What operating system? First do the simplest thing. Go to Start, Programs, Startup. Delete anything in there which you do not want to start up every time your computer starts.
Why a computer begins to slow down can range for something simple to complex. My neighbors got so bad I told him the easiest thing was to remove his hard drive, throw it away and get a new one and start all over. But I have also seen people with awesome systems who have trashed it before long.
90% of these problems are caused by users actions. Rarely is is because of the OS or the hardware. Almost always Spyware and/or Viruses.
I sometimes wonder if people are getting fed up with computers rather than more excited by them. They require a lot of stewardship and a lot of knowledge, all of which can be found on Google.com
But once you master the details and make the dozens of required tweaks, you can have a system that opens huge programs like Microsoft Word in 1 second.
Windows 98 is the operating system on his computer. Are you saying that these mysterious programs are a form of spyware? If so how do I rid them from his computer? I already tried Start - Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs. I did not see the programs that are apparently running on his computer. Thanks.
go here and download the free Hijackthis! program and install it, run it and see what it finds. It can help get rid of some very persistent pests.
There's also a program called X Cleaner, you can get the freeware version here. Install it and go to the Expert tab and view what's in your startup and delete stuff. (It will also put itself in your startup so that it will run when you reboot, which you may or may not want to do forever)
AdAware too, as IGO pointed to. Run these, they'll find stuff and you can find out what's on the pc. Might help.
WIndows 98 is all but obsolete. This would also indicate that he has an older computer. Honestly the best thing you can do, if you can afford it is make the switch.
Just go get a new computer with XP on it.
Its a lot of work but you'll save in the long run.
Just look at these Dell offers from $500 with at 17" monitor!
Mark- the programs can be controlled by using a program called msconfig to access the program go to the start button then cleck the run button and type msconfig into the window and hit return
msconfig will come up. go to the start window and you will see a mess of programs listed and checked. you can uncheck any one you want. a good way to tell if a rogram is something you want to run at startup look at the programs file location. I would leave everything that is the windows folder alone. Anyothers are fair game, normally you would want an antivirus and firewall if you are on a dsl or cable. (firewalls aren't as important on dialups because your address changes every time you connect and you usually aren't hooked up all the time).
Msconfig is in windows98, xp and I think ME. not with 2000(it has other programs). I don't think win 98 is supported by microsft so automatic update may not be possible any more.
If the computer is new enough to run windows 2000, I would seriously look at updating the OS
or take the linux plunge (which is easy and free).
Another thing would be to defrag the disk as that may be wy performance has slowed down
Mark one last thing- if you do use msconfig it will remind you that you made these changes every time you restart the computer unless you check a button telling it to sht up.
Mark, these learned folk... what would we do without them?
If you can spare the dough, go get a new PC that can run XP like John Hegotout suggested... 98 itself is probably the cause of a lot of the slowness you still experience... then do the other stuff these guys suggest...
Thanks for all your good suggestions. The MSconfig suggestion seemed to work. I noticed by unchecking some of the items in the Startup window and then restarting that less programs initially opened up. This has seemed to help. The computer is running O.K. The problem is/was in opening up necessary programs with so many programs already running. Sometimes programs we needed to work with opened up pretty slow. I noticed that a number of these programs in startup were with Norton Utilities. I left those checked and the windows programs remain checked. Most of the rest I unchecked. My father may still get a new computer. He can afford it and then some. However, the Northern Italian, Scottish, Jew in me says save money whenever possible.
The computer is not that bad. It is uses a Pentium III processor. The Ram is only 128 MB, but I could easily install more. So what do you guys think about me changing operating systems to Windows XP?
For the less technically adept, there's a program from PCMag called Startup Cop to find and kill startup entries, and it's really easy to undo a change if you screw up. They no longer have it but I found a place for it:
There may be other places if that doesn't work. Google would help... I never bother with MSConfig anymore since it's so easy to use.
Mark: I was running XP on a Pentium II 400 mhz for over a year with no problems at all. I had 384 megs of RAM though and I would recommend at least another 128 before you try it on your current machine. If you can't afford to upgrade entirely, this may suit your needs for some time to come. Windows 2000 ran even better and is nearly the same operating system minus a few aesthetic doodads. Almost everyone has a copy of that laying around you could "borrow" if money is an object.
My recommendations to everyone when I go to their houses and exorcise their machines to prevent further visits by the exorcist:
Install Opera ( http://www.opera.com ) and only use it for everyday surfing. It takes some configuration and patience at the beginning for people stuck in the Internet Explorer cult but after a week or so you'll never know how you lived without it. If you can't stand the ad in the corner and can't afford to pay for it or don't want to, get FireFox (or whatever it's called this week) from http://www.mozilla.org and try it. I find that it's harder to configure and customize and all its cool bells and whistles are copied from Opera, but the price is right.
Of course you should be running a firewall these days. The free ZoneAlarm is perfect for most people. The more technically adept may prefer Tiny Personal Firewall ( http://www.download.com is your friend) and I prefer Sygate's firewall though it's a bit harder to get configured than ZoneAlarm.
Antivirus is a no-brainer. Norton's great - if you want to save computer resources/money, AVG from http://www.grisoft.com is not bad at all. I use PC-Cillin because it's very, very good and much lighter on resources than Norton or McAfee. It's up to you - they are all fine choices and there are many more.
AdAware and SpyBot and run them weekly if you use the internet much. Update them weekly too.
Don't use filesharing applications! If you absolutely MUST use them, WinMX is spy-free. Kazaa lite is spy free but anything that connects to the FastTrack (Kazaa) network is - to me - an absolute no-no. Soulseek is spy-free as well. None of these are recommendations - take it as "well, if you're going to have sex anyway, at least use a condom" type of advice.
Don't surf porn! If you are going to, I don't kow what to say but keep your antivirus cranked up and run Spybot and AdAware constantly. You WILL get attacked and trojaned and virused eventually if you frequent porn sites. I guess the more "credible" ones like Hustler or whoever would be cleaner but I don't know about that.
Don't use online gambling sites! Same as porn in destructiveness and there IS no "credible" option. I won't fix a computer that's been trashed by gambling site trojans. Pay someone else for your stupidity is my answer to that one.
Don't install programs from unknown sources. http://www.download.com has almost every reputable freeware or shareware program and they have warnings if a program installs third-party stuff. If a warning exists, you don't need the program. Trust me. Comet Cursor is NOT worth it.
E-mail attachments: of COURSE it came from someone you know! You almost never get a virus from someone you don't know! If you must open it, save it to a known location and scan it first. If you're not in a hurry, send them an e-mail: "Did you really send me a cool screensaver?"
If you follow those simple rules and perform regular maintenance such as defragging, your machine will last until you see a newer, badder one that you just can't live without.
That is an easy name to remember for me. One of my closest childhood friends is also a Jason P. He is one of my best friends to this day. Thanks for the good advise.
Thanks to everyone posting including my New York Buddy Wordwolf. Hey Wolfman. I am planing on coming to N.Y. again in a couple of months. Let's get together. That club you had us go to last time was pretty entertaining.
One more thing. Please keep this stuff, that you all have posted, up so that some of us can have more time to digest it.
Win98 is not an inherently-slow operating system--it runs like a bat out of hell on a 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 with 256MB of RAM.
Mark: The slowdowns are probably a combination of an older, slower hard drive, just 128MB of RAM, and only minimally the speed of your CPU. A Pentium III should be more than enough for 98.
However, you're at the point where it's cheaper overall to buy a new machine like one John pointed out than to patch-fix the other problems. You may not be able to find compatible RAM at a cheap price for the old machine, and by the time you sink $100 in RAM, $89 for WinXP, and another $100 into a new hard drive, you're in the whole-new-machine general ballpark anyway. Best Buy's weekly wonder-special is about $389, if memory serves.
My opinion is ...your time is valuable too. Count the cost as Zix says and consider the easiest route of all which is replacement.
Toss one and get all new stuff including the faster and more stable XP. I highly reccomend AGAINST upgrading that system with XP. XP deserves new hardware.... and it is ungodly cheap these days.
That being said and budget allowing, do not get the cheapest out there, however. Try going middle of the road. I always try to buy for the future if possible.
Just go for it. You'll thank me later. When you get to the point of purchase, just consult with the wise folks here who can steer you in the right direction on what to purchase.
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igotout
What operating system? First do the simplest thing. Go to Start, Programs, Startup. Delete anything in there which you do not want to start up every time your computer starts.
Why a computer begins to slow down can range for something simple to complex. My neighbors got so bad I told him the easiest thing was to remove his hard drive, throw it away and get a new one and start all over. But I have also seen people with awesome systems who have trashed it before long.
90% of these problems are caused by users actions. Rarely is is because of the OS or the hardware. Almost always Spyware and/or Viruses.
I sometimes wonder if people are getting fed up with computers rather than more excited by them. They require a lot of stewardship and a lot of knowledge, all of which can be found on Google.com
But once you master the details and make the dozens of required tweaks, you can have a system that opens huge programs like Microsoft Word in 1 second.
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Mark Sanguinetti
Windows 98 is the operating system on his computer. Are you saying that these mysterious programs are a form of spyware? If so how do I rid them from his computer? I already tried Start - Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs. I did not see the programs that are apparently running on his computer. Thanks.
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socks
Hey Mark, couple things to try-
go here and download the free Hijackthis! program and install it, run it and see what it finds. It can help get rid of some very persistent pests.
There's also a program called X Cleaner, you can get the freeware version here. Install it and go to the Expert tab and view what's in your startup and delete stuff. (It will also put itself in your startup so that it will run when you reboot, which you may or may not want to do forever)
AdAware too, as IGO pointed to. Run these, they'll find stuff and you can find out what's on the pc. Might help.
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igotout
WIndows 98 is all but obsolete. This would also indicate that he has an older computer. Honestly the best thing you can do, if you can afford it is make the switch.
Just go get a new computer with XP on it.
Its a lot of work but you'll save in the long run.
Just look at these Dell offers from $500 with at 17" monitor!
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/f...s=19&l=en&s=dhs
You'll spend $500 in frustration and time in trying to heal an old system.
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WordWolf
Then download all the Windows critical updates, AdAware, Spybot (now on 1.3)
firewall, antivirus, and update them all. Remember to run the scans and
updates periodically.
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ckeer
Mark- the programs can be controlled by using a program called msconfig to access the program go to the start button then cleck the run button and type msconfig into the window and hit return
msconfig will come up. go to the start window and you will see a mess of programs listed and checked. you can uncheck any one you want. a good way to tell if a rogram is something you want to run at startup look at the programs file location. I would leave everything that is the windows folder alone. Anyothers are fair game, normally you would want an antivirus and firewall if you are on a dsl or cable. (firewalls aren't as important on dialups because your address changes every time you connect and you usually aren't hooked up all the time).
Msconfig is in windows98, xp and I think ME. not with 2000(it has other programs). I don't think win 98 is supported by microsft so automatic update may not be possible any more.
If the computer is new enough to run windows 2000, I would seriously look at updating the OS
or take the linux plunge (which is easy and free).
Another thing would be to defrag the disk as that may be wy performance has slowed down
A good source of more info on msconfig is kim komandos archives http://www.komando.com
I always learn somthing in her weekly emails also. Good luck
Curt
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ckeer
Mark one last thing- if you do use msconfig it will remind you that you made these changes every time you restart the computer unless you check a button telling it to sht up.
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Tom Strange
Mark, these learned folk... what would we do without them?
If you can spare the dough, go get a new PC that can run XP like John Hegotout suggested... 98 itself is probably the cause of a lot of the slowness you still experience... then do the other stuff these guys suggest...
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Mark Sanguinetti
Thanks for all your good suggestions. The MSconfig suggestion seemed to work. I noticed by unchecking some of the items in the Startup window and then restarting that less programs initially opened up. This has seemed to help. The computer is running O.K. The problem is/was in opening up necessary programs with so many programs already running. Sometimes programs we needed to work with opened up pretty slow. I noticed that a number of these programs in startup were with Norton Utilities. I left those checked and the windows programs remain checked. Most of the rest I unchecked. My father may still get a new computer. He can afford it and then some. However, the Northern Italian, Scottish, Jew in me says save money whenever possible.
The computer is not that bad. It is uses a Pentium III processor. The Ram is only 128 MB, but I could easily install more. So what do you guys think about me changing operating systems to Windows XP?
Thanks again.
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Jason P
For the less technically adept, there's a program from PCMag called Startup Cop to find and kill startup entries, and it's really easy to undo a change if you screw up. They no longer have it but I found a place for it:
http://www.pchelp911.com/files/startcop.zip
There may be other places if that doesn't work. Google would help... I never bother with MSConfig anymore since it's so easy to use.
Mark: I was running XP on a Pentium II 400 mhz for over a year with no problems at all. I had 384 megs of RAM though and I would recommend at least another 128 before you try it on your current machine. If you can't afford to upgrade entirely, this may suit your needs for some time to come. Windows 2000 ran even better and is nearly the same operating system minus a few aesthetic doodads. Almost everyone has a copy of that laying around you could "borrow" if money is an object.
My recommendations to everyone when I go to their houses and exorcise their machines to prevent further visits by the exorcist:
Install Opera ( http://www.opera.com ) and only use it for everyday surfing. It takes some configuration and patience at the beginning for people stuck in the Internet Explorer cult but after a week or so you'll never know how you lived without it. If you can't stand the ad in the corner and can't afford to pay for it or don't want to, get FireFox (or whatever it's called this week) from http://www.mozilla.org and try it. I find that it's harder to configure and customize and all its cool bells and whistles are copied from Opera, but the price is right.
Of course you should be running a firewall these days. The free ZoneAlarm is perfect for most people. The more technically adept may prefer Tiny Personal Firewall ( http://www.download.com is your friend) and I prefer Sygate's firewall though it's a bit harder to get configured than ZoneAlarm.
Antivirus is a no-brainer. Norton's great - if you want to save computer resources/money, AVG from http://www.grisoft.com is not bad at all. I use PC-Cillin because it's very, very good and much lighter on resources than Norton or McAfee. It's up to you - they are all fine choices and there are many more.
AdAware and SpyBot and run them weekly if you use the internet much. Update them weekly too.
Don't use filesharing applications! If you absolutely MUST use them, WinMX is spy-free. Kazaa lite is spy free but anything that connects to the FastTrack (Kazaa) network is - to me - an absolute no-no. Soulseek is spy-free as well. None of these are recommendations - take it as "well, if you're going to have sex anyway, at least use a condom" type of advice.
Don't surf porn! If you are going to, I don't kow what to say but keep your antivirus cranked up and run Spybot and AdAware constantly. You WILL get attacked and trojaned and virused eventually if you frequent porn sites. I guess the more "credible" ones like Hustler or whoever would be cleaner but I don't know about that.
Don't use online gambling sites! Same as porn in destructiveness and there IS no "credible" option. I won't fix a computer that's been trashed by gambling site trojans. Pay someone else for your stupidity is my answer to that one.
Don't install programs from unknown sources. http://www.download.com has almost every reputable freeware or shareware program and they have warnings if a program installs third-party stuff. If a warning exists, you don't need the program. Trust me. Comet Cursor is NOT worth it.
E-mail attachments: of COURSE it came from someone you know! You almost never get a virus from someone you don't know! If you must open it, save it to a known location and scan it first. If you're not in a hurry, send them an e-mail: "Did you really send me a cool screensaver?"
If you follow those simple rules and perform regular maintenance such as defragging, your machine will last until you see a newer, badder one that you just can't live without.
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WordWolf
You might want to review the "Registry Keys" thread. We talked a lot of
security and stuff there.
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Mark Sanguinetti
Jason P.
That is an easy name to remember for me. One of my closest childhood friends is also a Jason P. He is one of my best friends to this day. Thanks for the good advise.
Thanks to everyone posting including my New York Buddy Wordwolf. Hey Wolfman. I am planing on coming to N.Y. again in a couple of months. Let's get together. That club you had us go to last time was pretty entertaining.
One more thing. Please keep this stuff, that you all have posted, up so that some of us can have more time to digest it.
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Zixar
Win98 is not an inherently-slow operating system--it runs like a bat out of hell on a 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 with 256MB of RAM.
Mark: The slowdowns are probably a combination of an older, slower hard drive, just 128MB of RAM, and only minimally the speed of your CPU. A Pentium III should be more than enough for 98.
However, you're at the point where it's cheaper overall to buy a new machine like one John pointed out than to patch-fix the other problems. You may not be able to find compatible RAM at a cheap price for the old machine, and by the time you sink $100 in RAM, $89 for WinXP, and another $100 into a new hard drive, you're in the whole-new-machine general ballpark anyway. Best Buy's weekly wonder-special is about $389, if memory serves.
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igotout
My opinion is ...your time is valuable too. Count the cost as Zix says and consider the easiest route of all which is replacement.
Toss one and get all new stuff including the faster and more stable XP. I highly reccomend AGAINST upgrading that system with XP. XP deserves new hardware.... and it is ungodly cheap these days.
That being said and budget allowing, do not get the cheapest out there, however. Try going middle of the road. I always try to buy for the future if possible.
Just go for it. You'll thank me later. When you get to the point of purchase, just consult with the wise folks here who can steer you in the right direction on what to purchase.
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WordWolf
Might also want to do a few more antivirus sweeps with other programs.
I just spent several hours helping someone fix their security.
Their security is now about 500% better than it was,
and, after downloading several programs, they are WAAAY ahead on memory,
since we flushed every single virus and piece of spyware out of the
system. Took 3 different sweeps with various antivirus programs to get
all the viruses-there were over 3000 of them, no kidding, the final count
was pushing 4000. I wouldn't believe a machine could run with so many if I
hadn't seen it myself. They said the machine operates like new, now.
So, it's possible there's a bunch also slowing his machine, too.
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Steve!
It'd be so much easier if you could cast out viruses in the name of Jesus . . .
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