[new tech guy]

Oh whoops, sorry i misunderstood the OP, I had a similar machine in my home like that with one of those vista upgrades, it ran fine under windows xp but once i loaded vista it was such a dog that i took it back off and reinstalled the pc with xp. If it is one of these upgrade computers your best bet for performance is to probably just downgrade it to windows xp. But yes if you gut the machine to bare bones pretty much you will get OK performance, although as long as it only has a gig of ram i wouldnt run vista on it.

[hewwo2u2]

what is BigFix? It is one of the many things that came on my computer but I only remember using it once when it said it found a problem. Is it another thing to take up room on my computer or is it a good thing to have? I'm always hesitant to remove programs that are designed to fix things so this is why I still have it...

[new tech guy]

I think that gateway i owned had it and i removed it, if software needs to update, it usually has its own updater that will do it. I would toss it honestly.

[hewwo2u2]

good to know- thank you new tech guy

[Rich-M]

Well the first thing I see is Avg and MacAfee antivirus installed and that is a no no.
Pick one and uninstall the other. That could be the whole issue actually.

[hewwo2u2]

Originally Posted by Rich-M

Well the first thing I see is Avg and MacAfee antivirus installed and that is a no no.
Pick one and uninstall the other. That could be the whole issue actually.

The only reason I decided to keep them both was because sometimes one of them finds a problem that the other one does not. At one time I had 3 trojans; 2 of them were found with one program and 1 with the other. This was very disturbing to me as I don't want to miss anything. If I must remove one of them, could you please inform me as to which of the 2 is the better one? I am using the free edition of AVG. The McAfee is a licensed copy the I got from school.

I have to disagree with the idea of this being the whole issue though. I've had both programs for a while and my computer has not been this slow for that long. This also does not solve the issue I have with the 74 processes running. Thank you for the catch though. It makes sense that this would also slow me down.

[new tech guy]

Well if one came with the computer (its safe to assume mcafee) it is probably an out of date trial. Also has a large footprint, where avg has a small one so due to your system spec i would say ditch mcafee.

[hewwo2u2]

Originally Posted by new tech guy

Well if one came with the computer (its safe to assume mcafee) it is probably an out of date trial. Also has a large footprint, where avg has a small one so due to your system spec i would say ditch mcafee.

I checked and I was wrong. neither came with the computer. I have the real version of Mcafee and the free version of AVG. sorry about that
and this "foot print" that you speak of...if I remove the program can I be sure that everything has been removed?

does this mean that the free version of AVG is just as good as a purchased program? What is the difference?

[new tech guy]

Ok regardless of this i know mcafee has a large system footprint where avg is much smaller, is your mcafee subscription still active? If so you could keep it if you wish but you must get rid of avg, however, bear in mind mcafee could be a large cause of slowdown due to how big it is where avg is very small and simple and therefore has less bloat.

[hewwo2u2]

I just know that I currently have the full updated version of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5.0i. (I got it from school)
I have the free version of AVG.
Both programs are still working.

I definitely want what will make my computer run faster but at the same time I do not want to be exposing my computer to things that the free version of AVG may not protect it from. This is why I'm asking other than size, what is the difference between the two? I do not have the money right now to purchase the full version of AVG so I want to make sure that if I delete the McAfee, that whatever it is that was paid for is not something I need. I hope that made sense. :/

[new tech guy]

Avg is a good virus scanner as well, it has been running on my main pc for some time now and hasnt let any infections in, and many users of this forum use it as well. I know how much of a pig McAfee is from personal use experience of having it on a slower computer which slowed it to a crawl. Avg really does not affect the performance of the pc at all/marginal difference but still provides great protection. If you paid for Mcafee i would personally try to cancel the subscription and get a refund, then keep avg free.

[fairnooks]

I do remember seeing an option to restore the computer back to its factory condition, but someone told me that even new computers with factory default have extra "junk" that is included that I would never use.

Sure is extra junk but if you use a program like PCDecrapifier and uninstall anything else you won't be useing after restoring you can get a pretty clean system.

Like false advertisement or cheating, no? If they are going to say there is X amount of RAM, someone like me would expect to get that much available. I guess that's sales...

You were indeed bamboozled, there was something called VistaReady and VistaCapable or somesuch and the wording made all the difference as far as performance goes. I heard there was a class action suit against Microsoft because of it but I never followed up on its progress or validity.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by hewwo2u2

The only reason I decided to keep them both was because sometimes one of them finds a problem that the other one does not. At one time I had 3 trojans; 2 of them were found with one program and 1 with the other. This was very disturbing to me as I don't want to miss anything. If I must remove one of them, could you please inform me as to which of the 2 is the better one? I am using the free edition of AVG. The McAfee is a licensed copy the I got from school.

I have to disagree with the idea of this being the whole issue though. I've had both programs for a while and my computer has not been this slow for that long. This also does not solve the issue I have with the 74 processes running. Thank you for the catch though. It makes sense that this would also slow me down.

Neither one is much good so take your choice. Avg has less system drag is all I can suggest.
As to you don't think that can make the whole difference, trust me I am a working professional in the industry and it can be the entire problem, regardless of whether it was an instant slowdown. If you want to be sure nothing gets in, buy a good antivirus like Nod32, Bit Defender or Kaspersky. Using 2 mediocre ones is not the answer.

[new tech guy]

Ive been using avg free for years and it has yet to do me any harm, i do know some of the malware remover workers here use it and say it works well for their machines.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by new tech guy

Ive been using avg free for years and it has yet to do me any harm, i do know some of the malware remover workers here use it and say it works well for their machines.

I didn't say it would harm you, just that it is adequate and there are many a lot better. The user is afraid of missing things and rightly so so I merely suggested you get what you pay for and free is free!

The three I suggested incidentally will repel viruis and spyware, not simply let it in and remove it as the ones mentioned and most others do.