What version of windows are you using?
How much memory do you have installed?
How many processes do you have running in the background?
When's the last time you defragged?
Do you have too many programs running at start up that don't need to be?
Those are some of the main questions you should ask yourself when the performance is slow. Also, why did you pay for a spyware removal program? Lavasoft Ada-Ware 6.0 is free and does a good job. Spybot Search & Destroy is good and free also.
To see what processes you have running in the background
1. right click the task bar at the bottom of the screen (anywhere where there's not an icon
2. left click task manage
3. left click the "processes" ta
4. scroll down the list to see what's running in the background.
5. to stop a program from running, right click the program name and click "end process
6. you will get this crazy warning popping up asking you if you're for sure and it could do harm ... just click yes.
7. a good website that will tell you what those names stand for is:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
and another one is
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.ph
To see if you need to Defrag: (using Category View with XP
1. click start/control panel/performance and maintenance/rearrange items on your hard disk to make programs run faste
2. click analyz
3. even if it doesn't suggest you need to, I would still click defra
4. you will want to disable your antivirus while doing this
5. when finished, enable your antivirus and restart the compute
To see what programs you have running at startup
1. click start/run/ type "msconfig" excluding the quote marks/click startu
and see whats checked.
Chances are, a lot of it doesn't need to be checked. Your antivirus does though.
I would also disable the automatic windows update. That consumes a lot of memory. Just check for updates every 2 days. It only takes a few seconds. In order to disable automatic updates: (using category view again
1. click start/control panel/performance & maintenance/system/automatic updates ... now uncheck everything then close.
Also, using XP, you don't need to have your temp internet files set to a high number. It should be set at 85 MB. To change this, again using category view:
1. click start/control panel/network & internet connections/internet options/ under the general tab, you'll see temporary internet files .. click settings/ you'll now see a # there... change that to 85. It's probably set at 2000 or some crazy #. That consumes a lot of memory. Now close out
Another thing you will want to do is get rid of your history. I do this everyday and my system runs smoothly.. also delete cookies while doing it.
This is a start.
Oh yeah...if you don't need to share your printer, I would disable file & printer sharing.
