From: Chris Mitchell on
My Win XP SP3 PC is showing signs of its age and is slowing down. I have
improved things to some extent using msconfig to sort out start-up
programmes and processes etc, and have tweaked things further with Process
Explorer.

However things are still extremely slow once the user has logged on, it's a
family PC with 4 accounts. How can I tell what is going on after I have
logged into my account? There's lots of chatter from the drive, but it
takes and age before I see my desktop in full and am able to do anything.

TIA.

Chris.


From: db on
you can delete the files in the
"prefetch" system folder.

deleting them (except for the
ini file) can help with the issue.

after deleting them, windows
will rebuild them on an as
needed basis.

another thing you can try is to
set the custom size of the
"virtual memory" i.e. page file.

if it is set to automatic then it
may be trying to resize itself to
accommodate the needs to the
system.

the resizing may be what is also
slowing down the startup

after you Google the above quoted
search criterions,

you can use these measurements
for the custom/fixed virtual memory
size.

firstly, be sure you have only 1
page file.

sometimes there are more than

secondly, set the initial size of
the page file to 2

set the maximum page file size
to 1.5 x (size of your ram)

for example if your system has
1 gigabyte of ram installed then
set the maximum size of the page
file to 1500.

then reboot.

--
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DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>

"Chris Mitchell" <chris.a.mitchell(a)NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote in message
news:ehdpwqssKHA.5976(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> My Win XP SP3 PC is showing signs of its age and is slowing down. I have
> improved things to some extent using msconfig to sort out start-up
> programmes and processes etc, and have tweaked things further with Process
> Explorer.
>
> However things are still extremely slow once the user has logged on, it's
> a family PC with 4 accounts. How can I tell what is going on after I have
> logged into my account? There's lots of chatter from the drive, but it
> takes and age before I see my desktop in full and am able to do anything.
>
> TIA.
>
> Chris.
>
From: Jose on
On Feb 21, 2:51 am, "Chris Mitchell"
<chris.a.mitch...(a)NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote:
> My Win XP SP3 PC is showing signs of its age and is slowing down.  I have
> improved things to some extent using msconfig to sort out start-up
> programmes and processes etc, and have tweaked things further with Process
> Explorer.
>
> However things are still extremely slow once the user has logged on, it's a
> family PC with 4 accounts.  How can I tell what is going on after I have
> logged into my account?  There's lots of chatter from the drive, but it
> takes and age before I see my desktop in full and am able to do anything.
>
> TIA.
>
> Chris.

There is no guessing, probably, maybe, might be or trial and error.
Nothing should defy reasonable explanation and suggestions for such
things or making changes without knowing more information is at best,
a guess.

We need three things:

System configuration
Task Manager
Startup items

Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

msinfo32

Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select
All, Copy and then paste back here.

There would be some personal information (like System Name and User
Name) or whatever appears to be only your business that you can delete
from the paste.

Right click the Taskbar, choose Task Manager and select the Processes
tab.

Notice in the TM example below, the Virtual Memory column display has
been enabled in TM. This is very good information for troublehooting
and understanding.

To do that:

Click View, Select Columns, check the box that says: Virtual Memory
Size. Expand the width of the Task Manager box so you can see all the
columns and processes.

Double click a column heading in TM to sort by the column. For
example, sort Task Manager by the CPU column.

Take a screenshot of what you see and upload the screenshot to one of
several free picture hosting WWW sites.

Download CCleaner, install it, run it, click Tools, Startup and drag
the columns around so all the Startup items are easy to see.
CCleaner is good for this since it shows more information in a bigger
display and has other useful functions. You can uninstall it later if
you don't use it.

Make a screenshot of the CCleancer Startup information.

Get CCleaner here:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

When you are done, we will be able to see what you are seeing.

To create and post a screenshots:

Press the Print Scrn button to copy your entire screen to the Windows
clipboard.

Press Alt Print Scrn to copy just the active window to the Windows
clipboard.

Open MS Paint:

Start, Program Accessories, Paint

When Paint opens, press CTRL-V to paste the clipboard, save the new
Paint file to your desktop or someplace you can remember. JPG files
take up less hard disk space than BMP files and just as readable.

Make as many screenshots as you need. Practice makes perfect. Be
careful your screenshot does not contain any personal information.
Practice viewing your images before you upload them to be sure they
are okay.

Some sites (like bleepingcomputer) will let you attach a file directly
to your post. If the site has some kind of attachment/upload
function it is usually easiest just to use it.

If there is no such function in your message board to upload files,
then use a free third party image hosting WWW site.

Create a free account on some free picture hosting web site. You can
always remove your account later if you want. Here are some free
image hosting sites:

http://www.imageshack.us/
http://photobucket.com/

Using your free account, upload your screenshot(s) (the JPG or BMP
files) to the site and it will return to you a URL web address (a
Direct Link) for your new image(s) which you can paste the Direct Link
in a message post, email, etc.

When you are done, what you post for others to use should look
something like this:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6428/taskmanagerr.jpg <- Task
Manager
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6969/ccleanerstartup.jpg <-
CCleaner Startup
From: Bill in Co. on
db wrote:
> you can delete the files in the
> "prefetch" system folder.
>
> deleting them (except for the
> ini file) can help with the issue.

I thought I had read that was a common misperception, and that it wasn't
really true.


From: Jose on
On Feb 21, 3:48 pm, "Bill in Co." <not_really_h...(a)earthlink.net>
wrote:
> db wrote:
> > you can delete the files in the
> > "prefetch" system folder.
>
> > deleting them (except for the
> > ini file) can help with the issue.
>
> I thought I had read that was a common misperception, and that it wasn't
> really true.

Microsoft discourage emptying the Prefetch folder:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-the-prefetch-folder

Other readings refer to the advice as "bogus".

Ryan Myers, a developer on Microsoft's Windows Client Performance Team
says:

XP systems have a Prefetch directory underneath the windows root
directory, full of .pf files -- these are lists of pages to load. The
file names are generated from hashing the EXE to load -- whenever you
load the EXE, we hash, see if there's a matching (exename)-(hash).pf
file in the prefetch directory, and if so we load those pages. (If it
doesn't exist, we track what pages it loads, create that file, and
pick a handful of them to save to it.)

So, first off, it is a bad idea to periodically clean out that folder
as some tech sites suggest. For one thing, XP will just re-create that
data anyways; secondly, it trims the files anyways if there's ever
more than 128 of them so that it doesn't needlessly consume space. So
not only is deleting the directory totally unnecessary, but you're
also putting a temporary dent in your PC's performance.