G
Guest
I've got an XP Pro machine dogged by slow speed on our P2P LAN. Apps,
Windows Explorer, etc., load and run slow, even with local-only HD and
machine operations. Drive calls are particularly dragging these days; apps
often go off into ga-ga land while doing file saves or file opens. Most of
the time they'll recover, but often they'll report back to the screen or
Task Manager that they've become non-reponsive during that recovery. On a
number of occasions, they've lock up the app entirely. When I take the
computer off the network (unplugging the CAT5 cable) and reboot, the
computer and the local apps regain their former performance levels.
At first I thought the computer might be infected, but hard as I've tried I
can't find any evidence of virii, trojans, worms, spyware ANYWHERE on the
computer. I've run all the tools at my disposal (AV (both NAV onboard and
several online scans using various website offerings), Spybot, Ad-Aware);
nothing is ever found. I've run several background monitoring apps as well
as used the command prompt command 'tasklist' to see if anything is active;
only the usual, expected stuff is running in the background.
I then thought that perhaps another machine on the LAN is infected, but
we've again found no evidence that this is the case, and no other machine
other than our problem child is exhibiting this slowdown of it operation.
I decided today to create a new user for this computer, just to see what
would happen. Lo and behold, the new user runs fast, just as if the CAT5
cable were still unplugged. Apps open up normally and quickly; file access
across the LAN is back to its old self, and there are no more 15-30 sec
waits for programs to BEGIN to save a file The bad part is that it's a new
user, so all the tweaks and settings for apps and how they behave have to
started over and set again for this new username, not to mention the various
sundry Windows tweaks that were used and now have become accustomed to in
the previous username. I'd like to avoid recreating if possible, because
it'll mean I'll be forced into tweaking this computer on and off for the
next several days, which is something I can't afford to do right now.
My question: with the old username, are there system-related "things" stored
under that name I can purge or clear out, or reset to bring that username's
performance level up again without having to resort to setting up a whole
new username? To me, that seems the faster (and less resource-bleeding) of
the two paths, if it's possible. Appreciate any advice.
Windows Explorer, etc., load and run slow, even with local-only HD and
machine operations. Drive calls are particularly dragging these days; apps
often go off into ga-ga land while doing file saves or file opens. Most of
the time they'll recover, but often they'll report back to the screen or
Task Manager that they've become non-reponsive during that recovery. On a
number of occasions, they've lock up the app entirely. When I take the
computer off the network (unplugging the CAT5 cable) and reboot, the
computer and the local apps regain their former performance levels.
At first I thought the computer might be infected, but hard as I've tried I
can't find any evidence of virii, trojans, worms, spyware ANYWHERE on the
computer. I've run all the tools at my disposal (AV (both NAV onboard and
several online scans using various website offerings), Spybot, Ad-Aware);
nothing is ever found. I've run several background monitoring apps as well
as used the command prompt command 'tasklist' to see if anything is active;
only the usual, expected stuff is running in the background.
I then thought that perhaps another machine on the LAN is infected, but
we've again found no evidence that this is the case, and no other machine
other than our problem child is exhibiting this slowdown of it operation.
I decided today to create a new user for this computer, just to see what
would happen. Lo and behold, the new user runs fast, just as if the CAT5
cable were still unplugged. Apps open up normally and quickly; file access
across the LAN is back to its old self, and there are no more 15-30 sec
waits for programs to BEGIN to save a file The bad part is that it's a new
user, so all the tweaks and settings for apps and how they behave have to
started over and set again for this new username, not to mention the various
sundry Windows tweaks that were used and now have become accustomed to in
the previous username. I'd like to avoid recreating if possible, because
it'll mean I'll be forced into tweaking this computer on and off for the
next several days, which is something I can't afford to do right now.
My question: with the old username, are there system-related "things" stored
under that name I can purge or clear out, or reset to bring that username's
performance level up again without having to resort to setting up a whole
new username? To me, that seems the faster (and less resource-bleeding) of
the two paths, if it's possible. Appreciate any advice.