2007-03-02 23:27:06 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Security
Just follow these tips and you will definitely have a much faster and more reliable PC!
1. Wallpapers: They slow your whole system down, so if you're willing to compromise, have a basic plain one instead!
2. Minimizing: If you want to use several programs at the same time then minimize those you are not using. This helps reduce the overload on RAM.
3. Boot Faster: The 'starting Windows 9x , xp' message on startup can delay your booting for a couple of seconds. To get rid of this message go to c:\ and find the file Msdos.sys. Remove the Read-Only option. Next, open it in Notepad or any other text editor. Finally, go to the text 'Options' within the file and make the following changes: Add BootDelay=0. To make your booting even faster, set add Logo=0 to remove the Windows logo at startup.
4. Restart only Windows: When restarting your PC, hold down Shift to only restart Windows rather than the whole system which will only take a fraction of the time.
5. Turn Off Animations: Go to Display Settings from the Control Panel and switch to the Effects Tab. Now turn off Show Windows Content While Dragging and Smooth Edges on Screen Fonts. This tip is also helpful with Windows XP because of the various fade/scroll effects.
6. Resolutions: If you are willing to do anything for faster performance from your PC, then try lowering your display resolution. The lower it is, the faster your PC
7. Start Up Programs: Windows can be slowed down when programs run on start up. To eliminate this, check your Start up folder. You can access it from the start menu: Start, Programs, Start Up. Another way to eliminate programs from loading even before Windows actually starts is by doing the following: Click on Start, then Run. Type msconfig. It will take quite a long time for this program to load, but when you finally see it on your screen, explore the different tabs. They all have to do with how quickly your PC boots, so select what you want, and uncheck what you don't want!
8. Fonts: When Windows starts, it loads every single font in the Fonts folder. Therefore, the more fonts you have, the slower the booting process. To get rid of unwanted fonts, simply go to the Fonts folder under c:\windows and remove whatever you don't want. Fonts that have a red letter 'A' as their icon are system fonts, so don't delete them
OR you can try out the software Ram Booster Expert, its good....
2007-03-02 23:44:37 · answer #1 · answered by jshreyasi 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Before you einstall, try this free program to see if your PC is infected with spyware. Spyware will slow it down.
Spybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware, a relatively new kind of threat not yet covered by common anti-virus applications. Spyware silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven't intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been "hijacked" (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don't see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free.
http://www.spybot.info/
http://superantispyware.com/
SUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!
Easily remove over 100,000 pests such as SmitFraud, Vundo, WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, WinAntiVirus, AntiVermins and thousands more!
2007-03-03 01:00:19 · answer #2 · answered by G 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No,reinstall is too afflictive!!!Do you want to reinstall everything every month or every week?
In fact, using registry cleaner can fix your pc and then make your pc faster,Why?the reason is that there are some regsitry errors in your PC to cause "Computer slow".
Every time you install and uninstall software on your computer and surfing online you create junk in the pc registry.You need to scan and clean your PC with registry cleaner to make it fast.Good Regisry Cleaner will improve your PC and Internet performance dramatically.It even can speed up your PC by 300% or more!
There are some comparisons and reviews of TOP 5 registry cleaners.
http://www.registry-Cleaners.info
You can download and scan your PC for free.
2007-03-04 21:21:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You don't need to reinstall everything. Your memory is most likely being used up by programs running unnecessarily. Many programs are installed and set to run all the time without your knowledge or permission. Let's say you upgrade to the latest version of Acrobat Reader (8). If you choose its default settings, you will also be installing Google Desktop Search and Yahoo! toolbar (or something similar). But if you choose to do a custom install, you can opt out of the Google and Yahoo. But run the standard installation, and you'll soon have Google Desktop Search running whenever your computer is running, and have Yahoo! companion/toolbar... appear when you open Internet Explorer. Two examples of programs you don't necessarily need running.
The more programs you have running, the more memory you are using, and the slower your computer will run. To determine how much memory you have and how much you are using, press Ctrl Alt Delete or right-click on your taskbar and select Task Manager. Inside Task Manager, click the Performance tab at the top. Look at the second row of the black & green display. The box to the left called PF usage shows how much memory you are currently using (mine says 320 MB). Below that line and to the right you will see a box labeled Physical Memory, and the first line inside this box lists how much Total memory you have (mine says 1047276, or roughly 1 gigabyte). The closer the PF Usage number (above) gets to this Total memory number, the slower your computer will run. So, how do you fix it?
While inside the Task Manager and the Performance tab, look in the very lower left corner, and it will tell you how many processes you have running (mine says Processes: 59). This is the number you want to lower. "Processes" includes programs that you can see, such as Internet Explorer, iTunes, etc, and also includes some things that you can't see, such as "svchost.exe". Click the Processes tab to view the full list.
To reduce this number, look in a few places to see what programs are set to run when your computer starts. First place to check is your Startup folder (Start > All Programs > Startup). If there are any programs in there that you know you don't need (like Acrobat Reader Speed Launch), right-click on them and select Delete. If you don't know what an item is, look it up on Google and you can probably get a good idea of what it is, what it does, and whether or not you can delete it.
Next, look in your System Tray (lower right corner of your screen) to see what icons are listed. All these icons are for programs that are currently running. Hover your mouse over each item, one at a time, and see what it is. Again, if you don't recognize something, look it up on Google. If you think you can do without it, try disabling it. Most icons in the System Tray have a properties menu, that you can view by right-clicking on the icon. Most also have a "Settings" option or "Configure", something like that. See if you can get inside the settings for the program and tell it NOT to start automatically when your computer starts.
NOTE: Don't do this for programs that you don't recognize or that you couldn't find information for on the Internet. You may experience some undesirable results if you close down a program that needs to stay running.
The last thing you could do is to check your registry for items that start up, but I won't explain that here, as one wrong deletion can result in disaster for your computer. If after trying the previous steps, your computer is still slow, either consult someone who can help you to clean out your registry, or take it to a skilled repair person.
2007-03-03 01:13:19 · answer #4 · answered by ruralcomputersolutions 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No!
Check out the site below for computer maintenance and security issues.
You might need an online scan to get rid of any nasty parasites in your computer.
Go to the Useful Links part of the site and scroll down to free online virus & spyware scans.
Select Panda, and follow their instruction on the site.
When you're given the choice of the areas to scan on your computer, choose My Computer. Good Luck.
2007-03-03 11:12:54 · answer #5 · answered by borderline1311 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No of course not. There is no need to reinstall everything. Let's just clean it up a bit.
A clean computer is key to a faster computer. Run the 3 scans below.
Run a virus scan weekly.
Update and run your Anti-Virus program. Don't have one? You can run a free online scan from CA.
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virus...
Run Spybot and Adaware weekly.
Download, update and run Spybot---http://www.safer-networking.org/... . Don't forget to use the Immunize feature.
Download, update and run Adaware---http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaw...
Now to prevent spyware from being installed in the first place....
Download SpywareBlaster---http://majorgeeks.com/download2859.html
SpywareBlaster doesn't scan and clean for spyware - it prevents it from ever being installed.
It's main features include:
- Prevent the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted pests.
- Block spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox.
- Restrict the actions of potentially dangerous sites in Internet Explorer.
Now lets clean up your registry.
Run RegScrubXP weekly. Run Cleanup every time you log off.
Download RegScrubXP--http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?d...
Safely cleans junk out of the Windows 2000/XP system registry. All changes made to the registry are fully restorable to it's original condition. You can make an exclusion list of registry entries that RegScrubXP will not display as problems. You can sift through a list of file extensions, company names, run upon startup programs, Internet Explorer history, and uninstall programs to delete what you think is junk.
Download CleanUp---http://www.stevengould.org/software/clea...
Free disk space, make your computer run better/faster and protect your privacy - all in one easy solution. All for free!
Now lets clean up your disk.
Run a Disk Cleanup 2 times a month. Run Disk Defrag. monthly.
Do a Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag. You can find both of them by following the path below.
Start>all programs>accessories>system tools>Disk Cleanup. Let it do its thing. You can check every box that has something to delete.
Now follow the same path and do a Disk Defrag. Again just let it do its thing.
Now lets tweak your connection.
If your speed is good I would not mess with it by trying to tweak it. If you do tweak once it is done you should not have to do it every again.
There are many programs out there to do this. I will give you 2 of them.
The first one is TCP Optimizer.
Description: The TCP Optimizer is a free, easy Windows program that provides an intuitive interface for tuning and optimizing your Internet connection. There is no installation required, just download and run.
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php....
You can get support for the best way to set it up right from their forum http://forums.speedguide.net/
The second one is Cablenut.
Windows XP tested and approved
CableNut is a tool for optimizing your Internet Connection. We have provided a way to tweak any option you may want to in the adjuster. You can load "CableNut Custom Setting" files that are included with the program to tweak your Internet connection.
http://www.cablenut.com/
Again support is available right from their forum.http://www.broadbandnuts.com/index.php?p...
All programs are FREE!
After applying the suggestions above you will have a clean and faster computer. Enjoy.
2007-03-03 02:07:45 · answer #6 · answered by rlh242424 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
have you tried running any anti-spy programs ? maybe a virus scan ?
try that and ........how long has it been since you have cleared out your temporary internet files ?
2007-03-03 00:28:25 · answer #7 · answered by Douglas H 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋