This computer has gotten so s-l-o-w lately that it’s becoming frustrating. I’ve scanned with ad aware, I’ve got AVG antivirus on here, and even did an hours long scan with a-squared today. I really didn’t pick up much to get rid of with these scans.
What else should I do? Keep in mind that all my weak computer skills are self-taught so I have very limited knowledge in this area.
Do I have so much crap on this 4 year old computer that it’s just going to keep getting slower and slower?
Have you cleared the temp folders? Also might be good to check what programs and processes you have running; are they drawing a lot of processor time and memory usage?
Of course the stock answer to a slow computer is add more memory. Or faster memory. Or both.
yes to clearing temp files.
As to your other questions- I have no idea- I don’t know how to -
check what programs and processes you have running; are they drawing a lot of processor time and memory usage?
Have you done a defrag?
Also, search out a program called Spybot Search & Destroy. It seems to take a double whammy of that with AdAware to get everything.
It also never hurts to go through and uninstall the stuff you never use.
OK, I just finished uninstalling some things that I know absolutely are not needed on this computer. Of course there’s lots of important looking/iffy looking stuff that I am not sure about so am reluctant to mess with them.
I have not done a defrag in a while. I guess it is time…
I’ll go check out the Spybot now-thanks for the suggestions.
Anti-virus programs (particularly Norton) are often the biggest sources of sluggish computing. Removing it will speed things up.
I’ve compromised by using a non-windows firewall that I configure [the windows firewall(s) are seriously user-hostile] and use that to monitor–and block–access to the internet by everything but a small number of programs. Some are banned from ever connecting, other have to ask me every time, and some, like my email, browser, and FTP programs are green-lighted.
When I start seeing traffic I didn’t initiate, I know that something is amiss, and I work out what it is; that’s a LOT less cumbersome than checking everything my computer does, which is what AV software has to do.
I learned the hard way that Norton spells nothing but trouble. One of the many things I’ve learned from this board. 
I promptly uninstalled Norton asap when I got my current computer and have been happier ever since.
The best antivirus package I’ve found so far is Kaspersky.
Avastis a good free alternative, much lighter footprint than Norton.
Please run with some sort of antivirus, even if you have a good firewall…Windows machines are horribly easy to infect.
There was an experiment done I think a couple of years ago now where they put unprotected Windows machines on the 'net and timed how long it took them to be infected. If I remember correctly, it took six minutes.
–James
For antivirus, I’ve run AVG by Grisoft for, I think, 10 years now and never had a virus it didn’t catch.
Click your start menu, click “run”, type in msconfig, click the top tab that says “start up”, and unclick things like Windows media player, Quicktime, Adobe, Kodak Easyshare - basically anything that’s starting up when you turn on your computer to make life easier for you. There are a bunch of items that come on, which isn’t a big deal on a new, powerful computer, but will kill a slow/older computer. If you don’t know what’s on the list, type in the command name into a google search line and you’ll see in the top 3 hits sites that provide explanations for the various commands and make recommendations on whether you should turn this off or not.
I did this start-up clean-up on my PC, my parents, and several friends from work’s home computers and it worked every time.
One note - after you save/OK the changes, you’ll need to restart and you’ll get a warning box saying things were changed. Just click the box for “never show me this again” and you’ll be good to go.
Eric
For slowness issues, look for programs that are partially running all the time. An example would be Microsoft Office. That little Office menu bar that floats somewhere on your desktop that allows you the rapid launch of any Office utilities is a massive memory hog. That’s just an example, of course. We can’t see what else is running on your PC.
Definitely defrag your hard drive. Look under Programs => Accessories => System Tools for the Disk Clean-up and Defragmenter and run each of these.
If you’re feeling brave you can hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys at the same time and then press the Delete key. This will bring up the Windows Task Manager. Review what applications are currently running and close down anything you don’t want. Go to the Processes tab. You may not recognize anything here, but if you Google them one at a time to find out what they are you can start to get an idea of what is running on your system and determine if they really need to be running all the time.
djm
djm - we’re hitting on a similar topic, those programs that run all the time to make their opening quicker. Programs like that kill speed on a computer that’s even just a few years old.
I had to go to the start up menu in msconfig, otherwise, turning these programs off in task manager just meant they came back on the next time I started up the computer.
Eric
CC Cleaner seems to have helped my computer and it’s free.
I’m not disagreeing with you, Jayhawk, but I suggested using WTM as a starting place to learn what is running in the background to get an appreciation of what all is happening back there. You are correct in saying that turning things off in WTM is not permanent.
djm
O.K…here you go
http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker74.html
nearly all above forum replies are good advice…last resort; do a windows reinstall.
+1 for CCleaner
Gosh! CCleaner uncovered cookies that Windows and Norton never had! One of them was a shocker, too!
Thanks!
Yep. It and the Spybot got a bunch of stuff, plus I did the other suggestions and thanks to y’all my computer is running better and I am not as frustrated.
follow up ccleaner with some defrag but not from the stock one windows gives you.
mmmmmbuntu!
