[Stoner]

Originally Posted by dr911

Running 98SE.



I've tried to run services.msc. A little window pops up say....." Cannot find file 'services.msc' or( one of its compote(s)).

Is this for XP or what ??

For 98se you should use msconfig.

[WhitPhil]

Originally Posted by dr911

Running 98SE.
I've tried to run services.msc. A little window pops up say....." Cannot find file 'services.msc' or( one of its compote(s)).

Is this for XP or what ??

"Services" are part of the XP architecture.

[JohnWill]

Originally Posted by ferrija1

After a while, though, it still has unused (but prefetched) things in there that slow it down when your computer starts.

Hmm... I think you need to re-think this piece of advice. XP automatically maintains this folder, no need for intervention.

XP systems have a Prefetch directory underneath the windows root directory, full of .pf files — these are lists of pages to load. The file names are generated from hashing the EXE to load — whenever you load the EXE, we hash, see if there’s a matching (exename)-(hash).pf file in the prefetch directory, and if so we load those pages. (If it doesn’t exist, we track what pages it loads, create that file, and pick a handful of them to save to it.) So, first off, it is a bad idea to periodically clean out that folder as some tech sites suggest. For one thing, XP will just re-create that data anyways; secondly, it trims the files anyways if there’s ever more than 128 of them so that it doesn’t needlessly consume space. So not only is deleting the directory totally unnecessary, but you’re also putting a temporary dent in your PC’s performance.

Bottom line: You will not improve Windows performance by cleaning out the Prefetch folder. You will, in fact, degrade Windows performance by cleaning out the Prefetch folder. I’ve done performance testing that establishes this definitively. In all the many sites that offer this bogus tip, I have yet to see a single piece of actual performance testing

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

Hmm... I think you need to re-think this piece of advice. XP automatically maintains this folder, no need for intervention.

I read somewhere that you should clean it out, but that convinced me you shouldn't.

You win.

[WhitPhil]

Originally Posted by ferrija1

I read somewhere that you should clean it out, but that convinced me you shouldn't.

You win.

It's the age old axiom, don't believe half of what you read and question the other half.

[jhpolk]

A few things to look at when tring to clean a computer
Ad-aware Pesonal Additon (free)
Spybot Search and Destroy 1.4 (free)
Avast Antivirus home (free)
ccleaner (free)
if you have xp-Microsoft Defender (free)

Download the above program, let them update and run there scan. Ad-aware and Spybot will take from 15 to 20 minutes each CCleaner will remove all of the leftover progams (eg. temp files, internet temp files, cookie) Avast is a good free antivirus that to me has shown it sees and remove more viruses that AVG, Norton, McAfee or Trend Micro. If you have XP or Vista you would need to have the Microsoft Defender (at Microsoft's download page) It will get it's updates via Microsoft Updates. After runing all those program you can us 'msconfig' to temporary stop program that are starting at startup. The nice thing about msconfig is that you can go back and have programs you need without any trouble or reloading. Unchecking in msconfig is easy and you can start by stoping most of the items.
If thing still keep recreating themselfs in msconfig you may want to try 'hijackthis'. I leave this to last hoping I don't need to use it. If not careful you can disable services you need.

Take all this and do some research on these programs to see if you could use them. To me I still am looking for the one progam or fix that will work but by the time if think I found it, the problem changes and I have to look even more.

Happy Computing
jhpolk

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by WhitPhil

It's the age old axiom, don't believe half of what you read and question the other half.

[LitomoSilver]

And use RegSeeker too!

Great registry cleaner!

[SlimJimmy]

I use two freeware apps. on a regular basis - CCleaner and RegSeeker. CCleaner gets rid of the CRAP (Hence the name CCleaner) that accumulates on your hard drive and which isn't needed. As far as RegSeeker goes, I know that some very great people who post here, especially JohnWill (whom I respect very much and who's posts I really enjoy reading daily and religously), think that messing with the registry is very dangerous and unecessary, some of us are just anal and can't help ourselves. I've been using it for a very long time, I only select the green items and I've never had any adverse effects. It also automatically makes a backup before cleaning. Advanced Windows Care is also a very good app. But you have to know what you're doing with that one with version 2. Anyways, just my thoughts.

[LitomoSilver]

Yeah, Advanced Windows Care is good too.

And it helps inoculate your computer against lots of things, just like SpyBot S&D does.

[rpbreno]

Have you tried defraging? Diskeeper 10 is software everyone should have.Set it for screen saver and you will be defraged every time the screen saver comes on. Also, hit control. alt and delete to bring up Task Manager. At the top of Task Manager you will see a pull down called View. Click on update SPEED and click on fast. Also, while you are in Task Manager you can check your CPU use, memory and etc.
Good Luck and Take Care
rpbreno

[kingy169]

I have not seen anyone say anything about drive zappers, I use a program that I got (not at home can't rem the full name) from a comuter magazine, it seems to be a good program. Basicly what it does is delete programs/files that have been deleted from your computer over the months/years and when I have used it on different PC's it has varied from the amount deleted. I got a new hard drive and after about 3 months I run the drive zapper, it wiped 40gb of c**p off my computer. I then ran it on another one and it deleted 87gb. I then ran it on another computer (quite old) and it deleted 127gb of deleted information. So for you people who want to give your system a full cleanup, do the main things first. Like disc cleanup, run programs such as ccleaner, adaware, avg, spybot, plus many other ways you do it. then get a drive zapper. I then use Diskeeper after all this, I have found systems after a good clean out then run drive zapper and Diskeeper they speed up a alot. I hope people have found this helpfull.

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by rpbreno

Have you tried defraging? Diskeeper 10 is software everyone should have.Set it for screen saver and you will be defraged every time the screen saver comes on. Also, hit control. alt and delete to bring up Task Manager. At the top of Task Manager you will see a pull down called View. Click on update SPEED and click on fast. Also, while you are in Task Manager you can check your CPU use, memory and etc.
Good Luck and Take Care
rpbreno

1. Newer, hard-drives do not benefit much from defragmenting, though it is not a bad idea to defragment every couple of months.
2. There is such thing as over defragmenting (it's really using the hard drive too much) , so you should not defragment every time the screen saver starts.

[JohnWill]

Originally Posted by ferrija1

1. Newer, hard-drives do not benefit much from defragmenting, though it is not a bad idea to defragment every couple of months.

HUH? There has been no change in the benefits of defragmenting the filesystem since the dawn of time. The age of the hard disk in question does not change that fact.

[ferrija1]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

HUH? There has been no change in the benefits of defragmenting the filesystem since the dawn of time. The age of the hard disk in question does not change that fact.

I always thought newer hard drives did not benefit as much as older drives as they are faster. Now I'm confused.