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Hello. My name is Rowan Trollope, and I'm the Snr Vice President for Norton products. I'm in charge of defining and building all of the Norton products. I've been with Symantec since 1991. Back when I was still programming for a living, I was an engineer working on Norton Utilities. I worked on Diskedit, System doctor, and wrote Windows Doctor.
I'm very excited to see that this forum has been setup, and I plan to frequent the forum to interact with all of you.
One of the things I'm interested in right now is PC performance. I'd like to start a dialog with the technical experts in this forum to discuss how you help friends troubleshoot performance problems. I often get asked by friends to help make their computers faster. I have a standard "troubleshooting/diagnostic" routine that I go through, but I'm curious to see what procedure you use when you help friends try to speed up their PCs.
Post a reply to this thread and let me know what you do.
First thing, always, is to uninstall unnecessary software, or at least to remove it from startup. Then I defrag the hard drive… sometimes it boosts speed a bit. Cleaning up the system cache and setting a fixed virtual memory size (1.5 times the amount of RAM) to keep the file from growing too large. On older computers, turning off the visual effects can make a huge difference, as I witnessed with my dad’s old dell with a pentium III processor… While products like PC Booster, TuneUp Utilities, or Advanced WindowsCare work really well, I don’t really install them on other people’s computers because I can imagine someone accidentally changing a setting that renders their computer inoperable. I use them on mine though .
I usually remove any programs in the registry that is attached to the run key that I feel do not need to be running at all times
In order for a computer to be slowed down, there must be programs running to take up CPU cycles. My basic strategy is to stop unnecessary programs from running automatically. The first places I look at are the various Run keys in the registry. They're located at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER changes as you log into different Windows accounts. The HKLM Run key is a favorite for many applications to place themselves in so they start up automatically. Prebuilt computers, such as those from Dell and HP, usually come with preinstalled software. I find that most people do not care for their features and so I start removing them from the Run key. This speeds up their startup times because there is no longer a big brawl between applications for CPU time during startup. Msconfig is also a nice tool to see which programs are starting up in this way.
The second thing I do is download Process Explorer and take a look at what processes are currently running. If there are any suspicious processes running (e.g. djvxdegabv.exe), then I google the exe's file name and look for signs of malware. Any bad guys will be deleted.
This is just to stop programs from running when they're really not needed. Getting rid of the mechanism for automatic execution doesn't prevent such programs from being run at a later date at the user's discretion. It's probably a good idea to have the computer's user/owner nearby to tell you if he/she wants a program to be running or not. For friends and family who are not tech-savvy, I usually make the decision for them.
There's no question that it all starts with uninstalling unneeded programs. Everybody and their mother wants to install and establish a open up business next to the system clock. Seems like nearly every free program that is legit these days comes with an "offer" for a toolbar or widget of some kind that you miss in your excitement in hitting "next" to get the primary app installed. Running a virus scan is another part of SOP (when working on friends computers), as is clearing out internet cache and tmp files. Seems like this is the same protocol and very little has changed since I started doing this 15 years ago.
After that, I'm a big fan of autoruns (once available from the magnificant guys at Sysinternals, now offered from another group I'm less familiar with ) and ccleaner. I used to use SpyBot quite a bit, along with teatimer for my reg shield, but the notifications get annoying and I couldn't safely put it on anyone elses system without getting a call later that xyz program won't install. autoruns does a nice job of consolidating everything into a convenient location (run keys, browser helper objects, scheduled tasks, services, etc.) - it can be dangerous if your not careful, but that's what Google is for.
Those are my "essentials"
Mel
Hi,
Thanks for the great topic. I usually find the unneeded startup items and services. Software as a Service (SaaS) is now what most developers of software is taking advantage and I understand the need and advantage of it but there are some unneeded SaaS that I hope some developers will check out before plunging.
I'm using WinPatrol to handle this by reviewing the startup items, browser helpers, tasks, services, processes and many more. It allow users to view more info on the entry offline and online (for WinPatrol + customers).
Next is defragging the system using 3rd party tool. Windows Defrag is handy but not as powerful as 3rd party.
Simple....visit microsofts...onecare centre..
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/cleanup.htm (cleanup)
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/howsafe.htm (scan)
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/tuneup.htm (tuneup)
At first I uninstall all unnecassery prgrams. Than I delete all left folders and reg keys.
Also I have a regular look at my start up program to be sure nothing is in the way
Vejdin wrote:Here are the steps I follow to speed up a PC:
1. First of all, I must be sure if the system is virus free
2. Then I uninstall unneeded programs
3. Disable unneeded Windows services, if possible.
4. Cleanup any temporary files
5. Cleanup Windows registry
6. Defragmentation

Simple....visit microsofts...onecare centre..
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/cleanup.htm (cleanup)
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/howsafe.htm (scan)
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/tuneup.htm (tuneup)

Urrell wrote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Masis wrote:Simple....visit microsofts...onecare centre..
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/cleanup.htm (cleanup)
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/howsafe.htm (scan)
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/tuneup.htm (tuneup)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oops
I use the current version\run registry entry edit to get rid of the garbage as well - esp for family/friends with kids they install all sorts of garbage. Doing an uninstall still seems to leave junk on the HD and in the registry, so I also recommend that they do a 'refresh' every 6 months or so depending how their machine is used. (For me I used to use NSR and now use Ghost to set up the machine with a clean install and the main apps I am going to use) . When I do the refresh I also run update to get latest fixes etc and then ghost the machine again
The rebuild seems to be the only way to remove all the bloat and restore the system to a well running 'puter
Mark
1.As a Chinese user, I always use this tool to speed up my computer, it is designed by a Chinese engineer and has already released its English version :http://www.kztechs.com/eng/index.html
I use Sreng to clean up the autostart items, disable or uninstall some unneeded services and drivers.
2.Regularly clean up the rubbish files and registry using McAfee's "Maintain Computer", or using a software named Super Rabbit. It's also a Chinese software.
3.Sometimes I use norton ghost to recover my system to original, I think it's the most effective way to speed up a computer.
kangarooke wrote:1.As a Chinese user, I always use this tool to speed up my computer, it is designed by a Chinese engineer and has already released its English version :http://www.kztechs.com/eng/index.html
I use Sreng to clean up the autostart items, disable or uninstall some unneeded services and drivers.
2.Regularly clean up the rubbish files and registry using McAfee's "Maintain Computer", or using a software named Super Rabbit. It's also a Chinese software.
3.Sometimes I use norton ghost to recover my system to original, I think it's the most effective way to speed up a computer.
Message Edited by kangarooke on 04-10-2008 09:16 AM
If presented with a system that is in need of speeding up, I've found the following steps helpful (in no particular order):
- Clear the Prefetch cache
- Modify MTU/TCP/Winsock settings based on my connection
- Disable the Messenger Service to eliminate certain add pop-ups
- Modify page file size depending upon amount of RAM and processor speed
- Disable indexing on the drive
- Clean up TEMP
- Clean of cookies
- Clean up Temp Internet Files
- Run Windoctor
- Review installed applications and remove unnecessary applications
- Run Norton AntiBot
- Run a Virus scan with any form of Norton AntiVirus 2008
- Update security software to Norton AntiVirus/Internet Security/SystemWorks 2008 or Norton 360 Version 2.0 or newer
- Defragment system
- After verifying with the owner, disable Windows animations
- Defragment boot sector
- Defragment registry (older systems or systems that have had a lot of programs installed and uninstalled usually benefit from this)
- Disable unnecessary startup items
- Disable unnecessary Services
- Run all Windows Updates
- Adjust DNS cache size
- Change Prefecth settings to startup items only
Hi,
Why tuneup my PC?
The only thing I do is using defragmentation software by O&O. If I install any software ( and I have not only firefox or so.. I don't click next next next accept next next next. I look for toolbars, background agents, advertisement and so on before I click install. And if this doesn't work I start the program search for autostart options and disable them if I don't want them. There are a few programs without this options than I look in the regedit to disable them.
Try to have up to date drivers, servicepacks and hotfixes for all software.
I don't need membooster, registrycleaner, tune-up utilities and antiwindowsphonehometools.
My Ps's running and running and running and running and they don't loos their performance.
(okay temporary internet files, and temp files I delete to)
cheerio
Lars
Forgot to mention earlier…get some…FLASH MEMORY…tht would help!!
if you want to make IE launch much faster simply remove all the junk in the IE setting at tools->manage add-ons.
I noticed that only very few are actually required.
Two things I do first:
remove unwanted software and startup items
start disabling or setting unneeded services ( Windows and 3rd party ) to manual.
a good guide can be found at www.blackviper.com.
Vejdin wrote:Here are the steps I follow to speed up a PC:
1. First of all, I must be sure if the system is virus free
2. Then I uninstall unneeded programs
3. Disable unneeded Windows services, if possible.
4. Cleanup any temporary files
5. Cleanup Windows registry
6. Defragmentation
