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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.

"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.