Computer advice please

My computer is running slowly. It takes excessive time to do tasks that it originally did faster.

It also takes several minutes to shut down.

The operating system is XP and so I ran the Defrag but this has not made much difference.

The XP programme MsMpEng.exe, which according to Google, is a Microsoft programme that protects against spyware and trojans, runs for several minutes when I start the internet.

I also have Norton anti virus and the free version of the Sygate Personal Firewall.

I downloaded the free version of "Uniblue Registry Booster". It did a scan and found 698 faults in the registry.

It repaired 15 of them, but wants me to pay for the full version before it will do the rest.

I'm dubious about repairing the registry as I've heard comments that registry cleaners should be treated with caution.

Some years ago, I did some manual registry cleaning, but it was time consuming and potentially dangerous for my level of knowledge. I'm not a novice, but I'm certainly not an expert.

Any advice will be appreciated.

about 85% of the time, having multiple spyware systems can drastically slow down your computer. I would only have 1 spyware system working. DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR DELETE NORTON ANTIVIRUS!!! When you unstall it, every single program will error and mess up. Just disable it and make sure it doesnt run. Also go to your system programs using control alt delete. Make sure there are no background programs running. That should help.

Back your stuff up, and reformat.

I downloaded the free version of "Uniblue Registry Booster". It did a scan and found 698 faults in the registry.
It repaired 15 of them, but wants me to pay for the full version before it will do the rest

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Be VERY careful with these limited trial versions. A lot of things in the registry are interdependent and a partial "clean" can be worse than none at all. Backup your registry before running ANY cleaner programs.

I also have Norton anti virus and the free version of the Sygate Personal Firewall.

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I canned Norton years ago because it became a resource hog. Is it any better now?
How much stuff do you have running in the tray (next to the clock)? I find that many installers try to place stuff there so read the install procedure carefully when installing. If it puts something there, it's best to route it out ASAP because these little useless aps will eat up CPU time also.
A neat program is called WhatsRunning which will give you a better/easier description of whats running on your computer than CRTL-ALT-DEL

Krumlink said:

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!

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Here's a matching avatar for you:

hi Len,
Have you tried 'System Restore' to a time previous to the problem?

A good freebie is 'Advanced Windows Care V2, Personal'

There are other programs that claim to speed up boot/off times?

Eric

ljcox said:

The XP programme MsMpEng.exe, which according to Google, is a Microsoft programme that protects against spyware and trojans, runs for several minutes when I start the internet.

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Yes, it is the Microsoft "Windows Defender" anti-spyware/malware program and according to various forums it uses a lot cpu resources for very little gain.

You could uninstall it and download some free anti-spyware programs such as "Spybot search and destroy" and Adaware (free version) and update and run them regularly.

Also a good idea to install a software firewall such as ZoneAlarm (free version) and replace the resource hungry Norton with a free anti-virus program such as AVG antivirus or Avast.

Registry scanning programs such as the one you used, usually claim to find many registry errors and different registry scanning programs find different errors, some even find more errors every time you run them!

The only one recently that I found to be reasonably ok was CCleaner (free).
Use extreme caution with running any such program to ensure it only removes unwanted stuff - always back up your data first!!!

If you have been using the same install of XP for several years and you notice more and more issues with general use, then maybe it is time to back up your data, download all the required drivers, program install files, servicepacks etc to a separate drive and do a clean re-install.

Thank you all for the advice.

After reading the suggestions, I have decided to take the computer to an expert - it is beyond the limit of my computer knowledge.

picasm said:

If you have been using the same install of XP for several years and you notice more and more issues with general use, then maybe it is time to back up your data, download all the required drivers, program install files, servicepacks etc to a separate drive and do a clean re-install.

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Thats what I can say too.I used to install a clean copy of windows for every 6 months but this also too long

@ ijcox
How many HD in your PC?
& how they are partitioned? Also there is a latest SATA HD series which is reducing their rated RPM from few months than earlier IDE HD series.

picasm said:

Yes, it is the Microsoft "Windows Defender" anti-spyware/malware program and according to various forums it uses a lot cpu resources for very little gain.

You could uninstall it and download some free anti-spyware programs such as "Spybot search and destroy" and Adaware (free version) and update and run them regularly.

Also a good idea to install a software firewall such as ZoneAlarm (free version) and replace the resource hungry Norton with a free anti-virus program such as AVG antivirus or Avast.

Registry scanning programs such as the one you used, usually claim to find many registry errors and different registry scanning programs find different errors, some even find more errors every time you run them!

The only one recently that I found to be reasonably ok was CCleaner (free).
Use extreme caution with running any such program to ensure it only removes unwanted stuff - always back up your data first!!!

If you have been using the same install of XP for several years and you notice more and more issues with general use, then maybe it is time to back up your data, download all the required drivers, program install files, servicepacks etc to a separate drive and do a clean re-install.

Click to expand...

hi picasm,
>> If you have been using the same install of XP for several years and you notice more and more issues with general use, then maybe it is time to back up your data, download all the required drivers, program install files, servicepacks etc to a separate drive and do a clean re-install.

I use a freeware program called 'Driver Grabber', it gets all the drivers that are installed in the PC and puts a copy of them into a folder.

Copy the folder onto a CD/DVD, use it during re-install.
During re-install I find its quicker to copy the CD/DVD back to the hard drive and point Windows to the folder.

I used the 'slip stream' method, described on this forum some weeks ago, to make a combined disk of XP and the SP's
Eric

ericgibbs said:

I used the 'slip stream' method, described on this forum some weeks ago, to make a combined disk of XP and the SP's
Eric

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I had to do a re-install a few months ago and used "nlite" to slipstream the service packs plus all the critical hotfixes.
It also allows quite a lot of tweaking - removing unwanted programs and pre-setting of custom config options etc.

I downloaded all the hotfixes to use with nlite using a cut-down version of a script from https://smithii.com/slipstream_xpsp2.

It all worked quite well, pre-patched all the hotfixes into the install, saving a lot of time and disc space.
I had a problem with trying to slipstream my video drivers which caused a freeze during boot. I made a second attempt disc without them and it fixed it.

The only other problem I had was an annoying WFP/SFC popup message (windows file protection) which I eventually fixed, but has now been sorted in the latest beta version of nLite (v1.4)

picasm,
Now downloaded nlite and your link info,,,, ready for next re-install.
Thanks

Just install Linux on it.

So what you can't play some silly games and you'll have to find alternatives for some of your other software but at least you won't have the inconvenience of having to reinstall everything every six months.

My Pentium4 2.93GHz pc is nearly 2 years old and works perfectly. I had Norton Anti-virus for 1 year but now I have the free Avira anti-virus software scanning once per day. I also have Webroot SpySweeper which finds all kinds of bad stuff and gets rid of them.

I'll have to look up that drive grabber program, though I do tend to take PC re-formats as a good opportunity to update all drivers.

Sceadwian said:

I'll have to look up that drive grabber program, though I do tend to take PC re-formats as a good opportunity to update all drivers.

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hi,
Its at www.majorgeeks.com.

Its handy for those 'on board' drivers that come with E-machines, etc.

Download also the Segate hard drive wizard, the version that makes a clone of an existing hardrive.
I have found it easier to have a spare 40/80gB hard drive, use that as a master, install XP etc and all your most used programs/drivers.... Then do a clone of the drive to the 'old' reformatted drive, which is then used as the normal C: drive.

Keep the 40/80gB on the shelf until the next time you have to re-install and just clone it.

audioguru said:

My Pentium4 2.93GHz pc is nearly 2 years old and works perfectly. I had Norton Anti-virus for 1 year but now I have the free Avira anti-virus software scanning once per day. I also have Webroot SpySweeper which finds all kinds of bad stuff and gets rid of them.

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I have a Pentium 1.8GHz machine, it runs flawlessly under Mandriva Linux, it gets scanned for viruses zero times a day and I don't have to wait for ages for applications to load, the only time I reformat is when I feel like a change of Linux distribution and even then I've got several partitions set up so I don't have to bother backing up my files.

Hero999 said:

I have a Pentium 1.8GHz machine, it runs flawlessly under Mandriva Linux, it gets scanned for viruses zero times a day and I don't have to wait for ages for applications to load, the only time I reformat is when I feel like a change of Linux distribution and even then I've got several partitions set up so I don't have to bother backing up my files.

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So you consider Linux 100% virus free then?, rather a "couldn't care less attitude" - historically the worlds most successful virus attacks have been achieved under Unix!.

I know that but in reality Linux is virtually virus free, I don't know how many webservers that run it and very few are compromised.

I suppose there could be a root venerability or I could download a Trojan in the false belief that it's useful software (far more likely than the former) which shouldn't happen as I'm normally careful with what I download. Hell, I even ran Windows without a virus checker for over a year and only got a virus because I installed a Trojan that was disguised as a Windows theme.

I'd rather run my computer at full speed under Linux rather than crippled by a memory resident virus scanner running on a bloated operating system. Maybe I'll encounter a virus once every 5 years rather than put up with the pathetic poor performance of Windows. Even if I do get a virus, it's no big deal, I can easily reinstall the OS and as I've got my files save on another partition it won't matter.

Also virus scanners don't offer that much protection, the idea that they do is a total myth that's only been propagated by anti-virus software companies. This is because the virus has already infected possibly millions of PCs before it's caught, analysed and updates have been made for the anti-virus software you're using.

Hero999 said:

I know that but in reality Linux is virtually virus free, I don't know how many webservers that run it and very few are compromised.

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A webserver running on a Windows machine (and there are plenty of those) wouldn't catch a virus either - that's NOT how you catch them. To catch them you have to run an infected program, and doing so under Linux would be no different than doing so under Windows.

I doubt Linux's 'virtually virus free' status, but many Linux based machines aren't at risk - because they are running servers etc. Another obvious advantage is that Linux users (on average) are probably far more 'geeky', and have more sense about what they do or don't run. Plus Windows is an easier target - many more machines out there, mostly in the hands of computer novices.

Nigel Goodwin said:

A webserver running on a Windows machine (and there are plenty of those) wouldn't catch a virus either - that's NOT how you catch them.

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You're right, I suppose server security and desktop security are two different issues.

To catch them you have to run an infected program, and doing so under Linux would be no different than doing so under Windows.

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No it isn't the same, because under Linux you use a normal user account which doesn't give the malware enough privilages to infect the system. Under Windows you need to run as admin for most of the time because lots of sofware won't run as a normal user. They've supposidly sorted this out in Windows Vista but I'm not overly familiar with it and I've heard that Vista has other problems involving drivers and it's just so bloated, the minimum hardware requirements are totally silly. I've tried running Windows as a restricted user and it works but I'd rather just use Linux, it's much easier.

I doubt Linux's 'virtually virus free' status, but many Linux based machines aren't at risk - because they are running servers etc. Another obvious advantage is that Linux users (on average) are probably far more 'geeky', and have more sense about what they do or don't run. Plus Windows is an easier target - many more machines out there, mostly in the hands of computer novices.

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Al lot of what you say is true to some extent. However there are ways to get a virus under Windows with minimal user intervention for example an ActiveX control on a web page can automatically download malware onto your machine and infect you and a bad macro in MS Office or even OpenOffice.org can have a similar effect. True, MS have partially solved these issues with the indrodcution of IE 7 and Vista but not without introducing a whole load of other problems.

Here's a good article that explains why Windows is so bad.
https://www.itwriting.com/winvandals.php

They could sort out the security problems and probably will with the introduction of Windows Vienna in 2012 or so but I'd rather not have to upgrade to a 64-bit 4GHz machine with 100GB of disk space, a 1GB graphics card and 4GB of RAM and have to put up with all the DRM software bundled with it.