babaganoosh,
Try these;
http: / / downloads. subratam. org/ WinsockFix. zip
http: / / windowsxp. mvps. org/ IEFIX. htm
Main Topics
Browse All Topics
Loading Advertisement...
Question
what do you do with 3 year old machines PCs running windows and are running slow? is it due to windows itself?
I am running into loads Dell XP machines that are around 3 years old that are running slow. Not so much malware, but I feel, just an overall malaise or windows bloat. But clients are not understanding / unwilling to accept that... that after this amount of time, the OS could / should be refreshed as a way to get the speed back on the machine?
I'll typically uninstall unwanted apps, remove temp files, clean and optimize the registry, defragment the hard drive, etc. and the machine still isn't working very good. these are machines that are typically 3 GHz, with 512 MB or 1 gig of ram, lots of free space on the hard drive, etc. overall, a nice machine, other than it's slow - which I attribute to windows bloat (I thought I heard a cute phrase for that?). even uninstalling apps, there's things left in the registry? Thumb drives load drivers that stay around long after the thumb drive isn't being used? every ative x or java applet that was loaded on a website stays in IE? (see tools, programs, manage add-ons?).
but then do you backup all the data, reinstall the OS, apply all the patches (76+ when updating a new install of SP2 (yeah, I guess I should make a slip streamed disk with more updates?!), reinstall the apps and data, you hav a nicely running machine... that is out of warrantee, the power supply, mobo, drives, etc are all 3 years old... the labor rate to refresh is a large % of a new machine (I, and I've seen others at the same amount, charge something like $300+ for that (depending on the number of apps). Or that same $300+ will get the new machine setup, patched, same new apps installed, data and it'll be an even faster machine with a warrantee.
are there glaring holes in my thinnking? What do you do in this situation / what do you recommend clients do? am I off base saying that windows is the problem?
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get
Instant Access to this Solution
- Plus...
- 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
- Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
- Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
- Never be left without tech help again
Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.
- "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
- "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
- "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.
See what Experts Exchange can do for you.
Got a question?
We've got the answer.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
Need individual assistance?
Our experts are ready to help.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Want to learn from the best?
Read articles from industry experts.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Working on a long term project?
Store your work and research.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Trusted by the world's most respected brands.
Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Free Tech Articles
-
WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
-
SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
-
Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
-
Create a Win7 Gadget
This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
-
Outlook continually prompting for username and password
There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
-
Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...
Cloud Class Webinars
- Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
- Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
- IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
- Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
- Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
- How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...
Join the Community
Give a Little. Get a Lot.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
Answers
Try this:
http://www.speedguide.net/
d_may
What only suggestion comes to my mind is to make an image of partition with windows and all patches
installed. In case of system is going slower and slower, you don't waste time for reinstallation (and activation) of your system, but just 'dump' data back. Before, you need of course to copy any
valuable data somewhere. This approach requires additional space, probably also some sort of software.
If you are lucky linux user, you can just dd partition and compress image. Enough for such purposes.
Otherwise there are many backup-restore software available.
After you have pure system, you just install few (several?) apps and have system refreshed.
I practice this with my home PC and my clients' machines also.
My private observation is, that main problem in M$ OSes is registry. Because OS is not forcing anything,
apps usually put a lot of data into it, but don't remove it while de-installed. As result, you get growing
bunch of data with increasing number of dependencies and links, not necessarily satisfied. That probably
makes the system working so slow.
I have few clients who use only few applications and don't install/uninstall anything themselves. They
have about 2 years old machines (maybe even 3 years...) and they are running like brand new.
BTW if your client doesn't understand that OS is the problem, show them other OS'es.
Sometimes it works. Especially, when you run window manager with lots of bells and whistles, then
run several applications on several virtual screens and all is working fluently on two times slower
machine :)
OK, that's all for now... Wish you much patience for both OS and your clients.
Well, Typically my clients keep computer from 3 to 5 years. The 3 year machines are small compact and purchased with 3 years in mind. the 5 year machine are usually double the cost with double everything else and last usually 6 years.
You are treading on a pond with big waves. on one hand you have maintenance costs of old machines. Something you didn't mention to your clients (or I didn't hear in your question) is RISK. What is the risk of keeping all of the old machines running. most HD's, notably the only piece of moving hardware a computer has comes with only a 1 year MFG warranty and only warranties the drive not the DATA....now what do I do?
I lay out the maintenance costs, and % risks.. make the risks look real bad.. BECAUSE THEY ARE!! LOSS of productivity, DATA, possible contracts. yadda yadda.
Lay out the upgrade paths. There are more then one or two. upgrade in ram, and Hard Drives makes machines at 3ghz pretty nice. But your reinstalling...back to Risks....
Layout a new computer upgrade path, taking into consideration that every machine taken out of service could help UPDATE an older helping it's service life ie RAM swaps...
Bar none, the new computer path is taken, when atleast once one big wig's computer dies with data on it.
State the facts. give them a worse case scenerio.. Accountant HD Motor goes. 5-6g's to have the data recovered. MINIMUM>>> believe me i've done it, and sometimes shock therapy works....
Lastly, Are you off base with windows being the problem.. No, but your teetering... Windows 2000 I believe is just about out of it's lifecycle....
When's the last time your organization ran the same piece of software for over 6 years... minus their accounting or ERP software which still requires updates and upgrades to fix issues...oh and another piece of software to run on? Do we have any other systems to make equivalent measures? Linux? still has base requirements, put linux on an undersized machine and see what it act's like....
Undersized I say, but the miminum requirements are met. they are just that.. minimum requirements. Purchase a ferrari with a 4 cylinder and ask why it doesn't run as fast as the others?? Besides your ferrari needs, Speakers, Ipod's, A bunch of other addon's to make it work just right.. but still the same engine and 250 lbs heavier.... Your not off base, but as software evolves it does require more to keep it at par....
Hope this help's or atleast rasies more questions....
cvv
Another possibility is to run a good cleanup program (not the Windows-supplied disk cleanup). Two good ones are CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com) and Cleanup (http://www.stevengould.or
Cleanup works exceptionally well for pc's that have more than one user's profile on the pc. It's default cleans up all profiles on the pc.
CCleaner's default cleans up the currently logged in user. You can select additional folders to add, so can configure it to clean other users also.
CCleaner also includes a registry cleaner that does a good job of cleaning up broken links in the registry.
Run these tools, then do another defrag.
Also check the startup list (CCleaner also has a tool to list all startup items) and remove anything that is unnecessary.
Obviously, a complete re-image will give you a fresh start, but the cleanup procedures above do a pretty decent job.
As others have said, after three years or so, any Microsoft OS tends to get "crufty", particularly the registry, which can bloat horribly. "Cleaning" can help, but can only go so far. In the long run, however, a total reinstall is a much preferred solution. The only question is whether the cure is worth the time and effort.
What I normally do is to set up a dual-boot that allows them to get to their old OS and data. A fresh install with patches and basic apps can be done in a day or so. Once they play with a "fresh" machine the generally do not want to go back, and within a few months the old OS is abandoned and can be deleted. Imaging is also a sensible option.
As an aside, Kudos to cvvood: "the only piece of moving hardware a computer has comes with only a 1 year MFG warranty and only warranties the drive not the DATA"
On most machines that are over two years old, the data is more valuable than the hard drive. This is why on my main home machine I have dual Seagate Drives (5 year warranty!) in a RAID-1 (mirror) configuration, AND a tape backup for the most important 10% (OS and important data). Yes, I am THAT paranoid... but when a drive failed last year I was able to get a warranty replacement without losing any data at all.
My work machine (development) is imaged monthly and backed up to tape weekly. My clients would not pay for tape backup or UPS (another must if you are serious about your data), so I supplied my own, with their permission. Now, when the power goes out, I sigh, smile and perform an orderly shutdown after ten minutes or so... while co-workers do the headless-chicken dance and complain about lost minutes - or hours - of work.
The sad fact is that most people do not care about data protection until it happens to them, by which time it is too late to do anything about it.
Read this for a tragicomedic treatment of the subject (userfriendly.org): http://tinyurl.com/2bbsj5
3 Ways to Join
Business Accounts
- Perfect for organizations
- Multiple users
- Save over 36%
- Create a Business Account
Answer for Membership
- Earn free access
- Showcase your knowledge
- No credit card required
- Sign Up to Answer
Loading Advertisement...
by: David-HowardPosted on 2007-04-17 at 16:15:46ID: 18928211
No holes that I can see.
My machines get reimaged for the exact reasons that you listed.
When I worked on the side I ensured that the hardware could handle the OS and any other applications that they may need. I took into consideration if they were gamers, etc.
I copied their data, reinstalled the OS, etc. and rarely had any pc that didn't noticeably increase in response time.
3 years old and at 3Ghz they should be able to run just about an OS.
I have a very reliable and quick XP Pro box at home.
866Mhz and 512K of RAM. It's quick because the OS stays fresh and I don't have everything that you can install from the internet on it. :-)
David