that works well.

Disable for pass one, after a week go through and delete any you could live without.

Try Uniblue Registry Booster, it is a good tool, it is not that I'm trying to promote their product, but the thing works really great, no after crashes detected so far. They have the whole suite of tools which can really help, might want to check them out.

Also consider using autoruns or reviewing MSCONFIG to remove or stop startup processes and services that you do not need or want. If you're more comfortable with Sysinternals tools that most folks, try defragging your pagefile space and reviewing process monitor when your most common apps and services are running to look for memory leaks or other problems.

Additionally, you can comb through your IE/firefox/chrome addins and remove any you do not use or care to use. I've also found that upgrading device drivers and BIOS firmware to be helpful, especially for older computers.

Use tools like MBSA or Belarc advisor to look for other update/security holes in your system. And employ a good firewall and other passive and active malware protection software.

Don't forget to check the physical system itself and it's surroundings. Dust, cigarette smoke, lint all can creep into a system and slow it down over time. Make sure your system is properly grounded (3-prong) and that it is connected to a good surge protector or UPS system.

Last note: treat your computer as you would a car. It needs regular maintenance in order to perform its best. Create a checkup list for it and either manually or automatically run updates on software and run tasks for defragging and virus checking. Occasionally double check any scheduled tasked to make sure it ran properly and completely. Set reminders in your calendar/Outlook for your computer and your car so you don't miss changing your oil, rotating your tires or running a check disk.

You're so right about the dust.

I was recently called in by a client. He lives in a house just off but lower than the height of a well-traveled road. I loaded my car with a long extension cord and a Black & Decker blower.

Arriving on site, the client demonstrated the XP-machines crawling tactics. With fast motherboard, CPU, HDD and 1GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM, that shouldn't have been the case.

Opening the case showed us that all the fans clogged with house dust and fur balls and a couple of dead bugs for good measure! It was surprising that the computer ran at all!

I took the computer outdoors and hooking up the blower took a good 5 minutes of blowing out the dust (the neighbors really didn't appreciate the dust storm!).

Putting everything together again, pressed the power button, and a skeptical client couldn't believe his eyes: His computer had regained the zest of a newly purchased machine.

I have long ago adopted this measure before doing anything else: I blow out the dust and clean up as best as possible.

That B&D blower has paid for itself many times over.

.. otherwise you may kill the fan's bearings. If they are forced to spin extremely fast by external blower the bearings may seize. I use toothpick, straightened paper clip, screwdriver, pencil etc.
I use compressor (at home) or compressed Plant Air (at work)for that - obviously blowing nozzle is at safe distance if pressure is 4-6 bar or more. You want to clean the machine - not to rip pieces off or wedge the dirt between tiny legs of IC's.
If available compressor is not so good (leaking oil rings on piston) use the filter. Any remains of compressor oil mist will attract dust and keep it like a glue.
I think that using hairdryer without heating will work too - I did not try it.
After "blow job" check all conections - cables may come loose.

I'd like to add something I learned a long time ago from the school of hard knocks. Allowing the fans to spin from airblast cleaning generates voltages that feed back into the motherboard as well as the power supply. It took two power supplies and a motherboard for me to realize this. --- Duh! I now use a clip assembly on power supply fans and I unplug all others before I clean them. -- Speeding up the PC can also be as simple as maxing out your RAM, if you haven't aleady done so. I run into an awful lot of folks running 512 MB or less.

I am going to fall just short of saying no way until I can test this out as there may be some fans out there that maybe the correct type for this to happen, and even if they were the correct type I still doubt it.
So why won?t it work? The motors used in the fans found in PCs are brushless. These motors do not have the ability to generate voltage and therefor are not capable of putting voltage back onto the system board.
To verify, take a fan out of a system and hook up a volt meter and see what you get when running it.

Now your second point on Memory is spot on! This should have been the number one way to speed up a system.
Anything less than 1.5 Gig is a waste of time and with so many systems sharing memory for video it is no wonder why some are slooooow!

C'mon. Seeing how fast you can get the fans to spin is half the fun of blowing out the case! I do it all the time. Never lost a mother board, a power supply, or fan bearings for that matter.

As for adding memory, more often than not I see people pointlessly cram as much memory into the MB as they can when they never use more than 512MB. Adding memory that never gets used doesn't help anyone but the memory manufacturer and the middle-man.

I have yet to see a system these days able to run XP/Vista , let alone 7 with only 512MB and run any applications.
Sure, out of the box and not running an application you might be able to get along just fine.
But start loading some application and you will pass the 512MB area fast and will be paging to the hard drive, this is what slows the system down.
Look at the minimum requirements for just Windows, nothing else. You are at or above 512MB to start out, and with the sharing of memory with video card you are even deeper in the hole
A lot of system from the store only have 256MB or 512MB, and if you are going to add some you might was well do it right and put in wht you need for only a smaller price than having to go back later and fix the issue.
Now start loading applications,
? Browser
? Office
? Anti-virus/spam/maleware
? Itunes
? Adobe reader
? AIM
? And any of the countless application that are out there
The above list does not take into account any other applications that some may run, say photo editing, video editing.
So real fast you can see that 512MB is not going to cut it.
I have been repairing systems for some 23 years; fix it right the first time and you will not have to deal with it.
There is so much more that goes into sizing memory, I know to ask the clients what they are using the system for and if it is some big application than I size accordingly. Taking a system from 256MB or 512MB to 2GM is a small price and the performance is night and day.

Oh I agree that some users absolutely need more physical memory. My point is that additional memory is often added for no good reason. My work laptop has 1GB and I regularly exceed that mark. On the other hand, I had an XP machine at home that I put together myself that ran 256MB for years. The way I used it at home it was all I needed.

I have witnessed too many weekend PC guru's say to people, "Wow. Only 1GB in this thing? You need to get more memory it will really speed this thing up". Then I pull up taskman and point out they are only using 512MB and they just get a blank look on their face and start mumbling something like "at least 2 GB....".

@pfdsotm:

Gotta say that the 512MB XP workstations at my workplace have been capable of doing the job, although yes, you must be mindful of resource-intensive applications. Symantec AV has been a major resource suck.
That said, we are now upgrading to new PCs/laptops with dual-cores and 4GB RAM (the extra 2GB was basically cost-free) so to future-proof ourselves for major software transitions to Windows 7, Office 2010, and Lotus Notes 8.5, and to budget for virtualization and multimedia projects.

Is doing the job, just getting by?
When evaluating memory needs one really needs to performance test the system with what the system is built to do with several different memory configurations.
Start with 512 and work your way up and see when adding additional memory no longer provides a good return on investment.
When doing this for large organizations that have thousands of systems and have tight control over what is and is not allowed being installed on a system it, is actually quite easy.
For home or small businesses you are going to have one heck of a time trying to figure out what is needed and what they are going to be using the system for, that and it takes too much time to run the test for all those individual systems.
Mom and Dad may say all we do is use the system for mail and occasional web site visits. This does not take enough to worry about adding more memory. But now add Jr to the picture, he likes to play games and installs some and along with a few additional programs. Oh, and it needs more video memory, so he learns that he can assign memory from the system to that built in video display so that his screen does not lag, now that 512, is down to 256 and they are all complaining.
And, believe it or not this is a scenario that plays out with small business systems all the time.
If I am opening the case to add memory to address memory performance issues I will be adding what is needed plus some extra.
20 plus years have taught me that you do just enough or you do what you should do.
I remember being told that you do not need any more than 256kiB of RAM, Yes k as in kilo; at a time I was upping systems from 64kiB to a whopping 640kiB. No one ever complained when they were able to load that TSR and WordPerfect at the same time.

You sir, would flunk my class.
Though you did demonstrate what would happen when you let loose compressed air in a dirty PC. A dust cloud, at least it was out doors.
Inside this is clearly a smart thing to-do as it will float from one end of a room to the other. Using a small shop vacuum cleaner will do nicely, and if you have the funds for a good tech-vac (~$200) all the better.
Along with the vacuum cleaner, get yourself a ?good? set of stiff horse-hair brushes. Cheap one will leave loos hairs all over the case.
When using the vacuum do not allow the end to touch any of the circuit cards as this can cause an ESD issue. Air moving at high speed thru plastic will build up a static charge on the surface of the plastic. The Tech-Vac?s do not have this issue. Using your brushes, and hold the nozzle of the vacuum nearby, sweep the dust and debris towards it, the vacuum will also collet any dust that is stirred up into the air and will keep the clients office clean.
Clean all areas of the case, in and out, remove the front panel and clean it out.
If needed remove the drives and the housing covering the CPU if one is installed.
If you do need to use compressed air, at least have the vacuum running to collect all the dust you are going to kick up.
The idea is to do the job right; it is not a race to see how fast you can do it. If done correctly the time it takes is what it takes.
Taking short cuts will, at some point, cost you.

I never quite understood the fascination with using cans of compressed air or other blowers. Credit the advertising marketers.

Grab any vacuum within reach and suck and trap, not blow and redistribute, the dust and dirt. If concerned with ESD, touch the laptop/PC metal chassis to ground yourself.

Brush attachments are nice, but the PC's interior will cope just fine if you are unable to remove every trace coating of grime; I'd stress maintaining a clean surrounding environment for the PC. A PC's electronics will attract and capture impurities in the air -- hence why you want to vacuum, not blow!

?Grab any vacuum within reach and suck and trap, not blow and redistribute the dust and dirt. If concerned with ESD, touch the laptop/PC metal chassis to ground yourself.?
You must not know the real risks of vacuum cleaners and ESD.
Not all Vacuums are created equal, and for that, this is why not any one in reach will do.
Air flow thru a plastic hose will generate a static charge and just touching the case once will not solve the issue.
A proper job involves grounding not only the vacuum, but also the case to the same ground point as well as yourself.
Is this going to happen in the real world out in the field, to some degree it can, but in most cases it does not happen, even amongst trained techs. They do not see the value of slipping on that ESD wrist strap. If you have one use it, if not take care.
The other reason beyond ESD to not just shove the Ho0ver nozzle in the case and start cleaning up all the dirt is that you might just hit something, like nocking a switch, sucking a jumper off; I have seen this before, or breaking a capacitor or some other component. Take your time and clean the system out completely, it takes no more than 10 minutes.

Totally agree with you. I use small paintbrush that has fibres that don't seem to raise static. Brush all the dust out of the machine onto a sheet of paper. Save the vaccuum for cleaning up the work area afterwards.

Malwarebytes is a great tool,just recently helped me to get rid of the DNSChanger trojan which is a real pain in the butt.

Type faster
Click faster
Think faster

The machine is not slow, your just getting faster.

all the above are fine points of making things faster.
the makers of CCleaner have a nice defrag utility that you set and forget. they update it regularly. Just turn off notify of updates... its annoying. and dont forget to uncheck the "install yahoo *&^*&^ toolbar"...

Been using it since it was jkDefrag. Very nice little utility and includes a screensaver if you don't go all portable app like I did.

A complete reload is the only way to make a significant difference. Your PC is given a new lease of life. The downside is that unless you have been sensible you lose all yor data. So next time you buy a new PC or reload your old slow one the second job (after loading antivirus!) is to make an image using something like Aconis True Image or similar so you are ready for the next reload. Also save your data to external media or a partition and use web-based email so you don't lose your messages.

I agree and specially when it comes to dealing with the Registry.

Often there is a option for the user in make a "Repair" of the Windows folder and it makes nearly as much good job as a "clean" install for the registry files. It wont touch My Document nor the Program folder.
For those that don't know how to use "image clones" this can be a good first try.

Certainly, there's nothing better than make a completely clean install of the OS and for being on the safe side before starting.
Wipe the whole disk out by using a "Live CD" which overwrite everything and even the boot-sector on the drive if reinstall on the whole disk there's only need for one partition. Otherwise erase only that partition that should be used.

Then it's safe beginning with reinstall an saved image or make a completely new clean install.

Anyone care to offer thoughts on the system image tool included with Win7?

n/t

I use Acronis True Image Home 2010 on my Laptop. It works with ANY version of Windows 7.

It is on sale now for $29.99. Be sure to get the Plus Pack as well.

So far we are not doing much with Windows 7 but have spent some time working with it. The image backup solution supplied with Windows 7 is pretty decent for a free tool but lacks the kind of flexibility we need.

For our purposes, we are using WAIK but still not working to our satisfaction -- injecting software modules during imaging has proven to be a great way to generate blue screens of death. The supplier of our imaging solution has been moving extremely slowly on updating their software but after their issues with Vista, not sure if I blame them for this.

Reloading the OS, Drivers, etc isn't the only way to make a significant difference.

I agree that it is the most complete way to decrapafy a system.

However with a 2-3 year old system spending an hour tweaking services, removing startup entries, virus removal and finishing it off with a good defrag and physical clean really can give a system a new lease on life.

Recommended Software (Filehippo/Google):
- Security Essentials (Microsoft)
- Malewarebytes
- CCleaner
- Defragglar
- ComboFix (Very powerful virus & rootkit removal)
- Spybot Search & Destroy
- Autoruns
- Process Explorer
- HiJackThis
- RKill
- DialAFix (For XP windows update issues.

NO WARRANTY - JUST A RECOMMENDATION!

I've just detoxed and serviced a horribly infected XP Media Centre PC. We nearly gave up trying to clean it and do a rebuild instead, but finally we got all the nasties out. It took MalwareBytes, Spybot, AVG, SpywareBlaster, Spyware Terminator, Super Antispyware, Kaspersky AV, HiJack This, System Mechanic, Registry Mechanic, JV16, CCleaner and last (yee! haa! got you, you little swine!) TDSSKiller. Every one of them found something new that needed fixing.

Alongside that we always put the page file right, take indexing off (c: especially, oh the instant speed-up for one mouse click!), check the internet settings (block 3rd party cookies etc), delete TIFs, and get everything updated to latest versions.

Not only was this nicely-specced PC infected and slow, Norton Ghost had effectively disabled its DVD/CD drive, there were several expired trials of software, hundreds of redundant entries in its very fragmented registry, and Windows Update hadn't run for ages because of the rootkit.

Now that we have the owner 'on board' as a client we've corrected his PC setup and we'll recommend weekly housekeeping for him to do and an annual service to keep it sweet. It's beyond lay PC users to safely keep a PC in great condition - they want SO many applications with the urge to fight each other and open doors to the numerous evils.

Regarding your Recommended Software (Filehippo/Google):

- Security Essentials (Microsoft)
Requires that Automatic Updates be on and will turn them on, so if you're not keen about allowing AU to run automatically, this may not work for you. (I allow AUs to download and notify me, but never install automatically.)

- Malwarebytes
Excellent application, even runs in Safe Mode when some others won't.

- CCleaner
One of the best cleaning utilities around. I've used it on many, many computers and have not had a problem with it.

- Defraggler
Have only ever had one problem after using this and that was with a .PST file. Ran a repair on it and problem went away. Have used it many times and it works well.

- ComboFix (Very powerful virus & rootkit removal)
Haven't used this yet, but looks very interesting. Will add it to tool kit.

- Spybot-Search & Destroy
One of my favorite applications. Has many tools and capabilities.

- Autoruns (SysInternals)
Very powerful, very dangerous if used incorrectly. Shows EVERYTHING that runs at computer startup and allows you to turn it off or delete it. Very good for keeping malware from starting, but deleting or turning off wrong thing can "turn your PC into an expensive paperweight" (so I've been warned).

- Process Explorer (SysInternals)
Excellent Application

- HiJackThis
Useful tool in fight against Malware

- RKill
Useful tool in fight against Malware

- DialAFix (For XP windows update issues.
Haven't used this yet, but looks very interesting. Will add it to tool kit.

Thanks for the list. It's always good to get recommendations from others regarding useful tools.

Anyone know if this is still an issue?

If it is, make sure that a reinstall ALSO includes a fresh format of the drive.

I think that's a good one too which everyone should know.

Pick up the prompt by writing cmd.exe and then run.

inside the prompt you now write the command:
sfc /runonce and hit enter.
You may be asked to use your Windows CD if using XP.
Where from the system file checker tool will look for this reference can also be changed if needed inside the registry.
In Windows 7 there's no need to use CD.

Now run the tool and it will search for problems and replace damaged systemfiles.

Instead of CCleaner when dealing with the registry I would like to suggest a couple of others, mainly because CCleaner do not dig that deep and actually only find just a few problems when searching.
CCleaner are terrific created for cleaning up other files but in my eyes not that much developed when it comes to the registry.
Better choice:
Visit and download Auslogics Registry Cleaner or Registry First Aid or Little Registry Cleaner.

Another thing which should be known and used daily when working with software inside the OS, it is to never use Windows own installer.
Go visit Revo or similar for this job.
Particularly when it comes to the registry this tools will save you from many unnecessary registry entrys left behind.

Thanks for a good article and good luck everyone!

By the time you've done all of this you could have simply backed it up, and reinstalled the OS and apps. And if we're talking about an older XP machine, ensuring it has 1GB of RAM is important since many P4 machines shipped new with 512.

Also, one of the reasons IT pros don't set machines to automatically defrag is because it takes forever to complete and seems to provide far less benefit than expected.

IMO, a clean OS is really the only sure cure.

I'm with Zoobadger. Considering the time you'll spend doing all the fiddling with defrag, registry cleaning, malware scanning, removing unnecessary software, etc. etc. you may be better off with a clean O/S install.

You're right; the clean install is an underrated tool, but it is also a serious PITA to reinstall the applications. One method I've found works fairly well is to set your computer up with the apps and settings you like, then make a disk image. Once or twice a year, back up your data, and use the image to set your disk back to what it was -- clean. If you've installed new apps or uninstalled old ones, you'll have to install/uninstall and update the image, but it's a lot easier than doing a complete wipe and reinstall.

I plan on wiping out my HDD and doing a fresh reinstall of XP Home so I can get rid of all the junk/garbage that built up on my PC over the years.

I have gathered my important CD/DVD's except the most important XP HOME CD.

My Dell Dimension did not ship with a restore CD in the box, if I use a XP Pro CD will I run into problems with authenication,etc..?

I don't think you'll have any success trying to rebuild your XP Home PC using the XP Pro CD. It would be better to find a friend that has XP Home and can lend you the CD or burn you a copy. (No problem with legality - just make sure you activate using the XP product key that is on the CPU case of your Dell.)

One important tip if you don't have a Restore CD from Dell. Visit the Dell support site and make sure that you download the NIC drivers for your PC before you reinstall the OS. Save the NIC drivers to a CD or other removable media. As long as you have the NIC drivers available you should be able to get all the rest of your Dell hardware working by updating from the Dell website.

I finally got around to calling Dell Support.

They are creating OS, driver and other CD's for my specific PC based on my Service Tag for no cost.

I should receive the CD's in a few business days.

Thanks for advice everyone!

You are better off borrowing [and make a copy for yourself] of an XP Home *OEM* CD. There is a difference as well between Home Retail and Home OEM. Any OEM disc from any manufacturer will do, although better off with a non-manufacturer specific disc.

Note: That if you can get a Dell XP Home disc, entering a serial number is not necessary.

We had a particular problem with a Dell laptop, although we could install various flavours of an OEM reinstall ( B, C corporate) the system wouldn't register with the Dell OEM code.
After various phone calls to Dell and Microsoft we were told we were breaking licensing rules by trying to use other media and specifcally required a Dell recovery disk for that system. When we eventually got such a disk it didnt even use the Dell code (meaning the sticker is effectively window dressing).
So beware, OEM license codes can be specific.

However most Dell desktops are recoverable with standard media using their sticker codes. Tips about getting NIC drivers before a reinstall are valid as well, windows often doesnt find a NIC on a reinstall and needs help with drivers, often these are on a folder on a C drive (before the reinstall), but newest drivers from the manufacturer's website are normally best.

I so agree. A clean install on my PC doesn't take so long - but it takes two solid days to reinstall all my apps!

I know what you mean! Loading the O/S is nothing compared to reloading all the application software!

After the first time doing that, a good lesson to learn would be to make a backup image after loading all software and updates.

Used gpparted to create a partition on the disk, used clonezilla to backup an image to that partition. Its not NTFS so windows doesn't see it. I also have a separate partition for Data and that's where my Computer points to.

Another comment on one of the initial points, AVG used to store all the .bin updates that it downloaded until it clogged the disk, and I think AVast does this too, so find their stores and blow them away as part of your cleanup.

I think that many don't understand how poorly written the most popular, free AV/FW products are. A couple well-written ones: Comodo Internet Suite and Microsoft Security Essentials (although, of course, it relies on the Windows Firewall for protection from attacks)...

I used Comodo throughout the remainder of my XP usage. Although it provides quite a few pop-ups, the company provides a plethora of information on its website and has a built in community feature that provides the novice advice through popularity of response to particular pop-ups.

I use Microsoft Security Essentials on my Win 7-64 installation. It's beautiful, and although it does take a while to scan, the results are top notch, and it's able to remove most if not all threats that I deem hazardous.

Although this isn't a thread on AV, deciding on an efficient AV/FW program will undoubtedly affect performance. AVG and Avira boot times leave a lot to be desired, in my honest opinion. In addition, I've seen several computers get ridiculously unsophisticated infections using these suites.

Happy Posting!!

Depending on how much nonWindows you have installed on top, your clean rebuild may be significantly more time wasted. (An image CD would help that though)

Maybe less than an hour to install the OS, but don't forget security updates. XP and Vista updating is getting nasty. Too many updates. And of course if the OS doesn't correctly detect the hardware, you'll need to hunt for updates. Then you have to uninstall crap that isn't needed after the installation. Fine tweaking.

Less than an hour would be regular maintenance and updates

versus

an afternoon to reinstall Windows plus extras

(but I wasn't clear either)

Double posted by accident.

I have begun to use http://ninite.com/ to create an install script which then runs and installs much of the free programs that I use. It is a lot quicker than doind it manually.

I have also heard that using a tool to back up the drivers that the system is using before a reinstall is a good idea to prevent having to find them, unless they are part of any problem that you are having. It helps that I slipstream more drivers and updates into my Win media using nlite or equivalents as well.

a number of my standard apps are listed even.

Dunno about the spelling of the title, but I usually partition a drive in an OS and Data partition. When performance problems start, I just reload the image, perform the necessary updates and re-image for next time if necessary. Usually takes me about 2 minutes to start the process and it's done after 30 to 60 minutes. Nothing like a nice clean fresh OS partition to speed things up

I always partition the hard drive into a system and a data partition. I tried doing a triple partition -- OS, apps, and data -- but that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Having two partitions has saved my users from disaster several times, when the OS got hosed, but the data partition wasn't affected. I love being able to change tears to smiles when they find out they haven't lost everything.

Keeping data separate from the operating system is something I wish more manufacturers set up their computers to do.

A clean re-install and data restore will revitalize the PC to it's original glory. But, the cause of the problem might be hiding in the backed up files. Or, most end users will later do the same thing that caused the original problem.

A competent technician should let the customer know their options; backup and re-install or hunt down the culprit and fix it (with the caveat that the final solution might be to do a re-install anyway).

If you hunt down and find the cause of the problem, the end user can be aware of what NOT to do next time. Hunting down the cause might prevent the problem from rearing its ugly head again.

In either case, be honest with yourself and the customer. Also, be aware of your environment. In a corporate environment, speed is of the essence. Unless otherwise specified in some SOP manual, time spent hunting down the cause shouldn't exceed the time required to do a re-install/restore.

Nope, I disagree. Installing the OS is a small fraction of the battle.

And by blindly doing OS re-installs rather than tracking a problem to its source you are just perpetuating your own ignorance. The solution may have been as simple as a registry setting, stopping an unneeded service, or clicking an option box. The next time you run into the same problem you have one tool in your bag - reinstall. Now THAT is what I call wasted time.

Many good points under my original post. The clean install is not as easy as it sounds (Side note: It is on my Linux systems). On Windows, imaging can help, but on a two or three year old OS, getting all the updates can add a couple of hours to the task.

Don't forget the page file. The page file by default is set with a smaller start limit, and a larger end limit. This allows the page file to expand if necessary and causes the page file to fragment.

Set both entries to the higher limit, defrag the disk after cleanup, delete the page file, then reboot the system. The page file will be recreated and most times defragged too.

You can also use Sysinternals (now Microsoft) pagedefrag utility, but it does not work on Vista or Win7 yet. An added benefit is that it will also defrag the registry, and yes, the registry can fragment too.

Swap file size is something that Windows actually does really well, just let your swap be system managed instead of hard set to a lower/upper. According to the people that started sysinternals anyhow (pretty sure it was him/them).

Definitely run pagedefrag automatically at startup though too.

Allowing Windows to manage the swap file can lead to heavy file fragmentation.

I never leave it to Windows to manage this - I always set my Min and Max swap file values to be the same. (This also negates the need to run pagedefrag at each boot.)

To me, there's more benefit to minimizing maintenance tasks and running as few processes at boot as possible.

My suggestion I tell people - if your system SEEMs to be running slow and it's a few years since it was bought.... Re-install Windows.

Reinstalling gives you a fresh installation. No hickups. No issues. Most anti-malware software will remove the crap, but the system is nener the same.

Last time I re-did Win XP, I ended up with about 10GB of free disk space even after re-installing all the apps.

[Any time you uninstall an app, crap is left behind on the hard disk and the registry.]

Registry cleaners? No thanks!!
I also am not very impressed with defragmentation on today's fast drives unless a user has been doing loads of installing/uninstalling. I am though loathe to do a reinstall unless there's hardly any software on there - which of course is usually not the case.

If it's XP, put Sysinternals PageDefrag on and watch the Software registry hive go from 1000 fragments down to 1! Also I configure the paging file manually with a decent minimum size so it should normally always be in one chunk (when used with the former util).

Stop unwanted services: Wirless Zero Configuration, Thems...
Disable Visuals Effects...

1. Check startup items (msconfig)
2. Use ccleaner to delete temp files and check registry
3. Check for malware (MBAM)
4. Defrag

Check your Ram size in relation to the applications you install and run.Uninstall them if necessary,increase ram size then reinstall.This is in addition to the other tips discussed.

/r implies /f therefore /f isn't needed when CHKDSKing.

CHKDSKing before a DEFRAG is often a good idea, repairing indexes is allot harder is DEFRAG has moved all your files around!

useful information

Install linux.

...that no one has mentioned the most obvious and beneficial option: Delete Windows and install Linux. Operation usually speeds right up after that.

Even as a linux fan I do still need to use Windows occasionally, I use VMPlayer under Unbuntu to run a windows VM when I do, a fresh fast install everytime, no viruses or malware and can be thrown away when finished.

Remove windows and install Linux. I recommended Linux for a friend. He liked, but...

No drivers for his capture card. No drivers for his plantronics digital audio headset, no drivers for his magicjack, no drivers for his HD2900 ATI card, unable to use HDMI, unable to capture / export with the video card, unable to use the e-SATA hd (lot of errors).

So he is happily back to windows 7 64bits and he is happy.

I have a VAIO laptop now with raid0 / solid state drive. I cannot install Linux there either, the raid is giving problems.

Even though the title didn't clarify it, the article was obviously written specifically for Windows-based PCs and their users/techs.

Your comment would be better suited to an article about maintaining or switching to Linux.

...and no, I'm not a Windows/Microsoft fanboy. I actually prefer Linux (at home, I usually use a dual-boot laptop), but it has its limitations, just as Windows does.

Yes the above measures are fine and it is surprising how many users neglect maintenance but less surprising when you remember how microsoft presented NTFS as not requiring regular defraging, etc.Still they left it on the system tools, I wonder why?

Roy.

But it would not surprise me a bit if Bill took money from some developer to leave it off and let them handle it. Lack of such a tool in an operating system that DESPERATELY NEEDS such a tool is not an oversight. (I guess we are talking NT here.)

The defragmenter that you do get from MS is not particularly good. Maybe Bill developed a crappy one on purpose, too...

chkdsk X: /f /r, isn't working. its giving ""
'chkdsk' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
""
error to me. (On windows Vista)
(I replaced X with C)

Make sure you are typing it correctly.

chkdsk is a valid command. Try type chkdsk /? from the command prompt. The program resides in the c:\windows\system32 directory.

This list has been posted 500 times on 500 different websites. No new information here.

its ok

Get Linux, dump windoze. That automatically makes your PC faster and you never need to defrag or use anti-virus (save money). So get a clue and use a better operating system first.

This is trivial, but I find that as the swap file on my W2K machine gets larger, the machine runs more slowly. A restart -- usually needed once a week -- clears things.

I agree about the clean reinstall. It will often resolve all sorts of problems. Unfortunately, it can require days of work if you have a lot of installed apps.

That really slowed me down plus I don't do that many searches anyway. When I do search I use the dog and just wait a few seconds more.

The indexer does take a lot of system resources - especially on XP and Vista. They got a lot better in 7, but unless you use the search feature or store a LOT of documents locally, this is one to disable.

Yup . . . it always helps quite a lot. The other obvious maintenances and tweaks are no-brainers for sure, but disabling indexing always improves my performance.

A general ideal practice is to always seperate the OS partition from the user file's disk. Also, the disk partitioning utilities that ships with windows vista and windows 7 provides even more flexible ways to create additional partitions for user files and an important folder like the Program files that consumes space. You can mount the program files elsewhere on another partition. This always ensure that your OS partition size is always kept small and manageable and doesnt increase whenever an installation is done.

Olukorede Aguda

I have thought about doing this, but would the partition for the OS need to be C:? I do not want to change the default drive letter from C: to D: everytime I install a new program. I have heard of this being done, and wondered why computers do not come from the factory like this.

Disable the themes services and remove all the ring and bells of effects in the Screen Control Panel addon.

Files stored on the desktop are loaded into memory at bootup; sometimes this fills up memory before the computer is asked to do anything else! Keep files off the desktop and recommend users take advantage of shortcuts, if needed...this is huge speed-booster!

another thing that is greatly forgotten or not known by the casual user is the Virtual Memory/Page File...
to defragment the area that is in use for that you have to go into system properties, advance tab, perfomance-settings, advanced, virtual memory, change...
once there set choice to no paging file or move the paging file to another partition...
once the current paging file is changed...
then do a defrag of the partition/drive it was on...
thus defragmenting the Virtual Memory/Page File portion of the drive/partition....

If your PC is slow to boot, you also try and boost the number of CPU's and amount of memory used at boot.

Go into MSConfig | Boot tab | Advance Options and ensure if you have a multi-core setup to select max CPU and add check to Max Memory (should default to max memory installed).

I have found that most users have duplicate pictures and videos on their PC. Sometimes in the temporary download folder, or in their personal "Videos" or "Pictures" library. In most of these cases, the fastest way to free up some space was to use a Duplicate File finder software to locate and remove duplicate media files. Doing so requires the customer's input, so it takes a long time.

Thanks Jack for the post. On #1, defragment, I have found it to be useful to run multiple defragmentations, one after the other - usually 2 or 3 followed by a reboot.

Great tips- any suggestions for a Mac?

Often overlooked: Delete Sent Mail then empty Deleted Mail, particulary mail items that contain pictures or videos.

Always make sure ALL Applications are closed before clearing temp folders

Some places I check are:

C:\Windows\Temp folder -
Which doesn't always get emptied, and sometimes will contain files from ages ago which don't need to be there.

C:\Documents and Settings\ UserID \Local Settings\Temp folder -
Another place that may retain unnecessary files and folders which may collect over time and slow system.

C:\Documents and Settings\ UserID \Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Word folder -
C:\Documents and Settings\ UserID \Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook folder -
C:\Documents and Settings\ UserID \Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.MSO folder -
These folders are usually cleared when clearing the cache in Internet Explorer, but you must be sure to specify that OFFLINE CONTENT (or files) be deleted as well.

Clearing the IE cache is probably one of the biggest things that gets neglected by users.

What a crap. I don't have a registry, my disks doesn't need defragmenting, disk errors are automaticely detected and resolved and spyware/malware are very, very rare. The reason is, I 'm running a professionel OS: Linux

I've been using an all-in-1 suite, System Mechanic Pro, since ver 3 & now on ver 10, with few problems. While I don't like spending hours/week on pc maintenance, this suite does many of the maint tasks I don't have the time to handle on the three pc's in our house. The SM Pro version has a built-in anti-virus and firewall also. (SM10 Pro is available at www.iolo.com ). Once in a while they will offer a low price subscription extension, typically 2/3 off original price. Last, the suite is legal for 3 pc's per license.

I found this suite does NOT do it all, so every 3-6 months I use the WiseCleaner registry cleaner and disk cleaner (available at www.wisecleaner.com). Both are free.

Painting it red.
Red goes faster.

The fact that your readers will doubtless read your suggestions, acknowlege they are all sound advice but then doubtless follow them, LINE FOR LINE, is frightening! One should never, ever, EVER try to defragment a hard drive before first verifying that it's both physically and operationally HEALTHY and what purpose could it possibly serve to defragment junk that you're only going to delete later, especially considering that the garbage that typically accumulates on a drive can be highly fragmented? Also, if the free space level of a drive happens to be below 15%, it may not even be possible to run the defragmentation routine at all.

It doesn't happen often but every single one of these procedures has the potential for catastrophic failure. People have even complained that they lost all their documents after running the Windows Disk Cleanup routine. What can you say, except, "Didn't you perform a backup of your files first?"

1) check hard disk - if it is faulty then all else will be in vain

2) delete files before defrag, so you can use gained space

Similarly, remove malware before performing a reg clean. As stated by others, removing some system related files or reg entries (userinit.exe) may render your system inaccessible.

Over heat will also slow the PC

lately, I have "repaired" many laptops AND desktops just by removing dust from the fans/heatsinks. newish processors will react to the heat by throttling power/speed, so it's absolutely not obvious if you are not monitoring cpu speed ..
M

All these 'performance enhancers' will give you a few percent speedup at best. But how many times have you seen users running XP SP3 with 256M of RAM. Even 512M is pushing it these days with all the fixes, Antivirus and Antispyware applications, etc.

Give your users 2G and don't bother with cleaning the registry. C'mon!

TerryS.

Another critical speed tip is to dump bloated anti-virus programs in favor of leaner, meaner ones.

McAfee and certain versions of Norton put a bigger load on system resources than many people realize. I've found that removing these and replacing with AVG speeds things up, especially on budget PCs running slower processors or minimal memory.

Even a more nimble anti-virus software usually benefits from tweaking. Scanning of web pages prior to loading often slows down surfing. When deciding if this feature should be disabled, weigh the benefits of faster Internet performance against increased risks on a case-by-case basis.

I've also found IO Bit's Advanced Windows Care to be a quick, easy fix for PC speed. The free edition is easy enough for a novice to use and (unlike CC Cleaner), I've never had an issue where it damaged the registry by over cleaning it. The upgrade (paid) edition is worth it for more advanced users who want additional performance without spending hours on geek tweaks.

I know most people are not pack rats like I am, but I have gotten systems to move more quickly by dumping in an old hard drive and putting page files etc. on the second drive so the hard drives work less and share the load.

I also notice you forgot to mention Internet Explorer and most people forget it is a real hog. If you are unwilling to get rid of it, trim its wings, by reducing all its caching and saving. You may even get a third party application that automatically dumps all the IE trash when you exit.

Would it be possible to redo this post updated with our most valuable sugegstions. I agree that it is in the wrong order, as I like to cleanup before I defrag etc.

I also agree - was it in this post? - that I should charge my neighbours for assistance, But in the past I have referred them to Dave next door who is retired and has the time. Now that I am nearly retired I am willing to help but on my terms. With the lady up the road whose machine is not running, but sort of crawling, I am creating a list of things to investigate and what order to do them. It looks like this at the moment.
my first five steps would be to:
pre 1. Check the size of the disks and how full they are. Use Task manager to get a feel for memory usage.
1. remove excess programs via the control panel program.
2. Clean up the desktop of folders and excess garbage.
3. run ccleaner
4. using something I found in my investigations,
- rename ntbtlog.txt to .old
- F8 on bootup and enable boot logging in options.
- reboot, then look at new ntbtlog.txt to see what occurs.


What else would you suggest?

Another solution can be used to improve computer's speed and performance, and this is Speed up PC . It is easy-to-use, fixes DLL errors, solves problems in Windows Database and lets you manage Windows Startup items. It can also help clean, optimize and maintain computers using a variety of Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Use Speed up PC and you'll see the difference of the quality you aim for your PC.

My computer was running really slowly for some reason. I saw a commercial on tv for something called PC Health Advisor. I was initially wary because it sounded like a scam, but I used the trial and it really sped things up. It does alot of registry cleanup and cache emptying that I found gave a large speed boost to my computer. I found the program at www.fixmypcfree.com.

It's legit!

If you want a faster computer, then you need to free up some disk space, use an anti-spyware, clean up your registry, and defragment your files. Actually, all of the options given above are helpful in improving a computer???s performance. Computers become slow for certain reasons, but oftentimes, they are just cause by too much unnecessary programs and applications, full recycle bin, faulty registry, and fragmented files. So, if you want to improve your computer, you better take a look at its settings and remove unnecessary stuff.

As we all know, Trojan and spyware could make pc running slowly, If feel pc run slower than before, it is necessary to run Anti-virus software immediately.(http://www.trojanremove.info)