Anchor on my computer

[dikfor]

Recently computer is verrrrry slow when it boots up (almost 5 minutes) and shut down is almost as bad. I have done the obvious...cleared temp files, eliminated cookies...ect. I suspect too many programs are on the start-up. How do I reduce these and still use them when needed? When it is "up" (hehehe), it runs fine. Any thing else I should do?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[tboy]

Yup, reducing the amount of programs being loaded at startup will speed things up immensely. Just be careful what you uninstall, some of the apps are required for the OS to work properly.

You might also want to try a system optimizer/cleaner. Another reason for a slow startup could be a lot of garbage in your registry. If you've loaded and unloaded a lot of programs you most likely will have a lot of dead links etc. in there.

 

[bobistheowl]

1) On startup, before opening any Windows, do Ctrl + Alt + Del to open the Task Manager. Go to the Processes tab, and look at which apps are running. If any of them look unusual, use Search to find out where they're located, and when they were last modified. Right-click -> Properties may tell you more about them. You can manually close processes in the Task Manager. You can't delete or remove an app, if it's currently running. Check the amount of CPU usage, to see if your resources are being used up by malware.

2) Go to the Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs. See if there are installed programs,(apps), of which you are unaware or unfamiliar. Look into them, and uninstall, if necessary.

3)In My Computer, right-click your hard disk, and chose Properties -> Tools. Do the defrag analysis to see if you need to defragment.

Start with these three tasks, then try any other suggestions later in the thread.

 

[Preferred]

Press the start button and go to Run. Enter msconfig and press OK. On the right side of the window that opened will be Startup. Uncheck the programs that you do not need. But be careful here.

There are numerous free programs that will do this for you. Check at Download.com

Last but not least check for viruses and spyware/adware. Spybot Search & Destroy is free.

 

[canucklehead]

You may have a mailer too ...... the new Sober loads at start and runs its own SMTP server sending mail to anyone and everyone in your address book.