Background BS

[Guest]

My laptop runs slower and slower as the day goes by. Geez, when I start up
it's slow. When I open AOL, it's a joke...takes forever. When I turn on my
computer, I close the programs I know for sure are running that I don't want.
They show up on my desktop menu. However, when I press ctrl/alt/del, I find
there are 55 processes running and I don't know what they are. Some are
obvious...AOL, MS.... I want to delete some of them... I'm sure my computer
will run faster. But I don't know what to delete without Windows not
operating properly. I mean what the hell is CCPP.EXE....listed twice...once
with memory usage as 4300, the other 3916. What is jusched.exe or
realsched.exe? There are five instances of svchost.exe. User names include
system and network service. Almost 20k is used within these five instances.

Can someone help me with this?

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Do you suppose your computer might have a virus or spyware? They're the #1 reason for slow performance.

Ted Zieglar

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

My laptop runs slower and slower as the day goes by. Geez, when I start up
it's slow. When I open AOL, it's a joke...takes forever. When I turn on my
computer, I close the programs I know for sure are running that I don't want.
They show up on my desktop menu. However, when I press ctrl/alt/del, I find
there are 55 processes running and I don't know what they are. Some are
obvious...AOL, MS.... I want to delete some of them... I'm sure my computer
will run faster. But I don't know what to delete without Windows not
operating properly. I mean what the hell is CCPP.EXE....listed twice...once
with memory usage as 4300, the other 3916. What is jusched.exe or
realsched.exe? There are five instances of svchost.exe. User names include
system and network service. Almost 20k is used within these five instances.

Can someone help me with this?

jusched.exe is the Java Update Scheduler for Sun Java. It occasionally
checks for new updates to the Java engine. It can probably be removed
without any harm to the system. realsched.exe is the same for the
RealPlayer and can also be closed.

 

[Guest]

Ted,

No, I check for them often.
--
Steph

Do you suppose your computer might have a virus or spyware? They're the #1 reason for slow performance.

Ted Zieglar

 

[Guest]

Michael,

You're missing the point. Where can I go to find out what these things are
and if I can delete them? I use Java for school, so that's probably good. I
want to delete what is not needed until I choose to use them. Better yet, I
want to make it so they don't install in the first place unless I use the
program or want them to look for updates.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

You have a virus on your computer. AOL is the single most detrimental piece
of software ever written.

My advice: Get rid of AOL and sign up with a real ISP.

As for processes, if AOL will allow you, you can Google them one at a time.
Not sure if AOL will allow you to use Google, though.



Bobby

 

[Nepatsfan]

My laptop runs slower and slower as the day goes by. Geez,
when I start up it's slow. When I open AOL, it's a
joke...takes forever. When I turn on my computer, I close
the programs I know for sure are running that I don't want.
They show up on my desktop menu. However, when I press
ctrl/alt/del, I find there are 55 processes running and I
don't know what they are. Some are obvious...AOL, MS.... I
want to delete some of them... I'm sure my computer will run
faster. But I don't know what to delete without Windows not
operating properly. I mean what the hell is
CCPP.EXE....listed twice...once with memory usage as 4300,
the other 3916. What is jusched.exe or realsched.exe?
There are five instances of svchost.exe. User names include
system and network service. Almost 20k is used within
these five instances.

Can someone help me with this?

Go to this web site and download the standalone version of
Startup Control Panel:
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Run the utility and see what programs are set to automatically
launch when Windows starts. If you can't identify the programs,
look them up here:

Task List Programs
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Donny Broome]

Steph:

Spyware can cause this. The page below details several fine products that
can scan your system for possible infections.
http://www.broomeman.com/spyware/

Additionally, you can use a free program called Autoruns to remove unwanted
items from startup. This program is available here:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html
Only remove items that you're sure about.

--

 

[Guest]

You have a virus on your computer. AOL is the single most detrimental piece
of software ever written.

My advice: Get rid of AOL and sign up with a real ISP.

I've been thinking of getting rid of AOL for the shear fact that it runs
slower and slower everytime I update and I don't use it for much more than
email and IM. I have Adelphia. Don't care for Adelphia email...maybe I'm
just not used to i, but maybe I can use yahoo since it's free.

As for processes, if AOL will allow you, you can Google them one at a time.
Not sure if AOL will allow you to use Google, though.

How do I do that...search for each item? What will that do.

Thanks for your input. Look forward to your response about Googling the
other stuff.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

You shouldn't have to "check for them often" because you should have an installed antivirus program that starts with Windows and runs in the background at all times; and this antivirus should be correctly configured and continuously updated. You also need to have at least one spyware detector/remover starting with Windows and running in the background at all times; and this too needs to be configured correctly and continuously updated.

Because of its elusive nature, it usually takes scans by many scanners in order to uncover spyware, on top of whatever you have installed on your computer.

Of course, no amount of software of any nature will protect a computer from infection unless the user consistently follows safe computing practices.

If your computer has been infected with a rootkit, the malware will be invisible no matter what you do. The only recourse currently available is RootkitRevealer, from SysInternals. RootkitRevealer will detect the presence of a rootkit, but only a clean reinstall can remove one.

Judging from your level of experience - you didn't know, for example, that you could search the internet for information about the processes running on your computer - you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility of infection.

Ted Zieglar

Ted,

No, I check for them often.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

Just go to google.com
Enter in the search box each process name exactly as it appears in task
manager, and let it search.


Bobby

 

[Guest]

When I say I check them often, I mean that my computer checks them. I'm
notified of updates, but I check them manually just in case.

I do know that you can search for anything on the internet, but that's
time-consuming. I was hoping someone could lead me to a place where I could
learn about each item without taking all day to do it.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

The 55 processes are NOT all running.. most will only run if called by
something else.. I would put money on most of those processes being there at
a time when your computer was OK, so it is hardly likely that they are
responsible for slowing things down now..

Look to stuff that you have initiated, in some cases without realising it..

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User

When I say I check them often, I mean that my computer checks them. I'm
notified of updates, but I check them manually just in case.

I do know that you can search for anything on the internet, but that's
time-consuming. I was hoping someone could lead me to a place where I
could
learn about each item without taking all day to do it.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:55:01 -0700, Stephanie

No, I check for them often.

Check them - how? By using an av that is running in the ?infected OS?
The same one that would have missed the infection process?

Also, suspect failing HD - it's a fairly common cause of sticky-mouse,
HD-LED-on patchy but marked slowdowns, and more importantly, it can
also kill data and your installation.

Is the PC slow and stable, or slow and flaky?
What's CPU use like in Task Manager?
Is it overheating and retreating into thermal protection?
Is L1/L2 cache disabled in CMOS?
Is a slow PIO IDE mode forced via CMOS settings?
Does it speed up if you unplug/suppress all networking?
Is it faster in Safe Mode?
What's your pagefile size?
How much free disk space do you have?
Does unplugging peripherals speed it up?

-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Tip Of The Day:
To disable the 'Tip of the Day' feature...

 

[Guest]

Hi Steph,

Let is go back to your question: why is my laptop slowing down so much? (The
issue of the taskmanager, ctrl-alt-del) has most likely nothing to do with
your 'diminishing' system. I wonder if you did a lot of installing and
uninstalling on your machine (do we not all, shareware, freeware and so on?).
In that way, but also if Windows has been running for a rather long period,
you can create you own kind of "malware" ;-) : the Registry is overloaded
with keys that are not of any use any more and other useless threads. After
some time this can really slow down your system. What to do about? Of course
Microsoft has RegClean, but with all due respect, it does not the whole job.
Google "registry cleaner" and you'll get quite some links. Reliable progs
are: RegScrubXP, Advanced Diskcleaner (freeware) and Registry Mechanic
(commercial but not too..). So things to do: run an anti-virus, run an anti
spy- adware and run a regcleaner. Good luck.
Hans.

 

[Ted Zieglar]

"...the Registry is overloaded with keys that are not of any use any more..."

This can't possibly be a reason for slow performance, although it's a widely held misconception. If a registry key is not being accessed by any program, how can it be slowing your computer? A related misconception - and one equally popular - is that so-called registry bloat is a cause for slow performance. This is based on a misunderstanding of how the registry is accessed. It's also a little amusing, considering the speed at which contemporary computers operate.

Mind you, considering how difficult it is to understand the details of how the registry works - and I'm no expert myself - it's easy to see why these misconceptions have taken hold. In addition, many of these erroneous ideas are holdovers from the Windows 9x operating systems. XP is very different.

Ted Zieglar

 

[Guest]

Mmmm..I have seen quite some improvement in speed after a good cleaning of
the Windows XP registry. (The mechanism of 'being trapped in loops' can be
compared to the slowing down or getting in a hold at shut-off caused by some
entry's in the start-up section of the registry.) But I should add:
disk(s)-defragmentation on a regular basis can also speed up the sytsem.

Hans.

 

[David Candy]

The registry works the same on 9x or NT. But loading a 4 meg registry file on a computer with 4 mb of memory is going to be slow. The big difference in XP is non present registry keys/values are cached (ie the absence of a key is cached).

It is a BTree structure (see http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:...79888.HTM+btree+search+"n/2"&hl=en&lr=lang_en) so adding extra elements (incl a lot) has only a minor effect on search times.

Plus unused code ends up in the swap file having no performance impact.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read David defending the concept of violence.
http://margokingston.typepad.com/harry_version_2/2005/10/entering_the_ga.html#more
=================================================
"...the Registry is overloaded with keys that are not of any use any more..."

This can't possibly be a reason for slow performance, although it's a widely held misconception. If a registry key is not being accessed by any program, how can it be slowing your computer? A related misconception - and one equally popular - is that so-called registry bloat is a cause for slow performance. This is based on a misunderstanding of how the registry is accessed. It's also a little amusing, considering the speed at which contemporary computers operate.

Mind you, considering how difficult it is to understand the details of how the registry works - and I'm no expert myself - it's easy to see why these misconceptions have taken hold. In addition, many of these erroneous ideas are holdovers from the Windows 9x operating systems. XP is very different.

Ted Zieglar

 

[Linda S]

Go to this web site and download the standalone version of
Startup Control Panel:
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Run the utility and see what programs are set to automatically
launch when Windows starts. If you can't identify the programs,
look them up here:

Task List Programs
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Good luck

Nepatsfan

Hi,
I was going to suggest this one but the others look very good, too.
Linda S
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php

 

[Guest]

Well, I've read the BTree part. Nothing new there. The organisaion and
structure of any given database maybe fine, but there will always rise a
problem as the "entity" that is giving the search order will not take a 'no'
for an answer. If as the result of a system failure or "misbehaviour" by a
user Windows keeps asking for results that are not there, only the settings
(in the registry) of after what time to stop the search, are descisive. But I
rest my case here.
Hans.

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