My main computer is starting to perform slower and slower. I have run spybot and adaware and that helped marginally. When I do msconfig it shows about 25 startup programs listed. I unchecked any that didn’t sound important and that helped alot. My question is, do I really need anything on startup? Can I just check “disable all.” without hurting anything? Also, now when I restart it pops up messages about starting in safe mode. Should I get rid of this, and if yes, how do I do it?
I would like to know WTH is going on too. My machine is slower and seems to get very busy for no reason - I mean I hear my hard drive buzzin’ like it is trying to load or open or start a program
TTT
That pop-up message can be disabled by checking the box that appears with it saying “Do not show this message next time” or equivalent. Alternatively, using msconfig just set everything back to the way it was then use regedit to delete the entries that you saw in msconfig. I do not now the exact regedit ‘address’ but it should be around:
hkey_local_machine -> software -> microsoft -> windows -> CurrentVersion -> Run
I use Win2k. The registry address might be different for other flavours of windows
Delete any keys that you don’t need from that position in your registry. This way that annoying pop up window won’t pop up anymore because you theoretically didn’t change anything in msconfig.
fragmented hard drive
This could be another reason why your computer feels like it’s getting slower and slower. If the HDD light at the front of your computer case is regularly flickering on and off even when doing the simplest of tasks, then this is a likely problem. To fix, defrag your HDD. (sorry if this sounds rather basic and condescending, I’m not sure of your level of computer proficiency)
DLL files and other unnecessary drivers being loaded
As you install and uninstall programs, these programs often leave behind files that are no longer needed but are still loaded into memory (or something to that effect). To fix it, reinstall windows :(, try to delete the files you think are unnecessary and are yet being loaded (risky - proceed at your own risk), or switch to a more stable OS.
G’luck
Your computer is suffering from Cruft*.
Sounds about Cruft Force 5 to me.
*Caution, contains techy humour from the legendary Verity Stobb.
I admit I haven’t defragged lately, but am using XP and thought that NTFS didn’t really need to be defragged. I will try it.
Is there any program that needs to run on startup. I have disabled most of them, and don’t seem to have any ill effects. I am thinking of just disabling them all. Will this cause me any problems?
Once I stopped the computer from starting up 50 programs on startup everything is working much better. I figure disabling them all will really help out.
Check out “Karens Power Tools” @ <karenware.com>
One of them shows all programs running in background.
When in doubt - defrag!
“Beware of the Cog”
I’ve had good success lately by deleting temporary internet files and cookies
Here is an an exhaustive list of over 3800 common start-up programs. Here is the key to which can be removed safely:
Please forgive me for jumping into your thread dauerbach, but since you have gathered the people here already…
Thanks Dopers!
I always delete the temporary internet files, have deleted the cookies, and defraged the hard drive. — Moving on to the startup stuff.