XP Maintenance

[Rainy]

Hi, I am very thorough with my maintenance but wonder if I'm doing
something wrong, or overlooking something..

I am currently using:

Diskeeper Lite to defrag (much quicker than windows defrag)
jp power tools trial to fix the registry, and after the trial ends, will go
back to registry medic
Cleanup to get rid of unwanted files such as temp and TIF
Nortons One button which includes windoctor to fix the window errors
Chkdsk
My Browser of choice is Avant and does a great job of getting rid of
cookies, etc..

I'm just not sure if there is something else I should be doing.. If anyone
has a great maintenance plan .. I would greatly appreciate it...

I also have AVG, SWAT for trojans, and adaware, and spybot.. they seem to
be doing a great job.. I also have spywareblaster which is supposed to stop
them from every coming to my computer.. they manage to get through.. !

the reason I am asking is, it seems like I have to do all of the above
almost daily because after I do .. my machine runs great for a while.. then
slowly but surely bogs down...

What am I doing wrong.. thanks Rainy

 

[Jon Erlandson]

I'm uncertain if Diskeeper Lite defrags the pagefile but it's a good idea
and, if you are, you shouldn't run more than one antivirus. Remove all of
Symantec's stuff and see if you run better. AVG, spybot are great but I'd
get rid of adaware and use spywareguard vs spywareblaster.

 

[Rainy]

Hi Jon, thanks for the response...

I do not run more than one antivirus..only AVG. I don't have norton's
antivirus installed.. I only use the one button.. I'm curious to know why
you would get rid of adaware when it's an award winning software and keep
spwareblaster which is only supposed to guard the doors but misses quite a
bit...

I am curious about defragging the page files.. what program should i use to
do that?? thanks for the input.. it's appreciated.. Rainy

 

[Jon Erlandson]

Hi Jon, thanks for the response...

I do not run more than one antivirus..only AVG. I don't have norton's
antivirus installed.. I only use the one button.. I'm curious to know
why you would get rid of adaware when it's an award winning software and
keep spwareblaster which is only supposed to guard the doors but misses
quite a bit...

First, there is no single antispyware program that catches everything and
having more that one antispyware program is a very good idea. My preference
is to use spywareguard + spywareblaster + spybot + AVG and I don't have
problems. I've used Adaware in the past and thought it ran slowly and
consumed to much resource, which is why I suggested uninstalling it.

I am curious about defragging the page files.. what program should i use
to do that?? thanks for the input.. it's appreciated.. Rainy

There are a number of defragging programs out there that do the job. I use
PerfectDisk but I believe Diskeeper Pro also defrags the pagefile and there
are a couple free programs like PageDefrag. The pagefile may or not be
related to your performance issues however but if you google for "optimizing
windows xp" you'll find some very good tips.

PageDefrag
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml

Virtual Memory in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

How can I optimize the Windows 2000/XP/2003 virtual memory
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

Clear the Pagefile at Shutdown
http://forum.iamnotageek.com/archive/index.php/t-69480.html

 

[Rainy]

thanks Jon for responding... yes i agree Adaware does run slowly but I
believed that was because it was doing a more thorough job.. (maybe I'm
wrong) so I run it just before bedtime.. I guess it's a personal choice.. I
do have spywareblaster.. and the rest of them..boy owning a computer is like
having war with vermin! and all I want to do is enjoy my computer.. lol

I downloaded and installed pagedefrag.exe and chose to have it do it on
boot, but I don't see it do anything.. was I supposed to?

I will check out the rest of your links... thanks for the time you took to
give me the links.. it's appreciated.. Rainy

ps. I'm off to google.. thanks