# Couple of Quick Computer Questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2004, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644 "2004-02-17T12:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644/1 "2004-02-17T12:04:20Z")
My computer takes about 4 times or longer to shut down thatn it used to when i first bought it. Sometin\mes it takes longer to shut down, then to boot up. I’m running XP, and I am referring to the “windows is shutting down” screen. What’s slowing it up? I don’t run that much more than I used to. Also, although I didn’t change any settings myself, my temporary internet files only store links and not actual files anymore. I did run windows updater. How do I fix these problems? ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644/2 "2004-02-17T12:32:00Z")
Wasn’t there some sort of known issue on WinXP hanging on shutdown. I think there’s a patch…hang on, I’ll run to Google… Is [this](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810903) it? Then there is [this conflict](http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_restart.htm) if you’re running Roxio’s EZ CD creator. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644/3 "2004-02-17T21:30:36Z")
neither of those apply. My computer does shut down, but it takes a lot longer. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644/4 "2004-02-17T21:45:39Z")
A very common explanation for computer behavior changing/slowing over time is that a lot of naive users let an immense number of programs install themselves to run at start up. Almost all of these are useless or worse. Plus you get malware, viruses and such. Find out _everything_ that runs on your pc and stop it from automatically starting up at boot time unless you absolutely need it every single time. Note that a lot of Norton prgrams do this and you really, really don’t want them hogging the computer all the time. Just because the company says “Oh, you really need to run our program 24/7.” doesn’t mean you should trust them. Run anti-virus scans, adaware, spybot search-and-destroy, etc. Uninstall Realmedia. I worked on one of my kid’s old bosses laptop last summer. He had dozens of crap programs running at boot time. I don’t see how he could use the laptop at all. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644/5 "2004-02-17T22:06:44Z")
I did that months ago. I have a program called cleantray which gets rid of all that crap. I’m only running the essentials. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couple-of-quick-computer-questions/229644/6 "2004-02-17T23:03:40Z")
May not be related to your problem but I experienced very long startup and shutdown delays (on WinXP Home) due to spurious hidden entries in device management; these entries had appeared due to repeated detection of a piece of hardware as being a new device; removing the spurious entries incidentally solved the delay problem. Here’s the advice I was given on removing the entries; use with great caution though: > [@](#): > > Try this: > Click Start/Run/CMD > At the prompt type: > SET DEVMGR\_SHOW\_NONPRESENT\_DEVICES=1 > START DEVMGMT.MSC > When Device manager loads - click View/Show hidden devices > Delete all\* entries - reboot and let Windows install the driver. \*in your case though, ‘all’ would mean ‘any entries that appear to be redundant duplicates’.