My Computer

[Vorlin]

Oh yeah...that's another thing I forgot...go to www.zoneutils.com and get RegHeal 3.2.2 and use that to clean out your registry. The unregistered version only clears 10 at a time but it's worth it. I bought it so I don't have to worry. What this prog does is go through your registry and get rid of anything that doesn't fit anymore....uninstall programs aren't known for their great cleanup and the registry is super-easy to tip over.

[GreekGoddess]

Thanks for the additional information and links. I'm trying out all of the suggestions, starting with ones that don't require me to wipe everything out and start all over again. I'll see what happens with that, and if I'm still having the problem, try Vorlin's approach and maybe that will work. I'm sure that if the problem persists, I'll post again with additional information, but until then, I'm on my own...

Thanks again!

[Doug@Camco]

If you do get to the point where you need to reformat, I suggest that you repartition your hard drive with FDISK. Create 3 partitions. One for the OS (5GB min.), one for programs (5GB min.) and one for your data. This worked wonders when I was still running Win95. (Not by choice.) I believe I crashed my work computer(s) 8-10 times in three years. I finally got a PC with a large enough HD to partition and I didn't crash it once. I still had some issues due to me constant testing, but nothing major.

[sumdumguy]

GG.. Vorlin and the others have already given you some great suggestions..
I'll just offer one more..

Once you do get things set up the way you want.. use Norton's ghost to make an
image of your drive/partitions (and you can make it bootable) so that in the future it'll be
a snap to restore things back to just the way you want it.

good luck...

[LeeryOne]

GG,
Here are a couple of things you can try (used to work in Win2k - don't know about XP cuz I've migrated to linux)
Get a copy of regclean from MS' site (or pm me and I can send a version that works from 95-2k). Run regclean until no more problems/errors show up (alternatively, you can search for any registry cleaner - they should all work basically the same).
You can also try to increase your swapfile and registry sizes. To do this in 2k (XP should be similar), right click My Computer, go to Properties, click the Performance Options button, and the Change button. I would recommend 2x your physical memory for your paging memory (swapfile, virtual memory, etc.), and 2x your current registry size for the maximum registry size.

A note of warning here (learned the hard way from 2k, 2ksp1, and 2ksp2 which precipitated my migration to RedHat linux): Chech your registry size regularly - especially before installing any new applications. If your registry size is approaching the max size limit, you run of the risk of your registry getting compressed to fit in the maximum size allocated which in my experience trashes the registry. This was a known bug in 2k that was supposedly fixed in sp2, but I can verify that the problem still exists, and since XP is based on the 2k kernel, I would suspect that the same holds for XP as well.

Anyway, the trick is to keep your registry and swapfile as lean and clean (and defragged) as much as possible. The available defrag utilities and registry cleaners should do just that and keep you from having to 'restore' your system.

Cheers,
Bob

[pawn2king]

I agree with all of you that reformat and reinstall the OS every so often, heck it can actually be good practice if you are interested in that MCSE stuff. I mean you need to know how to do an unattended install and what not. From my experience, things never work out like they are supposed to like they do in the books...

[jlightfoot1]

Put in a 2nd HDD d drive and keep all your personal data there. set a static page file on each drive. for example... c drive initial size 1536 and max. size 1536 and d drive initial size 1536 and max. size 1536. works wonders. remove any programs you don't use, if you don't install too many programs that conflict with each other it should work fine. look at the event viewer to find out what is going on. use that information to search the ms knowledge base to fix the problems. clean installs are the best. period. but you shouldn't have to reinstall periodically. i have 2 servers and 2 clients all w2k that run like a champ. downloaded and tried xp a couple of times back when it was beta and it never ran as fast as 2000. all the bells and whistles...

[Conf1rm3d_K1ll]

IMHO, adven has given all the advice you really need.


Although, there's one thing I'd do to really increase performance. Back up all your important data....then....

format c:

Just do a fresh install. It'll be running like "new" in no time!

Also, here's a little registry hack if you don't want to format...

Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory.

1. Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].
2. Create a new DWORD sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' and set the default value to equal '1' to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.
3. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

I tried this after running a intense program, then watched the task manager; memory recovered it self.


Tweak written by or based on information submitted by allen

Copyright © 2001-2002 TweakXP.com


As you can see, this isn't my brainchild. It comes from the brilliant site TweakXp...Check it out. It has countless perfomance improving tweaks.....

[aeallison]

Hello GG,
I have been working with the general public with their computers since the early '80s when windows first saturated the market I knew that this was the end of friendly submissive hardware, then came plug and play and to my horror every hardware manufacturer retooled their factories and dove into the bandwagon headfirst without a snorkel. When Win98 was realeased I was still using my good ol MSDOS and never had any problems, but, (you knew that was coming) I am an avid gamer and the software companies followed the hardware companies blindly into the fray...hence my system has 3 OS's win98 for games because it is the most compatable with my favorites, Win2000pro for my work and number crunching, and good old UNIX for administering my networks via CLI. As for XP I have had soooo many problems with it on my customer's computers that I refuse to even acknowledge its existance!!
Your hardware is ok, heat is most likely not a problem ,although it does not hurt to knock the cobwebs out once in a while, don't use compressed air though as my experiance has seen components blown right off the pc boards, a soft brush like you would find in a ladies makeup kit is all that is needed and close your eyes and blow the loose stuff out the old fashioned way. As for the suggestion about the ROMpaq's offered on the Compaq web site that is a definate MUST DO first before doing anything else that may be the only problem....also XP does not get along wel with Office 2000 it wants you to spend more money and purchase Office XP...if you have Office 2000 or any of its individual programs, Word, PowerPoint, etc remove them now...that is your problem, and any program not specifically written for XP. If you want XP you will have to sacrifice downward compatability as XP will show no mercy. My suggestion to you is to dump xp and install Win 2000 for reliability, or do as I did and install removable drive bays on your box and buy another hard drive and when you want semi-reliability use the win 2k hd and soon you will see that XP no longer exists.

Sorry about the book I wrote you, but your problem is not unique. Anyone who buys a computer a a dept. store with a brand name on it is having this problem. M$ is forcing (somehow) the computer manufacturers to install XP, I build my own computers and don't listen to M$, I install what I want and what my customers want not what Bill Gates wants...

Good Luck on this, You will need it.

Feel free to contact me on this post if you have any questions or need any help.

[trekker007]

I use RegClean V4.1.7364.1