Yes, I know that Windows Task Manager frequently doesn't disclose what
appear to be hidden processes. This morning I was frustrated that one
of my machines was very slow on start up. Windows Task Manager showed
nothing. A few minutes later a window pops up, "anti virus updates
completed," and thereafter the machine worked. Obviously, Norton can
work in background sucking up resources without letting the user know
about it.
The application "Process Explorer," which I believe is available from
sysinternals at
www.sysinternals.com can provide some insight. I don't
recall downloading it, but I note that "procexp.exe" is in my start
directory. It may be a DELL product. (My prime mmachine is DELL
Dimension E510 3GHz dual processor.) It lists the company name
associated with the running process, and it seems to indicate when
hidden processes are hogging the machine. How you stop those processes
is another issue that is perhaps beyond my skill set.
I also suspect that the default, "don't automatically update" setting is
often changed by many programs to "automatic update" when I voluntarily
initiate an update. May be I miss a check box, but I'm suspicious.
Anyone having suggestions on how to rein in these applications is
welcomed to comment.
H. S. wrote:
> windsurferLA wrote:
>> I'm no expert on operating sytems. I've just experienced similar
>> problems.
>>
>> My theory is that it has to do the automatic updates. Many
>> applications require that you option-out of the automatic update
>> process, and even when you option out from the automatic update
>> process, they still search the Internet to see if an update is
>> available. I suspect that many of these applications seek to determine
>> whether or not automatic updates are available when my machine is
>> first turned on. The boot up process goes rapidly if they can gain
>> quick access to the Internet, but if my modem is turned off, there is
>> a long delay. I suspect that each must wait in turn for the search
>> function to time out. When I'm traveling and I have intermittent
>> wireless connection, it can get so bad that I sometimes need to
>> totally shut down my machine. If the machine gets a connection and
>> then the connection drops out, it seems to sit and wait forever for
>> the connection to be re-established.
>>
>> Another problem could be your anti-nasty software. I have Norton
>> Anti-virus and Norton Ghost installed on most of my machines. It is
>> scheduled to run in the middle of the night. I note that if the
>> machine has been off all night AND they missed a scheduled run, they
>> sometimes insist on running when the machine is first turned on. If
>> Norton Anti-Virus is insisting on doing a total scan of the hard
>> drive, you might as well forget about using the machine for much else.
>>
>> WindsurferLA
>
>
> Well, which begs the question (I am no Windows expert), is there a
> method in XP to take note of what processes are trying to do what? I
> would sure like to see a list of processeses that are active during
> those 3 minutes and are delaying the activation of wireless network and
> networking in general. It would make this debugging drastically simpler.
> Actually, I find it hard to believe that this feature is missing, any
> reasonable OS developer would include it. I am hoping I just do not know
> where to look and some expert may point me in the right direction.
>
> And no, the list in task manager does not shed much light on this issue.
>
>
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