Computer nerdy help please.

[Cate]

Pleeeease can someone help me before my laptop goes out the window and into freefall.

It keeps running slow, I have a router which acts as a firewall so the windows firewall is off, I also have AVG virus program which has always worked so well, there is a thing called Windows Defender... what is that, in the guff it talks all techy and I've no idea what it is on about!

I've run Spybot and that has cleared out a load of spyware which made an improvement but it is still glitching and pausing for ages.

I don't have loads of games or complicated programs, only the ones necessary to do normal stuff.

Can anyone advise me on that Defender thing and what else I could try to speed it up?  :?

Thanks in advance.

[littlepow]

What operating system are you running? (e.g. windows XP, Linux.)

[Cate]

XP

[Evilgoat]

See that big body of water not far from you ....

Run Windows update and get the patches and updates. Run Ad-Aware LE as well as spybot because they both miss things.

From start, go to run and type msconfig and then edit startup programs, anything in there you dont need or use, disable it. Do it in conjunction with google and check each item.

Anything by Norton/Symantec on there? Get rid of it if so?

In the startup, OSA and Findfast can go (if you have office) They make seconds difference.

Do a dig on Google and read up on how to disable the indexing service, this may help.

Check your diskspace an maybe do a defrag. Once the machine starts to get insanely low on disk-space it'll start to slow. Also look at how much physical memory it has (RAM) for xp you really want at least 512 for a workstation.

It may also just be a slow pc.

Ric

[Cate]

Ok, got rid of OSA and Nokia PC sync on startup,
did a clean up and defrag last night anyway,
have got 192mb of RAM (obviously nowhere near enough)
Windows updates run automatically,
had symntec on my last pc, wouldn't touch the burgers with a bargepole now!
Ive found Ad-aware SE, but no LE, is it the same?
Whats the indexing service?
Do I need windows defender?...edited to say.... its an anti spyware program, doesnt seem much good if spybot found loads!

Many thanks for helps....just don't get too technical!  :D

[Horness]

Also - download McAfee Stinger from here.

It's not an installed app, just a program you run when needed.  It will check your system for specific viruses, as to be honest, AVG is not that good (although you may be lucky - depends where you surf).  As far as "free" stuff goes, it gets by.  You get what you pay for.

AdAware SE (presume "Personal" edition) is the current free one from Lavasoft.  It will not do real-time protection against spyware (you need to buy SE Plus for that), but make sure it's up-to-date, run it, clean/delete anything it finds, reboot, run it again, etc. until it finds nothing.

Memory could well be a killer, especially with Office and any recent Windows updates (like IE7).  Even with all this cleaned up, buying additional memory will really help.  512Mb minimum these days for the bloated apps people run.

Windows Defender is the real-time spyware protection from Microsoft.  On some systems it actually does more harm than good (in terms of speed).  Again, if it's not up-to-date, then it will not work effectively.

Indexing service creates a database index of all files on your system when the system is idle. Unless you do frequent searches, you may as well disable this service.
To disable Indexing service, open Administrative Tools from the Control Panel, select Services and Applications, double click Services, and find the Indexing Service. Double click to bring up the Properties window, and click Stop to let Windows stop the service. Then from the Status type drop down box select Disabled.

Hope that helps.

[Cate]

Brilliant, thanks mate, all understandable too!  :D  Indexing is now disabled, updates underway, adaware on the menu for tomorrow, will talk to my local computer shop re memory.

[paul_humphreys]

Go to http://www.crucial.com/uk/ for more ram.

Paul

[strapping young lad]

tbh the way ive found easiest when my pc runs like a dog is to backup essentials only (my docs and faves) then format and start again

those apps you thought useful months ago are still there dragging their heels

it always feels quicker after a reinstall plus it gives you an excuse to re-evaluate what you really need on your pc

[Cate]

Just to say thanks to everyone who helped, ran scans, downloaded stuff, cleared out loads of rubbish, defragged, ran scans, ran scans again, all running much faster now, but I will be going to get some more memory. Wonder if they can do memory for people too, my memory is hopeless........ what was I saying? who am I?

[Horness]

Glad everything turned out OK.  After re-reading my reply, I forgot to mention CCleaner which is handy for cleaning out temp files and browser history to keep things running smoothly.

Good luck with the memory.