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Five tips for speeding up a slow PC

... 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...:-)

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-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.