Microsoft has over-complexed it. Everything can be done much more easier than it is done by MS usually.Originally Posted by Elysia
But this thread is about keeping computer fast. And if you don't want your computer to be fast anyway, then it's not really relevant to this topic. I have worked on computers that have mega-hardware but are full of bloatware and lag like hell. So I think getting rid of unnecessary stuff running all the time is a good thing to do.
"The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore
These keep my system tip-top:
- Diskkeeper 2008. Actually runs silently in the background and removes fragments on the fly. They use some new invisi-tasking technology that uses unused system resources. It's not just hype either because I can play Oblivion while this thing is running and there is no performance hit. Excellent product that will keep your drives free of fragments. I swear by Diskkeeper that it is one of the best, if not the best, disk defrags out there.
- AVG Free - simple, fast, and effective. Not sure about the new version 8 but version 7 is great. Finds stuff the other guys miss. Not sure if it is as good as Avast but since both are free if you use both you are probably covering all bases.
- Zone Alarm - I tried another firewall type program b/c I thought Zone Alarm was a hog. However Zone Alarm is actually very small, very aware of the status of your ports, and can be configured to run as silent as you want it to.
- Spybot S&D - no computer is complete without this essential tool. Tons of copy-cats but no one beats Spybot. The many different things it can cleanup such as unused registry entries, incorrect registry paths, references to DLLs that no longer exist, a secure shredder for internet files, a spyware detection engine that detects tens of thousands of malware, spyware, etc. A 'tea timer' systray app that detects changes to your IE as well as a bad download blocker that will go as far as blocking ads that are from known spyware type companies and/or sites. You can't go wrong with Spybot. Recent problems with SD Helper have been a nuissance for IE users but I still
love my Spybot.
Last edited by VirtualAce; 05-12-2008 at 08:07 PM.
PerfectDisk is known to topple Diskkeeper, though..
> Maybe because I use too much open-source software, which don't rely on bloatware? Go figure...
Ever used KDE?
What do you mean by that?> Maybe because I use too much open-source software, which don't rely on bloatware? Go figure...
Ever used KDE?
KDE does not rely on bloatware in any way.
Ahh, just a Gnome boy picking on KDE
Let it rest...
Last edited by zacs7; 05-13-2008 at 06:07 AM.
But in that case GNOME is bloatware toEnlightenment is a kick ass WM and its only around 6MB. Fluxbox is stupidly small, but I don't like it as much.
I use AVG Free, Commodo Firewall and do period scans with CCleaner, PerfectDisk, Spybot S&D and TuneUp Utilities Registry optimization component. I only have Commodo and AVG running in the background. Everything else is only used on demand.
After around 10 years of following Tiny Personal Firewall development (later Kerio Personal Firewall and now Sunbelt Personal Firewall) I finally moved away. Selling this excellent firewall to Sunbelt didn't please me. I was already slightly annoyed at Kerio's changes to what used to be the smallest (the core was entirely written in assembly. Only the GUI in C) and most effective free firewall ever - in my opinion, naturally.
In addition to the software above I disable or move to manual about every service I can from services.msc. That means even things like Automatic Updates, BITS, WebClient, etc... I run windows on 19 active services. If I need something I go back and activate it for that windows session. Meanwhile I keep my taskbar to the absolute minimum, avoid going crazy on firefox extensions, and run windows XP on classic mode with 0 visual effects. I'm also usually not eager to update every single piece of software I have. If it's working and the new features don't hit me as important or the bugs corrections uneventful, I skip the upgrade.
Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.
PerfectDisk... the one which nicely put the files in this order: rarely used files in the beginning of the drive, then occasionally used files and at the very end it put frequently used files. Then it filled the last sectors of my hard drive with "boot" files. They call it "SMARTPlacement"? Sounds like they haven't heard that the inner circles of a hard drive are faster...
"The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore
I don't know which side is the inner and which is the outer, but all the boot files are placed at the beginning of the map so far as I can see.
Hmm. :/
Edit: And as the Windows Disk Defragmenter shows, that stuff it added to the end of the hard drive is all fragments.
Last edited by maxorator; 05-13-2008 at 01:46 PM.
"The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore
A usual sign of slowdown is when a BHO (Browser Helper Object) gets installed. I try to keep no BHO's.
It's really unfortunate that certain pieces of software deem themselves so important that they need to track every keystroke the user enters, or "phone home" every 5 minutes to see if a new version of itself is available for download. It's ridiculous.
I get tired of playing administrator and being a slave to threats. It's B.S.
Mainframe assembler programmer by trade. C coder when I can.
I use PerfectDisk for years and never even once saw what you see Maxorator. *shrug*
Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.
I'm pretty certain I see the purple blocks at the beginning of the map all the time. But I don't do a habit of defragmenting until I get at least 10%, so it's kind of disorganized now, but not disorganized enough to defragment, so I can't really take a look and see or a screenshot...
Normally I tend to format and reinstall my windows xp every 6 months (at least).
What i do is format, create an admin account, demote myself to normal user.
Then install the basic stuff: drivers, office, FF, some webdev tools, compilers, ide's and the like... Take an image of everything (obviously only the first time, later on only if updates have taken place).
I especially like the user mode in windows xp, as soon as something wants to write to any dangerous place it pops up that I need to be administrator (makes you check twice before you install anything). Although I have to note it comes with quite a bit of abnormal behaviour for some programs, since not all installations ask for which users the program should be runnable, editable(config files) etc... So it still requires some manual tweaking after installing anything to get it really executable and runnable ...
Anyhow thats my approach to a clean computer while running windows xp. I use the same setup for my parents their computer and even though they are computer illiterates the system has been runnning fine for the past 2 years without a format or anything... (once in a while I get a phonecall asking me for the admin pasword so they can install something but I rather have a 1 minute phone call then to go over there and format the whole damn thing).
