Maintenance advice for XP
<div class="IPBDescription">sick of formatting</div>While this isn't an emergency I still feel that I ain't doing as much for my computer as I could to keep it fresh. Over time I feel certain things go slower and slower, at first quite unnoticeable but then it happens more frequently and for longer periods, I can't help but wish for a format to sort it all out. However, formats are cumbersome, loosing registry for all installed programs and chances of screwing something up or forgetting to backup is something best to be avoided.
Currently I do the following:
Defrag all drives, weekly (Ultimate defrag)
Use various registry cleaners, monthly (tune up utilities, registry booster)
Virus/malware/spyware scans with nod32, threatfire, spybot s&d, ad-aware, weekly.
Daily Clean.bat, deleting everything in temporary folders and junk files stored on same place, got it somewhere around here, daily
My most recent problem is firefox 3 freezing when loading pages with lots of images to scroll through (imageboards mostly) but works fine after restarting it (no tabs saved). This might be a problem with my vast use of extensions and some naive tweaking however.
I also get stuck at startup for 3-5 minutes with nothing but a blank screen and the blinking thingy on the top left but it always starts normally afterwards.
Any advice how to keep things purring before sticking it in a bag and throwing it off a bridge?
Currently I do the following:
Defrag all drives, weekly (Ultimate defrag)
Use various registry cleaners, monthly (tune up utilities, registry booster)
Virus/malware/spyware scans with nod32, threatfire, spybot s&d, ad-aware, weekly.
Daily Clean.bat, deleting everything in temporary folders and junk files stored on same place, got it somewhere around here, daily
My most recent problem is firefox 3 freezing when loading pages with lots of images to scroll through (imageboards mostly) but works fine after restarting it (no tabs saved). This might be a problem with my vast use of extensions and some naive tweaking however.
I also get stuck at startup for 3-5 minutes with nothing but a blank screen and the blinking thingy on the top left but it always starts normally afterwards.
Any advice how to keep things purring before sticking it in a bag and throwing it off a bridge?
Comments
The only things I run for defense are a viruscanner and a firewall. And once every 1-4 months I defrag...
Perhaps those cleaners are doing more harm then good? I certainly never trusted those things <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
ps.
Perhaps you might want to look into Ghosting an image of a fresh install for Wxp? This image can have all your basic drivers and programs and interface layout/settings. This way you don't have to do all the basic stuff to get Windows up and running again to your likings. From this base you can then add all you other stuff you want to add.
A ghost installs itself and you're ready to go when it's done...
And Firefox has become quite the hog lately. Especially when you load it up with extensions. Just dial that stuff back a few notches and you should have a lot of performance back.
I run avast but have not run a full virus scan since I bought this current PC setup about 6 months ago. I have defragged it once and I created a separate partition for all my temp files of 5 gigs which I clean out every few months as well.
I can't live without my extensions! stumble upon, foxmarks, mouse gestures, nuke anything, pdf handler, foxytunes, noscript, downthemall are like the bell, reflexes and snazzy custom paint on a bike. It functions as intended but the motivation to use it is gone. At least there is gewgle crome to fall back on. Also, NS community sites? Like the armslab.com?
Anyways, I use simple stuff to keep my system running, and it's been running pretty good. I use AVG Free for anti-virus and Spybot for spyware. I also make sure to shutdown and kill everything every so often to clean up leaks. I actually rarely defrag. Defrag is only usually useful if you have less than around 15% free space. I keep mine around 20% or more, so I rarely see much fragging. Maybe defrag once every couple of months.
Also, last time I used a registry fixer/cleaner, it borked my SupComm install. Wasn't too happy. Especially since the install CD was very far away in storage.
Getting the temperatures down by 10-20 degrees C did miracles in terms of reactiontime in desktop, boot time, fps etc.
Not all of us have liquid nitrogen handy.....
Mine hovers around 30C
Not every program sandboxes nicely. Sometimes you have to play with the sandbox settings to get a game to work right. But usually I figure that if a program isn't behaving properly in the sandbox then I shouldn't run it anyway. The exception to that for you would probably be Steam. Steam doesn't seem to work in a sandbox no matter what I do. Personally I was able to lose it without to much trouble since I'd already played through portal many times and TF2 was ruined by grind.
An alternative that has higher computability but is somewhat less safe is Altiris SVS. Its free for non-commercial use but has its own limitations.
*Firefox, VLC, uTorrent, Foxit Reader, and 7zip
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is it harmful to defragment the HD often?
A hard drive is, of course, a mechanical device. The platters rotate on their spindle, the read/write heads are located on a movable arm which jumps about all over the place as well. The more use your hard drive is subjected to, the shorter its working life is going to be. That stands to reason.
There’s much debate been carried out about whether or not defragmenting your drive too often stresses it too much but the short answer, I believe, is that it’s much of a muchness. Running the hard drive when it’s fragmented stresses it, and defragmenting it obsessively stresses it also. If you defragment more often, the process usually won’t take as long each time either, because the drive won’t be as heavily fragmented.
Simply choose the pattern of maintenance which suits you best and be happy with it. If your regular schedule enables you to defrag less often and leave the system running to do the job, then fine. If it needs to be in use more frequently and you need to do the defragmenting in shorter ‘bursts’ more frequently, then that’s fine also.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Once a week seems too often, but if you're downloading and deleting lots of files during that time and your PC is getting to 10% every week then it's worth it. If it's under 10% then it's probably not your HD causing the performance hit.