Hi all... I may or may not be, but please consider me a newbie...
My wife's computer, over the years it seems, has been starting up slower and slower... gets to desktop OK, but is still several minutes after that before it's usable, and slow for a while... BTW it's from 2001, P4, running XP and McAfee...
I've ran AdAware and Spybot SD, and did a full virus scan... AdAware came up with 16 items I had it delete... nothing else...
I notice there are lots of processes in the task manager while it's starting up that I'm not sure about: I figure svchost is pretty important, but it has 5 different entries... there also seems to be lots of stuff in the registry, some I'm sure I need, some I'm sure I don't, and some I don't know, and I'm not sure how to ID some of it, and how to delete it out safely... I used silent runners to see this, I'm only not posting the file because I'm sure whoever offers to help me will want it run a certain way...

Help would be much appreciated...

Hi glaufman
There are many ways to deal with start up program's. One of the easiest is msconfig. just go to start/run/ and type in msconfig and click on the end box which Say's start up. Just untick all bar your anti virus / firewall and you should see a real difference
As for running Ad Aware you should do that at least once a week or if you have the paid version that will work automatically. If you do have the paid version remember to leave that ticked also in msconfig
As for the processes in the task manager things like svchost / lsass/ csrss/ / spoolsv.exe if you have a printer are normal

regards

Thanks Nick. I'd already unchecked everything I was sure about in msconfig, and found a large improvement, but I'm looking to do better... I have some follow up questions:

1) I understand svchost is normal, but is it normal to have 5 instances of it running at the same time?
2) There's a lot in msconfig that I'm not sure about, such as two items whose names are undisplayed characters...
The ones I unchecked, I did so only after checking out what they were one a few different websites that offer such info (I don't remember which ones right now, but I'm sure you're familiar with them)... some of the processes I'm not sure about though have conflicting info on the different info sites... which sites can be trusted, which can't?
3) Also, having run silent runners, I see some things I think are running that I don't need that I haven't found in msconfig, such as quicken and the like, so I'm still looking to remove these from the registry... or am I misinformed about how the registry operates? (as in, what it does, and how much it means to the startup times)?
4) So far, all I've played around with in msconfig is the startup tab... I'm also interested in optimizing the other tabs, for instance, services, and win.ini... is there similar info available for what item is so I can decide what I want and what I don't?
5) In many instances I think something is loading on startup for a program that I use, but I don't see any reason it should load anything on startup until I say I'm ready to use that program... such as Nero... any thoughts, other than to try unchecking it and seeing if everything is still running smoothly?

Hi glaufman


yes

Things like Nero ETC can be removed with no problem

Personally i would just stick to msconfig and services in which you could take a look through this tutorial for guidance. If unsure of anything just ask OK

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

regards

nick