Correct me if I am wrong about Windows XP slowing down

[+BudMan MVC]

So yet another another victim of the FUD.. and is now inflected with WRS (windows reinstall syndrome) too.

I have installed HUNDREDS of programs over the years -- HUNDREDS!! and have never ran any of the crap registry cleaners.. never problem one..

A simple understanding of how the registry works is all that is needed to understand leaving a couple of k worth of text in HCLM\software has little to do with the speed of your machine!

Next time you feel you machine has slowed down, vs formating an dong a reinstall -- how about you actually look to what might have slowed down your machine!

Since once you format you have NO IDEA what the real problem was -- and are just falling victim to WRS, every 6 months :rolleyes:

[Typhon]

Budman is right I have also worked on countless xp systems in the 1,000 by now with out a doubt and every time 90% of the time it is a virus and no derfag and guess what a prebuild pc with a **** load of software running with norton helping to slow you down. What I do is hardware check,virus check,program check,then updates,and to finish it off a defrag. After that the customer or friend says omfg this pc is so fast. It is funny allot of that guys systems they tell me it was fine before they started looking at porn online so stay away form porn sites and just buy the dvd's lol.

[+allan MVC]

but I do install and uninstall a hell of alot of stuff and alot of the time this will leave a few folders/files/regkeys behind and I find that this is the problem.

1) Why do you find this a problem? and

2) Why can't you just simply delete the folders?

Installing & uninstalling programs certainly won't effect cpu / system performance.

And I'm sorry, but reformatting a system on a frequent or regular basis makes absolutely, positively no sense.

[tsupersonic]

Looks like you have some tweaking to do. You can close (and disable some services) to get rid of some processes...

Edited July 5, 2008 by tsupersonic

[+allan MVC]

Looks like you have some tweaking to do. You can close (and stop some services) to get rid of some processes...

Ummmm, no. Closing and stopping services is not the way to disable them. Their status must be changed to either "Manual" or "Disabled" in services.msc. Black Viper's web site is a good place to start (www.blkviper.com).

[tsupersonic]

Ummmm, no. Closing and stopping services is not the way to disable them. Their status must be changed to either "Manual" or "Disabled" in services.msc. Black Viper's web site is a good place to start (www.blkviper.com).

Pfft, poor wording on my choice :p but you knew where I was headed

[BinaryFragger]

Although my computers run perfectly fine years after installing Windows, I have seen many computers become slower as time goes by. But in pretty much all cases, malware and/or useless startup programs are the culprits. I've had people complain that their computer takes 5+ minutes to boot, but their StartUp folder is populated by 20 programs.

As for having to reinstall Windows on a regular basis, why won't that myth ever die? Do you rebuild your car's engine every 6 months too?

At my office, our 512MB RAM XP machines are not that quick, even after being re-imaged, but our 1BG machines are fine. Another stick of 512MB in your mother-in-law's Dell might give a significant speed boost.

[+allan MVC]

Pfft, poor wording on my choice :p but you knew where I was headed

Sorry, but I didn't - I only know what you said. And neither would the OP. No offense, but if you are going to give advice on a support forum it's important to give correct advice. Anyway, NOW the OP knows the correct way to adjust services ;)

[redvamp128]

As far as a cleaning program I would suggest CCleaner.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Not to mention a good free program of Spybot Search and Destroy.

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

They also have a free registry analyzer.

[tsupersonic]

^ calm down, I fixed my mistake.

Also, if you haven't installed another OS since you got the system, I'd run PC Decrapifier which removes the bloat installed on these OEM machines. Or you can manually uninstall them

[RobC]

How to get flamed -

1) Say there is no god

2) Say the wrestling is fake.

3) Tell you to turn off PreFetch

Some idiot at MS decided to build in PreFetch.

(Probably the same idiot that decided to tells us that all files have been transferred, when they haven't)

Say you used a program three months ago. You now decide to load that program today.

It will appear to load fast, because PreFetch remembered that you loaded it 3 months ago, and every day since it has been loading DLLs etc (for that program), so that today it will appear to load fast.

PreFetch is doing that for lots of programs.

Turn it off.

Let the flames begin.

[jokeripa]

1) Why do you find this a problem? and

2) Why can't you just simply delete the folders?

Installing & uninstalling programs certainly won't effect cpu / system performance.

And I'm sorry, but reformatting a system on a frequent or regular basis makes absolutely, positively no sense.

I find it a problem as I like my PC to be as clean as poss, with as little folders/reg entrys/general crap as possible, and its time consuming removing those which have been left behind by other programs.

I have absolutely no problem with formatting every 6 months, I have 3 ext hard drives so I just back up any data I might need, format, install drivers and commonly used programs (which I have conviently in one folder ;)) and then its good to go. The whole process takes 1-2 hours and IMO is definately worth it. Its just my preference, if you have the time and effort to delete all these old folders etc that aren't needed anymore then fair enough - I don't! :p

Budman, and Allan, what do you think of the post above me?

[SakuraKira]

How to get flamed -

1) Say there is no god

2) Say the wrestling is fake.

3) Tell you to turn off PreFetch

Some idiot at MS decided to build in PreFetch.

(Probably the same idiot that decided to tells us that all files have been transferred, when they haven't)

Say you used a program three months ago. You now decide to load that program today.

It will appear to load fast, because PreFetch remembered that you loaded it 3 months ago, and every day since it has been loading DLLs etc (for that program), so that today it will appear to load fast.

PreFetch is doing that for lots of programs.

Turn it off.

Let the flames begin.

One of the options for CCleaner cleans out the Prefetch folder.

I can see your point if you use a program very infrequently, but what about the small number of programs you use every day? I only use about 5-8 different programs daily, I see nothing wrong with having those in the Prefetch. :/

@ BudMan: do you think those regcleaners do actual harm, and if so can you explain why? Or do you just think that they're pointless?

[+allan MVC]

Budman, and Allan, what do you think of the post above me?

The post is incorrect because application prefetch only goes back a couple of weeks - the folder keeps itself up to date. But prefetch is a matter of personal taste. I always keep it enabled on all systems (for both boot and apps), but the gain is fairly minimal with today's high speed cpu's and hd's and with installed ram at 1Gb or higher. I've heard a (very) few people say they think it slows their boot time, but I've never actually seen that happen. In my opinion there's certainly no down side to having it enabled.

[Cadium]

I have never encountered "Windows rot", the last time I re-installed Windows on one of my desktops was a year ago because the hard drive failed and I had t replace it. All you need to do is practice "safe computing", which usually involves some combination of the following:

1. Don't visit "shady" websites which may contain malware, worms, or virii.
   
2. Keep your operating system and your applications up to date - this means turning on/utilizing Windows Update, and making sure that the applications that you have installed are up to date (for example, if you own Microsoft Office 2003, ensure that Service Pack 3 is installed).
   
3. Don't download "warez" (pirated software) as these releases can sometimes be bundled with trojan horses.
   
4. Make sure that if you have an anti-virus or anti-spyware application installed that you install the latest updates for those as well. A scanner is only as good as its definitions, and definitions from 2006 aren't going to catch some pesky W32.Malware.A virus from 2008.
   
5. Make backups of your data, and I can not stress this enough. If something renders your computer unusable, or if a hardware component fails, you could lose your valuable pictures, music, spreadsheets, and other data files.
   
6. Run your operating system's maintenance tools if necessary - in Windows, these include Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter (by using these two in tandem, you will be removing old temporary files and other garbage and sorting the files on the file system for faster access, which will improve performance). Other operating systems, such as Linux or Mac OS X, usually clean themselves after a certain period, however if required you can manually run these tasks through the command line or by using third party utilities.
   
7. Don't clean your operating systems cache every day! The cache is there for a reason, to make your computer run smoother. If you delete the cache every day, you will only be hurting performance. (This includes "Prefetch" and "SuperFetch" in Windows, the "Cache" folders in Mac OS X, or whatever mechanism your operating system uses for caching data!)
   

[+BudMan MVC]

I have absolutely no problem with formatting every 6 months, I have 3 ext hard drives so I just back up any data I might need, format, install drivers and commonly used programs (which I have conviently in one folder ;)) and then its good to go. The whole process takes 1-2 hours and IMO is definately worth it.

As I stated arleady -- your clearly a cut and dry case of WRS (windows reinstall syndrome).. It is a form of OCD, you can fight it.. Just takes some common sense and will power ;)

If its a full case of WRD "windows reinstall disorder" there is no known cure -- sorry ;) heheheeh

with statements like it only takes a couple of hours, and you worry about some meaningless entry that might reside in your reg.. Sounds like full blow case of WRD to me..

edit: Yes it is KNOWN fact that regcleaners can cause harm.. Deleting stuff out of the registry that may be needed can cause you all kinds of grief!! You REALLY need to understand what its removing, and why/what it was/is suppose to be doing.

Clicking go - and then saying yes to the 100's of items it will delete is just asking for trouble!!

[spenser.d]

^^^This guy is pretty much right. I used to be one to reinstall windows about every six months. Then I got sick of doing that and decided to actually take care of my computer. I haven't reinstalled Windows in well over a year now and it's still running as smooth as day 1. This is the first time I've heard of Windows rot, and if you'd have said something to me about it a few years ago, I'd have believed it, but today I would have to say it's a load of BS.

-Spenser

Edited July 5, 2008 by stifler6478

[abcdefg]

edit: Yes it is KNOWN fact that regcleaners can cause harm.. Deleting stuff out of the registry that may be needed can cause you all kinds of grief!! You REALLY need to understand what its removing, and why/what it was/is suppose to be doing.

Maybe they can but it's also a known fact that those leftover keys in the registry can cause trouble. I've seen cases when software refuses to install because of that crap left in the registry. Ccleaner fixed it.

To avoid ROT you need to have full image of your system partition which you can use when something starts to "tango uniform".

Like SP3 via automatic updates which totally killed my XP. I used Bart-PE & Driveimage XML to fix that.

I would never ever use Windows again without system partion backed up.

And don't keep Program files on that partition.

[portauthority]

Reg cleaners do cause harm. I once installed Windows Deployment Services on a test server and ran CCleaner. It corrupted WDS and I had to reinstall it.

[StevoJD]

Registry cleaners can destroy your install. Only CCleaner hasn't done so, but others have totally killed my Windows...

[CrispCreations]

Maybe they can but it's also a known fact that those leftover keys in the registry can cause trouble. I've seen cases when software refuses to install because of that crap left in the registry.

That's not windows fault, blame the crappy software which didn't uninstall itself properly.

And don't keep Program files on that partition.

and that helps how exactly? Mmmm, let's see install Win to C:, Program Files to D: - registry on c: has pointers to all those programs you installed on d: OH NO, rot set in, gotta restore c: Bang, all reg entries for program files disappeared, sooooo, now re-install all those programs again to put the entries back.

(or do you image every time you install/uninstall every single application?)

You must really like wasting your time with restores and program installs.

Windows rot is FUD, simple as.

[redvamp128]

Personally I go into my Prefetch about once a month. I clean out the Setup programs and programs that I only use once in a while. I know with me it seemed like FF3 was taking forever to start, And I had upgraded from FF2.0.15 to FF3. I deleted the prefetch for it and now it seems to Load faster-.... I think it was using the old prefetch for FF3.0.

I would not recommend emptying it every day but about once a month works for me. I also found things in there that I had unistalled. I really don't think it matters with today's faster machines.

[+allan MVC]

and that helps how exactly? Mmmm, let's see install Win to C:, Program Files to D: - registry on c: has pointers to all those programs you installed on d: OH NO, rot set in, gotta restore c: Bang, all reg entries for program files disappeared, sooooo, now re-install all those programs again to put the entries back.

What are you talking about? If you format and reinstall Windows, all programs have to be reinstalled no matter where they were originally placed. Personally, I install very few programs on c: drive, but that has nothing to do with the discussion in this thread.

[abcdefg]

That's not windows fault, blame the crappy software which didn't uninstall itself properly.

and that helps how exactly? Mmmm, let's see install Win to C:, Program Files to D: - registry on c: has pointers to all those programs you installed on d: OH NO, rot set in, gotta restore c: Bang, all reg entries for program files disappeared, sooooo, now re-install all those programs again to put the entries back.

(or do you image every time you install/uninstall every single application?)

How does registry entries pointing to D:\ disappear if you just restore an image that has registry entries pointing to D:\ ? :|

In a case where you have already installed some programs on C:\, just use junction to point to another partition.

How it helps?

How big is your C:\ partition if you have your programs there? Probably quite big.

How big it is if it only has Windows? Shitloads smaller.

Why would I make unnecessarily large image? I can't think any reason.

Now if something with C:\ goes wrong I don't have to care about my programs.

You must really like wasting your time with restores and program installs.

On the contrary, if something ****s up I just restore an image and don't have to install anything again.

[CrispCreations]

What are you talking about? If you format and reinstall Windows, all programs have to be reinstalled no matter where they were originally placed.

Er, which is the point I was making. Perhaps it wasn't very clear? I was pointing out the futility of installing elsewhere with ref to it's irrelevance here as well. Glad you agree (Y)