as in it takes literally 30 to 2 minutes seconds to click between tabs in chrome for example.

i know this is a vague question... is there any software solutions for crap like this (i can't upgrade any hardware... work computer.)

10/24/2012 10:54:58 AM

Quote :

"2 MINUTES SECONDS"

10/24/2012 11:03:43 AM

There's all sorts of good advice here:

message_search.aspx?type=topic§ion=3&searchstring=slow

[Edited on October 24, 2012 at 11:14 AM. Reason : and no, MORE software isn't going to fix this. LESS will]

10/24/2012 11:14:05 AM

Aren't you still running windows XP?

10/24/2012 11:23:00 AM

open the command prompt, type in "format c:" (no quotes)

10/24/2012 11:52:04 AM

yes sorry for my VERY vague original post... my laptop was going very slowly and i was late for a meeting (I was only a few minutes seconds late though.)

yeah this work laptop is running XP. I talked to the person I needed to talk to though and they might be able to swap out this one for a newer one that [supposedly] will work better.

10/24/2012 12:34:20 PM

cancel antivirus scan

[Edited on October 24, 2012 at 5:07 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2012 5:06:20 PM

upgrade the OS. reformat when you do it, and things will be fast again.

10/24/2012 5:35:28 PM

yeah, work has that antivirus scan on lockdown.

in addition the processor is like a 1 ghz dual core
and there is only 1 gig of memory

10/24/2012 6:19:47 PM

ccleaner any good? I downloaded it and ran it and it looks like it is working a bit better now.

10/24/2012 6:33:15 PM

It is deffo good

10/24/2012 6:50:14 PM

Telling a person they need to upgrade simply because they are using XP is just stupid. Just throwing that out there. I'm guessing this is primarily a Email/Office/Browser machine. Your suggestion is akin to replacing the engine on a car that just needs an oil change or tune-up.

C-Cleaner is a good utility to clean out a bunch of old bloat that might slow you down.
You might also try anti-spyware programs such as "Spybot Search and Destroy" or "MalawareBytes". No matter what OS you have, bloat will always build up, though some OS are better than others at handling it.

Also, as per your antivirus scan, you may have some options. Here at work I am required to have OfficeScan installed. It runs every Monday at around 12 and takes 1+ hours on my machine. I am not allowed to stop it (though that hasn't stopped me before ). I can, however, right-click it in the tray and select "Scheduled Scan Advanced Settings". Using this option, I can tell the scan to pause and resume 5 hours later.

10/25/2012 10:23:23 AM

Quote :

"Telling a person they need to upgrade simply because they are using XP is just stupid. Just throwing that out there. I'm guessing this is primarily a Email/Office/Browser machine. Your suggestion is akin to replacing the engine on a car that just needs an oil change or tune-up."

Not really...it's a 10 year old OS. Windows 7 is less resource intensive and boots way faster than XP. Though this is a work computer so it's not like he had a choice in this department.

Quote :

"and there is only 1 gig of memory"

Double that (at least) and you'll definitely see a difference. Memory is cheap. Processor is fine.


This is probably the most significant thing you can do: http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/index.html

Remove nearly all the check marks there..except antivirus and any other truly essential programs that need to be running all the time. (most of it can go)

10/25/2012 11:39:59 AM

^As you stated, it a work computer so he likely doesn't have a choice in the matter. Granted perhaps IT is allowed to upgrade, so I'm not going to harp on that.

The main reason its dumb is that the symptoms he described are wildly off for almost any OS. He has/had something bad on the machine. Actually, a quick note that could be related to the OS. Smath74, you might also try disabling the "Windows Search" service if its running. Microsoft did something with that service in an SP that caused major issues that they never fixed.

But back onto the 'dumb' comment, reformatting and installing almost any OS will make it fast again, but is a terrible general solution any time you run slow. Noen's solution would look like it worked if Windows 98 was installed.

As another car-related analogy, its like saying your car is sputtering and you want to fix it and people telling you to just buy a new car.

[Edited on October 25, 2012 at 12:15 PM. Reason : ]

10/25/2012 12:13:53 PM

I prefer using this little program to manage startup entries: http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

10/25/2012 12:20:45 PM

How's that better than msconfig?

10/25/2012 12:25:39 PM

It looks into more places where "startup" entries can lurk, and it doesn't allow you to accidentally remove system services the way MSCONFIG does.

10/25/2012 1:21:47 PM

thank you folks for all the help... It's hard to fix problems on the laptop when there are only so many things you can do to it. I looked for every setting to disable the virus scan, but it happens right at noon every single day (right in the middle of my planning period exactly when I need to use the computer!)

10/25/2012 7:28:20 PM

What AV program is on the computer?

10/25/2012 8:09:57 PM

- msconfig
- regedit to \hkey local users blah blah current version\run and see what crap is in there
- control panel add/remove programs to get rid of crap like google toolbar
- start menu, Startup, remove crap

though lots of those could be restricted because of Administrator only access

or install something like MBAM and run a scan, nothing should run that slow even with XP and 1 GB of RAM, probably have some kind of spy/bloat/trojan on there

10/25/2012 11:47:56 PM

wouldn't those daily system scans pick up a virus/trojan?

And I think it's some sort of Norton or Symantec product, but I could be wrong... I will check tomorrow at work.

[Edited on October 25, 2012 at 11:56 PM. Reason : ]

10/25/2012 11:49:53 PM

^it's useful to get a second opinion, and MalwareBytes is excellent at detecting stubborn malware

Quote :

"- regedit to \hkey local users blah blah current version\run and see what crap is in there - control panel add/remove programs to get rid of crap like google toolbar - start menu, Startup, remove crap"

For the first and third ones, the StartupCPL I linked to is a much safer and easier way to deal with those sources of potentially unwanted startup entries, and for the second, CCleaner's own add/remove programs feature (under Tools) is much faster than the one native to XP, which takes ages to fully load (although "Programs and Features" in Vista and later is almost as fast as CCleaner).

[Edited on October 26, 2012 at 12:20 AM. Reason : also whatever malware you have could be successfully evading your current AV

10/26/2012 12:19:36 AM

I have "Symantec Endpoint Protection"

10/29/2012 12:12:24 PM

also, does anyone know what program has this icon in the taskbar...



all it ever says is "Trying to locate"

10/29/2012 12:15:09 PM

Quote :

"But back onto the 'dumb' comment, reformatting and installing almost any OS will make it fast again, but is a terrible general solution any time you run slow. Noen's solution would look like it worked if Windows 98 was installed. "

Windows XP is no longer supported by much of anything, its a magnet for viruses and Trojans, its not a secure or safe operating system anymore. The reason he should upgrade is three-fold.

First, because it will eliminate the problem he is having and that problem will not return.
Second, because it will save him more time in the long run because he will continue to run into these problems and spot fixing them takes forever.
Third, if he moves to Win7 or Win8 he can use the Microsoft security essentials suite and not have to worry about handing Symantec money every year, or worry about using an OS without active virus protection.

This is not a dumb answer. It's time to move on from XP

10/29/2012 12:51:16 PM

^I agree 100% about moving to windows 7. I would if I was allowed to, but since it's property of work, i can't even turn off the ridiculous virus scans during the middle of my productive time.

10/29/2012 1:57:59 PM

And once again ^ is why ^^ is a dumb response. He stated it is a work computer in the original post. IT departments are notorious for lagging behind and mandating certain setups on users. Telling a person to upgrade a mandated OS is . . . what is this, I don't even...

He's also on a computer message board. If he was looking for a response like Noen's, he'd instead be looking for info from some "geek" squad sales associate with an entire 9 hours of training under their belt.

And I'm probably just riled up because I just sat through yet another hour long Microsoft demo (VS 2012 "Quality Coding") and as usual only half of it worked, though the guy did get in a few marketing pitches for Windows 8.

10/29/2012 4:19:16 PM

http://www.maxmyspeed.com

10/29/2012 4:46:23 PM

^^ the he needs to go dump that shit on his IT department and stop wasting his own time, as well as our time on troubleshooting a shitty configuration.

If you can't even configure the virus scanner (and likely don't have admin rights on the machine) there's not going to be shit we can do to fix it anyway.

Would love to know what "half" of the shit you saw a demo on didn't work. I work on visual studio, so if something doesn't work, we need to know so we can fix/improve it. You can also provide your feedback on the VS user voice site.

[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 4:56 PM. Reason : ,]

10/29/2012 4:55:04 PM

-His normal demo machine "had issues" so he was using a last minute replacement computer . . . which ended up having the same issues. Something related to the network and being unable to properly connect across the network (or so the story goes).

-The slides had a few spelling and grammar issues. So not as much a functional issue as a "threw this together this morning" feel to it.

-The screen would lock up for 5 minutes at a time where we couldn't actually view what was happening in the demo. According to him, this was "a livemeeting bug related specifically to Windows 8". Not a Windows 8 bug, a livemeeting bug. Granted, that very much could be true, but if he knew about it, how about doing all your demos with Windows 7?

Its par for the course though. Earlier in the year, I watched an MTM demo where the guy couldn't get the test to properly run and ended it with "well, you get the idea". Then our boss had us sit through another, where the guy had similar issues but did manage to fix it after 5 minutes.

---

Off topic, but rabble rabble rabble indeed.

[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 5:19 PM. Reason : ]

10/29/2012 5:19:21 PM