If you are a Windows user...

As much as I notice people complaining about random, unidentifiable slowdown of their computers under windows and, noticing that I no longer have such issues (*knock on wood*), I thought I should post the ways most of us ("experienced" Windows users) handle these issues.

The unidentifiable slowdown you, the reader, might be having, could be related to third-party software that has infested your computer without your consent, or possibly even without your knowledge. Unfortunately, most popular virus scanners do not consider these programs to be something that they should protect against because, as virus-like as they are in their implementation, they do not (intentionally, if ever) cause data loss (except if it crashes your machine), only very annoying changes to your interface, internet explorer settings, and so on. However, as unfortunate as it is that your anti-virus software may not care about these programs, there are programs specifically designed to catch these nuissances. Two of the most prominent (and the only two I have heard of) are Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and Spybot: Search & Destroy. At the local community college computer labs we run the latter as part of our regularly scheduled maintenance, and I personally run both. I reccomend that you run both. I find that no matter which you run first, the one you run second will catch things that the first missed. Remember to keep your signature files up to date so you can catch new versions and implementations of spyware and adware on your computer.

The first piece of advice most people very vocally convey is: DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER. Some common alternatives are Netscape, Opera, and Mozilla. Mozilla Firebird and Opera seem to be the most widely reccomended around here (based on posts I've read).

If you are hopelessly addicted to Internet Explorer, though, there is still hope. First, lock down your security settings nice and tight in Internet Explorer. Next, there is a file, "HOSTS" (C:\WINDOWS -- at least on my machine), that Internet Explorer uses to allow you to define your own special settings for where certain domains should check first to be resolved. One clever little trick people often use is to block certain sites by having them resolve through the IP address 127.0.0.1 -- your own network interface card's built-in loopback address, present for diagnostic purposes (if you can ping yourself at 127.0.0.1, then your NIC is working -- all NIC's have this feature). This makes it so that when attempting to access that domain, it doesn't look for it where it really is. The typical line in the HOSTS file is as follows:

127.0.0.1 localhost

See the number I told you about? That tells Internet Explorer that, when trying to access "localhost" (which is YOU) it should use that IP address. Now, you can copy that line and paste it to a new line, changing "localhost" to whatever domain you would like to block. If you don't want to ever visit Doomworld again:

127.0.0.1 www.doomworld.com

One program you can download that will merge in a lot of useful HOSTS entries automatically for you is Supertrick. From this site, click "other downloads" on the left and download Supertrick. It'll be right at the top of the page. Even after this, if you find offending popups to be loading themselves, you can find their source domain and add it to the HOSTS file yourself.

Now, even though what I am about to suggest has nothing to do with nuissance-ware in the traditional sense of the word, Windows XP often automatically runs more background services than you will actually use. This page will show you how to configure Windows' services. There are other useful links from the main site as well.

I suppose the overall focus here is: Be conservative in your browsing and installation of programs.

Not only should you be conservative there, but you can also be conservative in what you allow your OS to do with your resources. It may sound obvious, but some people never think to turn off all the unnecessary visual effects in Windows, XP especially. One of the first things I do (in WinXP) is to go to Display Properties, Appearance tab, Effects button, and uncheck all the options there. Sometimes I'll leave the font smoothing enabled, but that's just for legibility. Even with all those off there are still more effects that can be turned off. Go to Control Panel, System, Advanced tab, the first Settings button from the top (in the Performance section), and click the circular button beside "Adjust for best performance." (From there I like to re-enable "Smooth edges of screen fonts" and "Use visual styles on windows and buttons," but once again, that's for legibility and because the visual styles on windows and buttons can be quite soothing, in my opinion.) Depending on your system, those animated effects may not even be rendered fast enough to make them worth showing, so they may as well be turned off.

You may often come across a very cluttered system tray. This is not good. It means you have a lot of programs running that probably don't have to be there. I used to have an ATI Hotkey Poller thing that really didn't do anything. A lot of the computers at the college have "QTTASK" (Quicktime) running all the time, and I always shut that off. Many messenger programs leave system tray icons behind. When you are not signed in, be sure to get rid of them, because they serve no purpose. Some of the aforementioned programs also start themselves up on boot. You can either go through the program's options to look for and disable any startup options or use MSCONFIG (or a similar third-party utility) to disable its startup entry. This will save time in booting up.

It is useful to recall that I/O operations are the slowest thing your computer does. Consider this when you set up your virtual memory. A static (same minimum and maximum size) page file is your best bet, and if possible, on a different drive and controller than your primary hard drive, leaving your main drive free to do other things besides manage virtual memory.

Shutting down your computer or setting power-saving features correctly is a good way to extend the life of your hardware. Shutting down is also the best way to keep your computer secure if you have an always-on connection.


Thanks to everyone who has helped me improve this post by giving feedback or pointing out what this post is missing.

VEERY helpful, I have XP and its slower then a turtle on crack. :P
Also, this helped some of my other crazy comps porblems. :)

Ultraviolet said:

The first piece of advice most people give is: DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER.

Well shouldn't you be offering some good alternatives, then ? I suggest Opera, myself.

Lord FlatHead said:

Well shouldn't you be offering some good alternatives, then ? I suggest Opera, myself.

Opera noted. I'll add a link to it along with a link to Mozilla, I suppose.

Everything you wrote is irrelevant except for this line:

Be conservative in your browsing and installation of programs.

These "invisible" spam programs are simply becoming more than an irritant. They're worse than viruses, IMO.

Arioch said:

Everything you wrote is irrelevant except for this line:

Ah, but you forget, people are dumb and often have to be told things they could just figure out on their own. :P This thread deals with how to FIX the side-effects of people's indiscretion, which, unfortunately, must often be done.

Zell said:

VEERY helpful, I have XP and its slower then a turtle on crack. :P
Also, this helped some of my other crazy comps porblems. :)

i think a turtle on crack would move rather fast.

good sudgestions. keeping a system clean is the best way to increase speed. i have pentium 2 400's that run fast with windows2000. and the pentium 4's at work run slower due to the crap.

other things.
turn off all visual eye-candy, it aint needed and it eats ram and such. this includes XP skins and animated charectars and icons.

keep system tray empty as possible. dont need shit like AOL, AIM, KAZAA running when not in use. also security issues.

scans for virus/adware every day if possible.

shut down system if u are done and even more if u are not going to use for another 48 hours or more. dont do the on off on off game either. if it has been on a while, do a reset/restart.

also keep bootup software to only what is needed.

Updatez0r3d.

Sephiroth said:

Dumbest suggestions ever.

Arioch said:

Dumbest suggestions ever.

Do you have anything to add?

EDIT: Changed to mention page file stuff.

Lord FlatHead said:

Well shouldn't you be offering some good alternatives, then ? I suggest Opera, myself.

Firebird too :P

Mr. Chris said:

Firebird too :P

Firebird beats out Opera for "worst rendering glitches" I've ever seen.

Click on link, page renders one way, refresh, pages looks another way, refresh again, page looks like some other way altogether, just not the way it's supposed to look.

Lynx

No you are.

So uh, is nobody else finding this useful, is there anything more I should include, or what?

Sephiroth said:

turn off all visual eye-candy, it aint needed and it eats ram and such. this includes XP skins and animated charectars and icons.

Disagreed. The amount of extra memory used for XP visual features (such as skins, effects, and flonks) is insignificant. You're giving up visual appeal (which is a personal preference issue) for an extraordinarily small gain in performance.

keep system tray empty as possible. dont need spog like AOL, AIM, KAZAA running when not in use. also security issues.

Geek theory. Not very applicable in real life. The normal home user should have no reason to be constantly managing the system tray icons. If you're going to play an online game, then sure, turn off your system tray icons. Otherwise, it's a ridiculous waste of time and effort to be managing those icons.

However, it is a good idea to remove icons and processes that you absolutely don't use at all.

scans for virus/adware every day if possible.

Sounds paranoid. There is little benefit to doing this unless you download lots of warezed programs/games. Keep your AVG guard up to date, and be sure to have the best brand-spanking new version of spyware remover before running it. (Otherwise your spyware remover is liable to remove system files.)

shut down system if u are done and even more if u are not going to use for another 48 hours or more. dont do the on off on off game either. if it has been on a while, do a reset/restart.

Huh?

also keep bootup software to only what is needed.

As opposed to bootup disks that run Duke Nukem?

You know there is something wrong then the boot-up process of the Windows OS
itself is faster under VMware than a normal bootup.

On another note, what's a good program to cut down on bootup times for XP? I downloaded and installed the "fix" from Microsoft for XP that was supposed to help reduce it, but that didn't work at all for some stupid reason.

Go to control panel.
Go to add/remove programs.
Remove the crap you don't want. But do NOT attempt to remove Internet Explorer or windows will be screwed up!

Then
Run c:\windows\system\msconfig
Go to startup tab
Uncheck the crap you don't need on start up. Leave only essential windows programs and hardware drivers.

Windows XP seems to have a hell of a lot of bloatware running and I don't know what's needed and not.

But in Win 98 when you press ctrl+alt+del you should only have Explorer and Systray running aside from hardware drivers. If you've been using a dial-up modem. Rnaap or something will probably be left running but that's no big deal.

Gokuma said:

But in Win 98 when you press ctrl+alt+del you should only have Explorer and Systray running aside from hardware drivers. If you've been using a dial-up modem. Rnaap or something will probably be left running but that's no big deal.

Those "drivers" are probably not the actual drivers, but things like the ATI Hotkey Poller I mentioned. In most cases it's just an interface for changing some preferences that you can change perfectly well from control panel. It's just unnecessary bloat the manufacturer gives you so you'll buy a newer, faster card when it starts to bog you down. :D

The best way to be sure is to terminate the process. The systray icon might linger, but all you have to do is hover your mouse over it for it to disappear (tries to generate a tooltip to identify itself or is preparing itself to be clicked or whatever and Windows realizes there is nothing associated with it and kills the icon). If everything still works fine once it's gone, you don't need it.

When my computer starts to slow down I just take it out shoot it then steal a new one.