Slow boot

[Don Williams]

I run Win XP Pro and SCO Open Server on the same computer. (Need OS for
consulting projects). OSR has to be installed after Windows is installed
and has to have it's primary section within the first 1024 virtual
cylinders.

As a result my C: drive is limited to 8 Gb. which was once fine but as I
have gradually upgraded from DOS to XP it's not large enough.

I noticed that drive C: it never defrags well and has many files with
hundreds of pieces, thus the slow boot.

Many of these files are log files of one kind or another and they seem to be
related to installations, error reports, etc. Can I remove them, and if so,
how can I find out which ones might actually be required.

I have 6 additional drives on this system, some for Windows, some for Unix,
and the first drive is shared. I make it a practice to install programs on
drives other than C: but some have no option on where they are installed.

What can I delete from drive C: and still have a stable system?

Thanks,

DAW

 

[Andrew E.]

Youre best bet to defrag is to diskcleanup,open system properties,set C: to
"no page file" close out,restart pc.Back in xp,open cmd,typeefrag C: When
its thru,type:EXIT Reopen system properties,set virtual memory to "let system
manage" click set 2X,close out,a restart of pc should be prompted...It may
take
a time or two,but you will see the diffrence..Also,one can defrag the OS on
pc
start-up,get the utility from TechNet @ microsoft.com
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx?wt.svl=leftnav

 

[Gerry]

Don

Don

I am not sure you will win much on log files. However, name the largest
and let's see what they are?

When you say drives I think you mean partitions, The difference does
have practical implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)

How many drives do you have and how are they partitioned? How large is
each partition and how much free disk space on each? Are you short on
free disk space overall or is it just on the C (system?) partition?
Could you add an extra internal drive or an external drive? Is
partitition C formatted as NTFS or FAT32?

What utility was used to create the partitions? Do you have a third
party disk partitioning tool , which might be used to resize partitions
without destroying the contents of the partition?

Here are some suggestions to help create more space on partition C

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb.
Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System
Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time
find the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit.
When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files especially if you do not store offline copies on disk.
The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to
offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer
select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files,
Settings to make the change. At the same time look at the number of
days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

You can also increase free disk space on your C partition can be
achieved by relocation of folders.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet
Options, Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express
Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

My Documents is one of a number of system created Special Folders
including My Pictures and My Music. These can more easily be relocated
using Tweak Ui. Download TweakUI, one of the MS powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

In TweakUi select My Computer, Special Folders. You can scroll down to
see the full list of Special Folders to the left of the Change
Location button.

You may also need to change Default File locations in the Microsoft
Office programmes you choose to move the My Documents folder. For Word
go to Tools, Options, File Locations, highlight Documents, click on
Modify and change file path. For Excel go to Tools, Options, General
and change default file path.

Disk Defragmenter requires 15% free disk space (more is better if very
large files are involved) so the changes suggested above should allow it
to work more effectively. Open Disk Defragmenter and click on Analyse.
Select View Report and click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt
in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it
is more informative.

Your slow boot may be the result of something other than fragmented
files. How much RAM memory?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Don Williams]

Don

Don

I am not sure you will win much on log files. However, name the largest
and let's see what they are?

I'll have to find a way to get a list of them an post them. There are a
couple hundred of them and they generally fall into two classes. The are
all relatively small.

There are about 960 files with "log" in their name. Some are .txt files,
others have different extensions. Some have Q as part of their name, others
start with KB and there are others with various name patterns.

They range in size from 1 KB to 9 KB, except for Dr. Watson, which tops out
at 20,000 KB.

I used to know how to capture a screen picture using Print Screen and Paint
but it isn't working for me at the moment. I'll try to remember that
process and post the file names later. I do Unix, not Windows, so I have to
recall some of those things from the past.

When you say drives I think you mean partitions, The difference does have
practical implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)

I have physical 4 EIDE drives, 2 SCSI Drives, one SATA drive, and two SCSI
CD drives. All the drives except for the first one are very large (300-400
GB) [because they became very cheap-I store photos and technical documents
on them for the most part] and I have set up a generous fixed swap space on
the third drive, which shows up as drive E in my system.

The first drive, the "antique", is just 40 GB and only 8 GB is available for
drive C: because of the 1024 virtual cylinder limit for SCO Unix Boot. The
second partition on that drive is devoted to Unix boot and the necessary
Unix startup files and is 15 GB. The third partition on that drive is 8 GB
and reports in as drive G:.

The 2 SCSI drives (2 and 9 GB) are devoted to Unix with two Unix partitions
on each of those drives. Unix and Windows XP Pro share the CD drives,
depending on which operating system is running.

How many drives do you have and how are they partitioned? How large is
each partition and how much free disk space on each? Are you short on free
disk space overall or is it just on the C (system?) partition? Could you
add an extra internal drive or an external drive? Is partitition C
formatted as NTFS or FAT32?

All Windows drives/partitions are NTFS and were formatted by Windows XP Pro.

What utility was used to create the partitions? Do you have a third party
disk partitioning tool , which might be used to resize partitions without
destroying the contents of the partition?

Here are some suggestions to help create more space on partition C

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb.
Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System
Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time
find the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit.
When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

I've ran disk cleanup many times and removed all but the most recent restore
point many times. I generally can get about 1.2 GB free space on the C
partition, but defrag then reports about 100-200 files with as many as 500
fragments.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files especially if you do not store offline copies on disk.
The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to
offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer
select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files,
Settings to make the change. At the same time look at the number of
days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

You can also increase free disk space on your C partition can be
achieved by relocation of folders.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet
Options, Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express
Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

I don't use Outlook Express for anything other than News Reading. I use
Eudora for email.

My Documents is one of a number of system created Special Folders
including My Pictures and My Music. These can more easily be relocated
using Tweak Ui. Download TweakUI, one of the MS powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

My Documents is about as empty as possible and most of it resides on drive
D:

In TweakUi select My Computer, Special Folders. You can scroll down to
see the full list of Special Folders to the left of the Change
Location button.

I have Office and all other programs I could control durin installation
running on the other, larger drives, but all of them have some pieces on
drive C: regardless of where I put the bulk of the programs.

You may also need to change Default File locations in the Microsoft
Office programmes you choose to move the My Documents folder. For Word
go to Tools, Options, File Locations, highlight Documents, click on
Modify and change file path. For Excel go to Tools, Options, General
and change default file path.

Disk Defragmenter requires 15% free disk space (more is better if very
large files are involved) so the changes suggested above should allow it
to work more effectively. Open Disk Defragmenter and click on Analyse.
Select View Report and click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in
your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it is
more informative.

Your slow boot may be the result of something other than fragmented files.
How much RAM memory?

2 Gb

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Processes 41, CPU Usage 2%, Commit Charge 409M / 4928M

This is with Outlook Express running and about 3 IE 7 windows open.

 

[Don Williams]

I tried to send some screen images of the search results but they were
rejected as being too large.
====================================

Don

Don

I am not sure you will win much on log files. However, name the largest
and let's see what they are?

I'll have to find a way to get a list of them an post them. There are a
couple hundred of them and they generally fall into two classes. The are
all relatively small.

There are about 960 files with "log" in their name. Some are .txt files,
others have different extensions. Some have Q as part of their name,
others start with KB and there are others with various name patterns.

They range in size from 1 KB to 9 KB, except for Dr. Watson, which tops
out at 20,000 KB.

I used to know how to capture a screen picture using Print Screen and
Paint but it isn't working for me at the moment. I'll try to remember
that process and post the file names later. I do Unix, not Windows, so I
have to recall some of those things from the past.

When you say drives I think you mean partitions, The difference does have
practical implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)

I have physical 4 EIDE drives, 2 SCSI Drives, one SATA drive, and two SCSI
CD drives. All the drives except for the first one are very large
(300-400 GB) [because they became very cheap-I store photos and technical
documents on them for the most part] and I have set up a generous fixed
swap space on the third drive, which shows up as drive E in my system.

The first drive, the "antique", is just 40 GB and only 8 GB is available
for drive C: because of the 1024 virtual cylinder limit for SCO Unix
Boot. The second partition on that drive is devoted to Unix boot and the
necessary Unix startup files and is 15 GB. The third partition on that
drive is 8 GB and reports in as drive G:.

The 2 SCSI drives (2 and 9 GB) are devoted to Unix with two Unix
partitions on each of those drives. Unix and Windows XP Pro share the CD
drives, depending on which operating system is running.

How many drives do you have and how are they partitioned? How large is
each partition and how much free disk space on each? Are you short on
free disk space overall or is it just on the C (system?) partition? Could
you add an extra internal drive or an external drive? Is partitition C
formatted as NTFS or FAT32?

All Windows drives/partitions are NTFS and were formatted by Windows XP
Pro.

What utility was used to create the partitions? Do you have a third party
disk partitioning tool , which might be used to resize partitions without
destroying the contents of the partition?

Here are some suggestions to help create more space on partition C

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb.
Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System
Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time
find the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit.
When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

I've ran disk cleanup many times and removed all but the most recent
restore point many times. I generally can get about 1.2 GB free space on
the C partition, but defrag then reports about 100-200 files with as many
as 500 fragments.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files especially if you do not store offline copies on disk.
The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to
offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer
select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files,
Settings to make the change. At the same time look at the number of
days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

You can also increase free disk space on your C partition can be
achieved by relocation of folders.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet
Options, Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express
Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

I don't use Outlook Express for anything other than News Reading. I use
Eudora for email.

My Documents is one of a number of system created Special Folders
including My Pictures and My Music. These can more easily be relocated
using Tweak Ui. Download TweakUI, one of the MS powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

My Documents is about as empty as possible and most of it resides on drive
D:

In TweakUi select My Computer, Special Folders. You can scroll down to
see the full list of Special Folders to the left of the Change
Location button.

I have Office and all other programs I could control durin installation
running on the other, larger drives, but all of them have some pieces on
drive C: regardless of where I put the bulk of the programs.

You may also need to change Default File locations in the Microsoft
Office programmes you choose to move the My Documents folder. For Word
go to Tools, Options, File Locations, highlight Documents, click on
Modify and change file path. For Excel go to Tools, Options, General
and change default file path.

Disk Defragmenter requires 15% free disk space (more is better if very
large files are involved) so the changes suggested above should allow it
to work more effectively. Open Disk Defragmenter and click on Analyse.
Select View Report and click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt
in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it is
more informative.

Your slow boot may be the result of something other than fragmented
files. How much RAM memory?

2 Gb

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Processes 41, CPU Usage 2%, Commit Charge 409M / 4928M

This is with Outlook Express running and about 3 IE 7 windows open.

Do you leave your computer on 24/7?
No

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry]

Don

I think I have found a solution to your Dr Watson log. You can delete it
but this will deprive you of the advantage of the tool should you need
it at a future time. The solution is to select Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, System Information, Tools, Dr Watson and
uncheck the box before "Append to existing log". This means the next
time a log is written it will overwrite rather than add to the existing
file.

Logs starting with KB e.g. KB941561.log are installation logs for
Windows updates. They are only needed if installation fails and the user
needs to investigate the reason for failure. Unless you have failed
updates they are safe to delete. KB Articles used to have a Q prefix
before the Article number but Microsoft abandoned the practice a few
years ago. Open one using Notepad and compare the contents with say
KB941561.log to see if it is an installation log. I suspect it is. I
have no installation logs before October 2007 so I cannot check on my
machine.

Your drive / partition set up is involved and my last involvement with
Unix was 15 years ago and in those days I did not look under the bonnet.

You probably can win something with System Restore. It is likely that an
allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore on your C partition
which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right click your My
Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore. Place the cursor
on your C drive select Settings but this time find the slider and drag
it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get to the
Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit. This will give an
ongoing 260 mb saving, whereas Disk CleanUp needs to be run regularly to
save space.

Another point to note with System Restore is that it should only be set
to monitor your C (Windows) partition.

Given that your C drive is formatted as NTFS you may have another
potential saving. In the Windows Directory of your C partition you will
have some uninstall folders in your Windows folder typically:
$NtServicePackUninstall$ and $NtUninstallKB282010$ etc. These files may
be compressed or not compressed. If compressed the text of the folder
name appears in blue characters. If not compressed you can compress
them. Right click on each folder and select Properties, General,
Advanced and check the box before Compress contents to save Disk Space.
On the General Tab you can see the amount gained by deducting the size
on disk from the size. Folder compression is only an option on a NTFS
formatted drive / partition.

Open Disk Defragmenter and click on Analyse. Select View Report and
click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it
is more informative.

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 4 processes using the largest amounts?

Your earlier Commit Charge figures could be quite misleading given your
hobby. Graphics programmes, especially when used in conjuction with undo
features (photo editing) will create significantly larger demands for
memory. Clearly if this arises it is reflected in the earlier figures.

What are your anti-virus and anti-spyware arrangements. An automatic
anti-virus scan occuring when you boot will affect performance. You may
be able to retime this to occur when you do not want to use the
computer.

41 processes running is quite reasonable. Of course some processes will
be more demanding than others.

Have you tried this approach?
How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353/en-us

Also look for Error Reports in the System log in Event Viewer.
Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in
the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
Information Reports or Duplicates please. Indicate which also appear in
a previous boot.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? Right click on
the My Computer icon on your Desktop and select Properties,
Hardware,Device Manager. If yes what is the Device Error code?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I tried to send some screen images of the search results but they were
rejected as being too large.
====================================

Don

Don

I am not sure you will win much on log files. However, name the
largest and let's see what they are?

I'll have to find a way to get a list of them an post them. There
are a couple hundred of them and they generally fall into two
classes. The are all relatively small.

There are about 960 files with "log" in their name. Some are .txt
files, others have different extensions. Some have Q as part of
their name, others start with KB and there are others with various
name patterns. They range in size from 1 KB to 9 KB, except for Dr.
Watson, which
tops out at 20,000 KB.

I used to know how to capture a screen picture using Print Screen and
Paint but it isn't working for me at the moment. I'll try to
remember that process and post the file names later. I do Unix, not
Windows, so I have to recall some of those things from the past.

When you say drives I think you mean partitions, The difference
does have practical implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)

I have physical 4 EIDE drives, 2 SCSI Drives, one SATA drive, and
two SCSI CD drives. All the drives except for the first one are
very large (300-400 GB) [because they became very cheap-I store
photos and technical documents on them for the most part] and I have
set up a generous fixed swap space on the third drive, which shows
up as drive E in my system. The first drive, the "antique", is just
40 GB and only 8 GB is
available for drive C: because of the 1024 virtual cylinder limit
for SCO Unix Boot. The second partition on that drive is devoted to
Unix boot and the necessary Unix startup files and is 15 GB. The
third partition on that drive is 8 GB and reports in as drive G:.

The 2 SCSI drives (2 and 9 GB) are devoted to Unix with two Unix
partitions on each of those drives. Unix and Windows XP Pro share
the CD drives, depending on which operating system is running.

How many drives do you have and how are they partitioned? How large
is each partition and how much free disk space on each? Are you
short on free disk space overall or is it just on the C (system?)
partition? Could you add an extra internal drive or an external
drive? Is partitition C formatted as NTFS or FAT32?

All Windows drives/partitions are NTFS and were formatted by Windows
XP Pro.

What utility was used to create the partitions? Do you have a third
party disk partitioning tool , which might be used to resize
partitions without destroying the contents of the partition?

Here are some suggestions to help create more space on partition C

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System
Restore on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce
it to 700 mb. Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and
select System Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select
Settings but this time find the slider and drag it to the left
until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get to the Settings screen
click on Apply and OK and exit. Select Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp
to Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

I've ran disk cleanup many times and removed all but the most recent
restore point many times. I generally can get about 1.2 GB free
space on the C partition, but defrag then reports about 100-200
files with as many as 500 fragments.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files especially if you do not store offline copies on
disk. The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your
attitude to offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In
Internet Explorer select Tools, Internet Options, General,
Temporary Internet Files, Settings to make the change. At the same
time look at the number of days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change
to 5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the
cursor on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties,
Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

You can also increase free disk space on your C partition can be
achieved by relocation of folders.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet
Options, Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express
Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

I don't use Outlook Express for anything other than News Reading. I
use Eudora for email.

My Documents is one of a number of system created Special Folders
including My Pictures and My Music. These can more easily be
relocated using Tweak Ui. Download TweakUI, one of the MS
powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

My Documents is about as empty as possible and most of it resides on
drive D:

In TweakUi select My Computer, Special Folders. You can scroll down
to see the full list of Special Folders to the left of the Change
Location button.

I have Office and all other programs I could control durin
installation running on the other, larger drives, but all of them
have some pieces on drive C: regardless of where I put the bulk of
the programs.

You may also need to change Default File locations in the Microsoft
Office programmes you choose to move the My Documents folder. For
Word go to Tools, Options, File Locations, highlight Documents,
click on Modify and change file path. For Excel go to Tools,
Options, General and change default file path.

Disk Defragmenter requires 15% free disk space (more is better if
very large files are involved) so the changes suggested above
should allow it to work more effectively. Open Disk Defragmenter
and click on Analyse. Select View Report and click on Save As and
Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as
it is more informative.

Your slow boot may be the result of something other than fragmented
files. How much RAM memory?

2 Gb

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager.
With the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check
the boxes before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What
are the figures for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Processes 41, CPU Usage 2%, Commit Charge 409M / 4928M

This is with Outlook Express running and about 3 IE 7 windows open.

Do you leave your computer on 24/7?
No

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don Williams wrote:
I run Win XP Pro and SCO Open Server on the same computer. (Need OS
for consulting projects). OSR has to be installed after Windows is
installed and has to have it's primary section within the first
1024 virtual cylinders.

As a result my C: drive is limited to 8 Gb. which was once fine but
as I have gradually upgraded from DOS to XP it's not large enough.

I noticed that drive C: it never defrags well and has many files
with hundreds of pieces, thus the slow boot.

Many of these files are log files of one kind or another and they
seem to be related to installations, error reports, etc. Can I
remove them, and if so, how can I find out which ones might
actually be required.
I have 6 additional drives on this system, some for Windows, some
for Unix, and the first drive is shared. I make it a practice to
install programs on drives other than C: but some have no option
on where they are installed.
What can I delete from drive C: and still have a stable system?

Thanks,

DAW

 

[Gerry]

Don

This is a partial response, more later-


Never thought of that, I used to be pretty handy with Dr. Watson but
had forgotten that iit even existed. I think I'll just delete it and
then reset to not append.

I would be patient and make the change I suggested.

I have a great many installation logs, and also many files which seem
to be some sort of process recoreding logs, they just have some
numbers and then .txt for their names. There are also some
interesting ones, similar to SystemLogxxxxxxxxxx.txt where xxxxxxxxxx
is a date and they are located in a hidden folder, C:\iSitelogs.

Googling on \iSitelogs led me to some odd sites. I would delete it.

I never knew that, but sounds like a winner.

It is.

Everything in this system is compressed. Even some old data and
programs in the Unix system are zipped.

File compression is not the same as compressing a drive or zipping. You
only compress files ,which you may never but could need at a future
time.

How To Use File Compression in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987

It's attached.

Adobe Acrobat Reader has a large footprint. Are you just using it to
read and print pdf documents or are you editing pdf documents? Unless
you are editing you could find Foxit a better option.

Foxit Reader (freeware) a more satisfactory programme:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

You should have a pagefile on C even if it is only a nominal. Quote:"an
initial size of 2MB with a Maximum of 50 is suitable"
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

The Master File Table is badly fragmented. I cannot recollect seeing so
many fragments. It is normally 2 or 3.

Are you using Windows Live OneCare?

Download and install cCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp
http://www.ccleaner.com/

With any cleaner you need to proceed with caution. To be safe you
should create a restore point before using cCleaner. cCleaner also
offers backup before removal.

When using cCleaner think twice before checking Autocomplete Form
History under Internet Explorer. You do get a warning but this one has
irritating consequences. You may need to restore your system's
recollection of passwords after use so keep a record off computer so
that they can easily be re-entered.

Leave the Scan for Issues option alone.

Then run Disk Defragmenter and another report after you have completed
these tasks.

I haven't looked at it yet but should have done that long ago. When
you see it on the screen, the paths are so long that you can't really
tell which files have 100 fragments.


The values I sent were with none of those large programs running.

Noted.

You did not respond to this paragraph.

In the distant past.

You complaint is about a slow boot!

Next post-

These might highlight a reason for the slow boot.

The only issue there is that there is no driver for my Sony SCSI DAT
tape but that's handled by backup software in Windows and of course
Unix has several tape programs built in and there are other programs
for Unix tape handling. I forgot the error code but it's the one for
not having a driver but it doesn't affect anything.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Don Williams]

Don

Googling on \iSitelogs led me to some odd sites. I would delete it.

Are you really comfortable about deleting that folder?


I have an NPROTECT folder with hundereds of very old files in it. They all
look old but I have no idea what they are for. Some are in compressed form
(blue in my case) and others are black. To the maximum extent possible I
long ago set the files and folders I can manage to be in compressed form.
In this NPROTECT folder, the uncompressed (black letter name) files are
protected and can't be set to compressed form. I'm talking about some 900+
files here.

Also, under NPROTECT\Recycler, some folders that are all very old, except
for one that I apparently just now created when I made a restore point. I
think they are write protected but if I can remove all but the one made just
now should I do so?

It is.

File compression is not the same as compressing a drive or zipping. You
only compress files ,which you may never but could need at a future time.

How To Use File Compression in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307987

This is how the Windows system is set up. I only zip documents, programs I
write in Unix and have to email to clients, but not any system or active
files.

Compressed files are shown in blue, are they not?

I have, by the way, zip and unzip programs in Unix that are 100% compatible
with the same functions in Windows. In Unix, however, if you zip a file,
the original remains unless you delete it. I think this may not be true in
Windows.

Adobe Acrobat Reader has a large footprint. Are you just using it to read
and print pdf documents or are you editing pdf documents? Unless you are
editing you could find Foxit a better option.

I just removed and reinstalled Acrobat yesterday. In prior installs I could
put it on any drive, but this time I didn't have a choice of drives, it went
on to C, whole.

Foxit Reader (freeware) a more satisfactory programme:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

You should have a pagefile on C even if it is only a nominal. Quote:"an
initial size of 2MB with a Maximum of 50 is suitable"
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

The Master File Table is badly fragmented. I cannot recollect seeing so
many fragments. It is normally 2 or 3.

It's always been terribly bad, at least on this one machine.

Are you using Windows Live OneCare? Yup

Download and install cCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Isn't that equivalent to the cleaner in windows under drive properties?

With any cleaner you need to proceed with caution. To be safe you
should create a restore point before using cCleaner. cCleaner also
offers backup before removal.

When using cCleaner think twice before checking Autocomplete Form
History under Internet Explorer. You do get a warning but this one has
irritating consequences. You may need to restore your system's
recollection of passwords after use so keep a record off computer so
that they can easily be re-entered.

Leave the Scan for Issues option alone.

Then run Disk Defragmenter and another report after you have completed
these tasks.



You did not respond to this paragraph.

I only use OneCare and it never finds any viruses because Cox seems to have
a pretty good filter in their system.

Before OneCare I had Windows Defender and before that I had the Symantec
systems installed. I have, from time to time, used the on-line scan on the
Symantec site but it no longer finds anything to report.

I think OneCare is doing a good job for me.

You complaint is about a slow boot!

I think the reason for the slow boot, the reason I made the first post here,
is that drive C is so fragmented it takes a long time for the drive head to
go to various tracks to pick up each file that is loaded on boot. That's
why I want to get more room on that drive, and also find a way to get a good
defrag on it.
Event Viewer lists hundreds of events, errors, warnings, etc. What a
collection!

Too many to do much with.

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks,

I think I'm just taking up too much time and space on this forum. I'll go
back through the messages that you have sent and work through them again one
at a time, as long as they are available. If I have time, I'll save them as
files on this system before they are deleted from the server.

DAW

 

[Don Williams]

Gerry-

I put together a nice, cleaned-up response to your last post, deleting all
old and unnecessary stuff. I tried to send it but it was too large and was
rejected.

I think I'm taking up too much time and space on this forum.

I also believe the slow boot is because drive c is so fragmented and the
drive head has to travel to so many cylinders to pick up each file to be
loaded on boot. Defrag, if ever done well, should resolve the issue.

Interesting thing, however, In Recycler\Nprotect there are hundreds of
strange and old files, small but large in number. RECYCLER has the NPROTECT
directory with 900 files or more, and also 5 strangely named folders,
protected, that start with S and date back several years.

I created one new S...... folder just now with today's time and date on it
by making a restore point. Perhaps the others are lost and could or should
have been deleted automatically. The files, by the way, are not ASCII files
so when you open them with any reader you get the standard binary garbage
text readers present from binary files.

As for event viewer, it's overwhelming to try to get through it. Where are
those files stored and can I delete them?

Thanks,

DAW

 

[Gerry]

Don

How to empty the Norton Recycle Bin
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nunt.nsf/docid/19979410721

The Event Viewer log files should be kept. They are important as aids to
troubleshooting. However, they should be limited by size.

How to Manage Log Contents
By default, the initial maximum of size of a log is set to 512 KB, and
when this size is reached, new events overwrite older events as needed.
Depending on your requirements, you can change these settings, or clear
a log of its contents.
How to Set Log Size and Overwrite Options
To specify log size and overwrite options, follow these steps: 1.Click
Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance,
then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer
Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.
2.In the console tree, expand Event Viewer, and then right-click the log
in which you want to set size and overwrite options.
3.Under Log size, type the size that you want in the Maximum log size
box.
4.Under When maximum log size is reached, click the overwrite option
that you want.
5.If you want to clear the log contents, click Clear Log.
6.Click OK.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

You really only need the last 14 days reports

I have just changed the default of 512 kb on my computer to 128 kb,
although there is no shortage of free disk space on my computer.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry]

Don

I have an NPROTECT folder with hundereds of very old files in it. They
all look old but I have no idea what they are for. Some are in
compressed form (blue in my case) and others are black. To the
maximum extent possible I long ago set the files and folders I can
manage to be in compressed form. In this NPROTECT folder, the
uncompressed (black letter name) files are protected and can't be set
to compressed form. I'm talking about some 900+ files here.

Also, under NPROTECT\Recycler, some folders that are all very old,
except for one that I apparently just now created when I made a
restore point. I think they are write protected but if I can remove
all but the one made just now should I do so?

Answered in reply to your follow up.

Compressed files are shown in blue, are they not?

Yes

Have you fixed this shortcoming?

Yup

Many experienced user (including me) will not allow it on their machine.
A very poor anti-virus component and causes performance problems.

Isn't that equivalent to the cleaner in windows under drive
properties?

cCleaner does a much better job than Disk CleanUp


After removing unwanted files it desperately needs doing.

I only use OneCare and it never finds any viruses because Cox seems
to have a pretty good filter in their system.

As I said OneCare has a por record as an anti-virus programme.

If your boot does not restore to a satisfactory time that is one godd
way to find why it is slow.

I think the reason for the slow boot, the reason I made the first
post here, is that drive C is so fragmented it takes a long time for
the drive head to go to various tracks to pick up each file that is
loaded on boot. That's why I want to get more room on that drive,
and also find a way to get a good defrag on it.

Fragmented files hinder performance but the main problem is likely
elsewhere.

Event Viewer lists hundreds of events, errors, warnings, etc. What a
collection!

It is quite possible that the Reports in just two of the latest boots
will highlight a problem.

Too many to do much with.

Disregard Information Reports and only post Error and Warning Reports
for the last boot (seing if those that appear in the latest boot also
appear in the previous boot).

I think I'm just taking up too much time and space on this forum. I'll
go back through the messages that you have sent and work through
them again one at a time, as long as they are available. If I have
time, I'll save them as files on this system before they are deleted
from the server.
DAW

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Don Williams]

Don

How to empty the Norton Recycle Bin
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nunt.nsf/docid/19979410721

Thanks,

I'll have a look.

I'm going to remove most of the rest of your message to save space. I will
look at and probably do, the things you have suggested, however I am
beginning to think that changing the cluster size on my C: drive from 4K to
512 bytes will buy me some space and I can get the defragment program to do
it's job.

I have Partition Magic, however it's really packed away since we haven't
been able to un-pack 10,000 pounds of stuff since we moved from La Jolla to
Oklahoma a couple of months ago. Maybe I'll find it or just buy a new
program, depending on your thoughts and my mood at the end of this whole
process.

My reasoning is that when I look at Drive C: many of the files are tiny, yet
each one takes up 4K. (Drive C: being one of 3 partitions on the first hard
drive).

Does this make sense in this specific instance? I note that I have 4
"drives" set at 4K, one set at 1K (I must have had a reason), and one is set
at 512 bytes per cluster.

I am hesitant, however, to mess with the boot drive, but that may be the
only option left to me to get it to defrag. I used Partition Magic quite
freely when I was setting up the partitions to let me run Windows and Unix,
but that during initial setup and I had nothing to lose. Now I can't take
any chances with my system. It has to be up and running or I won't have any
food from my Unix work

To answer one of your previous questions, all drives and partitions were
formatted with Windows, except for the initial experiments with Partition
Manager.

I also have seen some comments about the MFT getting large and then not
giving back it's space when some files are deleted. Any thoughts about
that?
===================

 

[Gerry]

Don

This freeware utility may be helpful:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb897428.aspx

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~