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#1
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic
action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S |
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#2
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
You should post the specifications of your machine.
Personally, I think that what you have done so far is a waste of time. And, I also think that the performance cleanup tools are snake oil. Jim "Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!)" Paul S (the Distrustful wrote in message ... My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S |
#3
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
You should post the specifications of your machine.
Personally, I think that what you have done so far is a waste of time. And, I also think that the performance cleanup tools are snake oil. Jim "Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!)" Paul S (the Distrustful wrote in message ... My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S |
#4
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
Most of them are nothing more than snake oil, if you're lucky they do
nothing and if you aren't so lucky they bug up your computer. Also, forget about registry cleaners, these cleaners are next to utterly useless and for most parts they cause more harm than good. Computer slowdowns are most often caused by virus, spyware and other such pests. The second most common cause is having too many applications running for nothing when the computer starts. John Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!) wrote: My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S |
#5
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
Most of them are nothing more than snake oil, if you're lucky they do
nothing and if you aren't so lucky they bug up your computer. Also, forget about registry cleaners, these cleaners are next to utterly useless and for most parts they cause more harm than good. Computer slowdowns are most often caused by virus, spyware and other such pests. The second most common cause is having too many applications running for nothing when the computer starts. John Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!) wrote: My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S |
#6
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:24:02 -0800, Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!)
Paul S (the Distrustful wrote: My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, If the registry cleaner hasn't caused you sever problems, consider yourself lucky. Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of, having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you. The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit it may have. Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html defragmented the disk, OK, that may help a little, but is unlikely to be a very significant issue. and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. What you have installed has *no* effect on your performance. What you have *running* affects performance. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? All such products, like registry cleaners, should be avoided. They do nothing useful, and are likely to cause problems. Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! Products are not what you need or what you should do. The two most likely causes of poor performance are 1. Infection by malware 2. What programs you have starting automatically and running in the background. Taking number 2 first, note that you should be concerned with *all* programs that start automatically, not just with those that go into the system tray. Not all autostarting programs manifest themselves by an icon in the tray. On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon" option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to start automatically. However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no effect on performance. Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can try google searches and ask about specifics here. Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. Regarding malware infection, please tell us what anti-virus program you run, and what anti-spyware programs you run. What versions are they and are they kept up to date? -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003 Please Reply to the Newsgroup |
#7
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:24:02 -0800, Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!)
Paul S (the Distrustful wrote: My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, If the registry cleaner hasn't caused you sever problems, consider yourself lucky. Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of, having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you. The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit it may have. Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html defragmented the disk, OK, that may help a little, but is unlikely to be a very significant issue. and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. What you have installed has *no* effect on your performance. What you have *running* affects performance. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? All such products, like registry cleaners, should be avoided. They do nothing useful, and are likely to cause problems. Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! Products are not what you need or what you should do. The two most likely causes of poor performance are 1. Infection by malware 2. What programs you have starting automatically and running in the background. Taking number 2 first, note that you should be concerned with *all* programs that start automatically, not just with those that go into the system tray. Not all autostarting programs manifest themselves by an icon in the tray. On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon" option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to start automatically. However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no effect on performance. Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can try google searches and ask about specifics here. Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. Regarding malware infection, please tell us what anti-virus program you run, and what anti-spyware programs you run. What versions are they and are they kept up to date? -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003 Please Reply to the Newsgroup |
#8
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
"Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!)" wrote: My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S I would run malwarebytes anti-malware program. I'd also run trojan remover even though its only a 30 day version. |
#9
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What do commercial 'performance cleanup tools' really do?
"Paul S (the Distrustful Engineer!)" wrote: My PC has been running slower over time, and I'd like to take non-drastic action to restore the speed as much as I can. I've already run a registry cleaner, defragmented the disk, and uninstalled a few programs that I never/rarely used. So what else is there? What else can I do? I see these ads for products that improve your PC performance, but I want to know *what* they are doing to my computer. (I'm reluctant to blindly turn my computer inner workings over to *anything*, let alone something making wild "Trust us!" claims!) Does anyone know what steps the commercial products take to speed up a computer? Do you have suggestions for suitable individual products I can use to do it myself? Thanks in advance for any replies! -Paul S I would run malwarebytes anti-malware program. I'd also run trojan remover even though its only a 30 day version. |
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