Comments for What Really Slows Windows Down

Fairly well written article!

I have been fairly pissed off at all the BS available on the net relating to anti-virus and anti-spyware software, far too many of the so-called reviews are entirely to sell THEIR own products! And then the fact that the various anti-virus software ratings such as ICSA and VB and W.C.L. rate on viruses but ABSOLUTELY NO INFO ON SYSTEM UTILIZATIONS of each anti-virus software!

I like to see what you have available made a part of the anti-vire and anti-spyware testings, INCLUDING how much hard drive space is needed AND how much RAM is used and etc.

One I was hoping to see listed was BitDefender in your test listing.

It is once again time to re-up aka pay for another year's anti-vire updates on Norton, and I am looking to increase my system effectiveness as well as increase anti-vire detections (I have to use two other software packages to overlap on detections on a monthly basis). Now I do have had great anti-spyware results in PC Tools Spyware Doctor (but also have to use SpyBot to overlap on anti-spywayre as well, but don't like PC Tools anti-vire software.

For those of you who really want to see how much your system is being hogged down by resource hogging software
Sysinternals utility (freebie) (forums http://forum.sysinternals.com/).

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/ProcessExplorer.mspx

LOL. Why indeed?
While I too have several Macs, I did just build a killer PC for game playing with XP Pro on it. It boots in 30 seconds using Avast! antivirus.
Of course, it is a 2.4GHz core duo 2 with 2GB SLI RAM on an SLI MB with 2 512MB SLI Nvidia display cards in bridge.
I have to say, since I do nothing but use it for gaming (No, not even email and surfing), it will likely stay clean and healthy and fast.
For going out on the web however, I use OSX, and I NEVER have any issues, and it boots very quickly.

Another thing to do is shut off most all of the auto-downloading / auto-updating!!

I do not know how many times an auto-update has screwed my system, esp. the ones from microslop.

Also as a forced migrant from MacOS, I have been FORCED to remember all of my FUN of earlier DOS/WIN educations...

My box was inherited from a buddy's passing away, his mom showed up at my place with it, since she knew I lost everything after my own ole' lady passed away... could not get any insurance for her after she started having strokes, so the bully bill collectors took everything after she passed away.

And having to be re-educated with WinXP is not much fun!

Anyways. Looking for software recommendations!!!

Stupid software packages use their own schedulers instead of windows scheduling, and am looking for anything which will track all regular scheduled events so I can figure out which software is misbehaving. Also, in regular ENGLISH and not in those inane ancient DOS names.

Next is something to let me know what is accessing the hard drives and networking (WIFI and local).

I am for the most part getting lagged down pretty badly lately. I know some of these problems stem from older versions of a couple of software packages leaving behind scheduled events which I am unable to edit since the newer versions no longer provide access to edit the older scheduling and yet they still follow the older scheduling AND new scheduling. I am still waiting for the software people to release versions which deal with this problem, but it would be nice to see everything and know what is working with what.


Suggestions?!?

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I am also wondering if anyone has created an up-to-date booting (2007 WinXP/) USB flashdrive to install diagnostics software & utils to diagnose and repair systems.

Lastly. Someone should slap together a minimal box with mininal system, then create a clean master to re-write the whole system back to a clean install... then just load the software on it and post those results... of course that would have to be someone with extra time to spare and someone with extra equipment laying around... I USED to be one of those kinds of people, but for the time being I have to work with a hand-me-down of not very recent vintage.