How do I rid my pc of too many items? I was told I have too many for a good boot up. Mine is slow.?

Question

My pc boots up too slow and I need to clean it out. I did all the things I thought was necessary like disk scan, defrag and deleting cookies. What else can I do and be safe? I did a recovery too and now I am receiving spam email. Help

Answer 1

If your virus/spyware free, there are a couple things you can do get your computer working faster. If you using your computer for normal stuff and not gaming. You don't always need more RAM you just need to perform a few maintenance task.

First, if you haven't cleaned your registry in a while. This is necessary. Your registry holds all the information regarding updates, installs, un-installs etc. Each one of those events produces a key. That key needs your PC's resources and free space. So, if you clean your registry, you make more resources available for speed. Do a registry scan if you got more than 20 errors you should clean it.
http://www.delete-computer-history.com/what-is-the-best-registry-cleaner.html

2. Clear your Windows cache files, this is your temporary file. It can grow up to a large volume and stop your computer from using RAM properly. In a sense slow it down by preventing it from using free space.Here is how:

1. Quit Internet Explorer, Firefox, or any other web browser
2. Click Start, click "Control Panel", and then double-click "Internet Options".
3. On the General tab, click "Delete Files" under Temporary Internet Files.
4. In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the "Delete all offline content" check box , and then click OK.
5. Click OK.

3. Manage your startups. Your excess CPU usage is due to too many programs running in the background. You can cut these to barebones by alter your msconfig. Here is how:

1. Open your Start menu.
2. Click Run
3. In the command screen type "msconfig.exe"
4. In the "system configuration utility",click either "service" or "startup" tab
5. Uncheck all programs that your are no longer using.
6. Click "OK"

Other great tip is increasing your virtual memory to simulate more RAM. This will give you a bit more resources for multiple program use or CPU heavy programs.
Hope this link helps. Shows you how to do everything step by step. You should get a least 60-120% more resources and speed
if you follow the tips.

Answer 2

To control what starts with Windows:

Click Start and then Run. (Vista – Start>All Programs>Accessories>Run). In the run box, type "msconfig" without the quotes and then hit "Enter". This will open the System Configuration Utility. Click the "Startup" tab. Now remove the check mark from any and all programs that you do not want to start or "boot" with Windows. Now click apply and then click OK.

You will need to restart your system. When the system starts you will see a box stating that you used the Config. utility, put a check in "Don't show this box at startup".

That should do it.

Do not remove any check marks from your security software. You want it to load with your operating system.

Answer 3

1- Press, ctrl, shift and escape.
2- Click 'processes'. I have 32 processes running and my computer is pretty smooth. You can look at the CPU usage for each process and see which one is responsible for draining your resources.
3- Click 'applications', click 'new task' and type "msconfig", press enter/return.
4- Click 'startup' and uncheck any things that you don;t need (this process is reversible so don;t worry, just make a note of any changes you make).
5- click 'ok' and restart you computer.

Answer 4

Prevent any programs from starting automatically that you do not want to start by going to start > run > msconfig > system start and unchecking the ones that you do not want to load on boot.

Then download, install, and use the free program ccleaner. Pay special attention to the registry and have ccleaner clean it.
http://www.ccleaner.com/

If that fails to fix the problem follow the directions in the following link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,101782/article.html

Answer 5

if you have alot of processes running that can slow computer reponse.
if you enjoy your programs and such that you have running maybe you could go with a bigger ram chip.
get yourself two 512 mb, that should help you out alot...

Answer 6

start > run > msconfig > system start and uncheck the ones that you do not want to load on boot.

Answer 7

Autoruns: http://filehippo.com/download_autoruns/

This program has an option to hide "Signed Microsoft Entries" to let you easily narrow down to third party programs and is much less cryptic then msconfig

Screenshots:
http://filehippo.com/screenshot/autoruns/3076_1/
http://filehippo.com/screenshot/autoruns/3076_2/

It tells you process descriptions, the publisher, and where it is located on your hard drive.