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Posted by Colin Wilson on 11/20/07 22:53
> OK I believe there is some knowledge out there . Can you help me.
> My computer is slowing down. (real slow)
> Is there any windows repair, service, speed restoring software that
> actually works.
> I know I could do a new install but this computer has huge programs and
> enormous data files and lots of them, so it would take a full week to
> reinstall at least.
> What are my realistic options?
Do you have any known spyware / malware problems at present ?
What virus checker do you use - and is it:
a)updated
b)running properly
Other things to check could be whether the drive has errors that it
might be having to make multiple reads of in order to get the data
loaded correctly (see if you can figure out how to check the SMART
status of the HD) - and whether it's ever had the general clutter /
caches emptied (http://www.ccleaner.com does a great job of this -
just don't bother installing the yahoo toolbar it offers)
Once you've de-cluttered, has it been defragged recently ? - if not,
possibly the best defraggers is called jkdefrag - it's entirely system
friendly, and does a good job of it http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag -
it's not quick the first time you run it, but it gets better on
subsequent runs. You can safely close its' window down to stop the
program - it'll finish the file it was defragging them exit (or you
can press the good ol' DOS combo of CTRL-C)
If you think your system is actually "clean" there's still no harm in
doing a scan with a few things to check - i've got a "recommended"
list for scanning on my site at http://www.coreutilities.co.uk
Basically:
Scan for rootkits (Blacklight by F-Secure)*
Scan for viruses using Sysclean (free, by Trend Micro)**
Scan with Spybot S&D (it's old, but free and still pretty effective)
* if you have any, back up everything you have of importance and
consider wiping the system - rootkits are possibly worse than spyware
in that they can tell Windows (and anything running under Windows)
that it doesn't exist (!)
** you may need to disable your existing virus checker to run this -
it's a one-shot checker, and you download the program and the latest
virus signatures that their full paid-for AV uses, extract the
signature file, then run it from a directory on your desktop (for each
of use, it'll make a couple more files as it unpacks then scans)
If Spybot S&D mentions SmitFraud, even if it thinks it can clean it,
use SmitFraudFix instead - it does a better job, and you may have a
fake DNS installed which it can fix.
Basically, all the links to the various things I mentioned are on my
page - mainly in the second link down from the front page.
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