XP Insane slowdowns - Any ideas?

[motorollin]

Get a Mac and say goodbye to slowdowns, OS reinstalls, virus scanners and spyware. If you really insist on running Windows, then use Boot Camp to dual boot. Better yet, run it in Parallels. That way you can have a hardfile for a clean base system burned to a DVD, and if you need to "reinstall" Windows then all you need to do is copy the hardfile from the DVD.

Of course, once you start working in OS X, you'll never go back to Windows ;-)

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--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

@Moto;
A: A Mac is way too expensive to buy
B: A Mac is way too expensive to have, because for every little program you have to pay
C: Linux may be a pain in the arse from time to time, but if you use well supported hardware it won't be much of a fuss.

Don't get me wrong, I like Apple's efforts to make a decent OS. Though I really can't pay it. :-(

@Metalman, ah ok, I interpreted as an advice.

[motorollin]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
A: A Mac is way too expensive to buy

On the Apple Store Mac Minis start at £399, or £375 if you're a student. I don't think that's a huge amount more than you would pay for any other computer.

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
B: A Mac is way too expensive to have, because for every little program you have to pay

That's not entirely true. Yes there is quite a bit of shareware and commercial software, but also a LOT of freeware if you know where to look. Lots of BSD software will compile directly on the Mac, and lots of open source Linux software has been ported. The only non-free software I have on my Mac are Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, iWork, Logic, Reason, Recycle and Parallels. I chose to use these commercial apps not because free alternatives were not available (GIMP, OpenOffice, Garageband, Audacity...) but because these are the best options IMO. That certainly doesn't mean that there are no cheaper or free alternatives. I have a lot of free software on my Mac.

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
C: Linux may be a pain in the arse from time to time, but if you use well supported hardware it won't be much of a fuss.

Yes Linux is becoming a much more viable option. If the software I use regularly (Reason and Recycle mainly) were available for Linux I may not have migrated to the Mac. But I'm glad I did :-)

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I like Apple's efforts to make a decent OS. Though I really can't pay it. :-(

Use and abuse your student discount ;-)

--
moto

[bloodline]

@motorollin & Speelgoedmannetje

I would have to agree with Moto... Going Mac was the best thing I've done from a computer standpoint in the last 10 years. Certainly the PowerBook G4 I bought was dog slow compared with the PC... but once Apple moved to intel, their Hardware and OS integration offer a user experience that cannont be matched by other platforms.

My primary reasons for moving (switching in Apple parlance) were to run Logic Pro and because I was fed up with having to run so many AVs and malware checkers, a firewall and spam guard all the time... Also I spent more time trying to fix problems with the stupid thing that actually getting any work done... I was fed up with Windows... so I took the hit and bought a Mac... I wish I had waited a little as the PPC was such a poo CPU... but wow, my MacBook Pro is a little box of Joy :-)

Like Moto, I also am prepared to spend money on software I use, and in my field (Music) comercial software on the Mac is often far superior to that which is available on the Windows platform.

I have no difference between the amount of Free software available for the Mac Vs any other platform... All Unix stuff compiles without problems... plus Apple have seen fit to include a fully integrated X11 server, so *nix GUI based apps run as if first class... very nice :-)

[motorollin]

@bloodline
100% agree with everything you said, except maybe...

bloodline wrote:
PPC was such a poo CPU...

Oh I don't know about that. I used to rewire Reason to Tracktion on my G4 iBook and it ran really well. Perhaps for a pro studio setup it wouldn't have cut it, but for home users I think the G4 was, at the time, more than adequate.

I switched to an Intel Mac when I started getting shouted at by Reason because my computer was, in its own words, "too slow to play the song". Apple really made a good move switching to Intel.

--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
A: A Mac is way too expensive to buy

On the Apple Store Mac Minis start at £399, or £375 if you're a student. I don't think that's a huge amount more than you would pay for any other computer.

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
B: A Mac is way too expensive to have, because for every little program you have to pay

That's not entirely true. Yes there is quite a bit of shareware and commercial software, but also a LOT of freeware if you know where to look. Lots of BSD software will compile directly on the Mac, and lots of open source Linux software has been ported. The only non-free software I have on my Mac are Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, iWork, Logic, Reason, Recycle and Parallels. I chose to use these commercial apps not because free alternatives were not available (GIMP, OpenOffice, Garageband, Audacity...) but because these are the best options IMO. That certainly doesn't mean that there are no cheaper or free alternatives. I have a lot of free software on my Mac.

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
C: Linux may be a pain in the arse from time to time, but if you use well supported hardware it won't be much of a fuss.

Yes Linux is becoming a much more viable option. If the software I use regularly (Reason and Recycle mainly) were available for Linux I may not have migrated to the Mac. But I'm glad I did :-)

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I like Apple's efforts to make a decent OS. Though I really can't pay it. :-(

Use and abuse your student discount ;-)

--
moto

I have a currently working laptop and really can't pay something like 375 pounds... But, I'm almost finished with my study, so, maybe then, some macbook air will be nice :-D
But atm, even an EEE pc is way too expensive :lol:

[motorollin]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
I have a currently working laptop and really can't pay something like 375 pounds... But, I'm almost finished with my study, so, maybe then, some macbook air will be nice :-D
But atm, even an EEE pc is way too expensive :lol:

I feel your pain. My MacBook is quite tatty now, case cracked in a couple of places and looking a bit battered.

When I was talking about the cost of Macs I was really comparing it to the cost of comparable computers. That doesn't make it affordable if you can't afford a computer at all, but my point was that Macs are not really any more expensive than other computers

--
moto

[stefcep2]

I have xppro for 1 year.  And 4 Linux partitions.

Xppro has never blue screened. Never.

One install only- after 14 months.

Very fast-as fast as windows gets.

I use Kaspersky 6, free off magazine.  It was keeping a log of everything it did, turned on by default.  This ended up taking 12 gig of a 20 gig partition.  When I stopped this and deleted it my system was way faster.

I also use advanced uninstaller pro, Windows defrag and registry mechanic.

No problems with slow down or crashes or malware.

Macs ARE too expensive.  you get so little hardware bang for your buck.

They are a closed system, not made to upgrade or tinker with.

And i hate the way Apple obsoletes hardware with every OS upgrade, not because the hardware isn't good enough but because they want more $$$ from you.  Heres an example.  you buy a printer.  you need OS X version 10.blah.  your 2-3 year old mac doesn't have this os.  you have to upgrade the os. but your mac hardware ( 1000 mhz plus) isn't supported by the os. you can't buy a printer for 1000 mhz mac.  wtf.  eg2 you want the latest browser, you need the latest os, the latest os doesn't support your 2-3 year old mac, you have to use your old browser. which has bugs.  tough.

yes i have used macs.  the relative stability versus windows is over-stated, my xp pc NEVER crashes, after 14 months.  Individual software can crash, but never the system.  ease of use, once you get used to the layout of the filesystem, its all the same.

linux?  i WANT to like linux, but until i can do everything via the gui, its not a modern os.  to many archane commands whenever you want to do something.  when i download a printer driver from the manufactures web site, i don't want to open a shell to install it.  i don't want hardware disappearing for no reason and appearing for no reason.  i don't want to be limited to the software in the repos, depending the kindness of the distro guru's to put it in there if and when they feel like it , and i don't want to learn a gazillion commands to install something thats not in the repos. whats wrong with creating an installer? oh yeah there are a billion different distros out there, its anarchy, too hard to write an installer that wont kill some of them.

Ubuntu is most popular only because its got canonical behind them, but it uses the cli more than any other distro i've tried.  sudo this sudo that.  how is this user-friendly?  mandriva 2008 spring is the best so far: you don't need to cli much at all. rpm files can double clicked and they install.  But has stability issues.  

so i wait anticipating, THIS time i'll find the right OS.  and i wait..

[persia]

I use VMWare fusion to test Windows downloads, every once in a while I'll watch the virtual machine melt into a worm insfest mess right before my eyes.  I'm appy that I can just delete it an use a new copy.

Windows really is a nice OS if you can just throw it away occasionally...

[Hodgkinson]

Thanks for all the posts!

ATM Im just trying to get an Avira bootable CD-ROM virus checker to work. Unfortunately (As I've mentioned on their support forum) the thing stops abruptly with a "DEMO" mode, which it shouldn't.

For the last week or so I haven't hardly any slowdowns. Odd (Well, Windows is odd…)

Regards,
Hodgkinson.

[Hodgkinson]

According to one of the support team on the Avira website, they can't duplicate the problem that I have experienced, and they suggest that I burn another CD, this time from the online ISO file using a burner program of my own.
One problem - Now I haven't got any cheap-and-nasty disks left to try it with :crazy:

Anyway, Im almost certain that the slowdowns are caused by (But not limited to) Windows search. Almost every time I run a search (From start to end) through the substantial 12GB of "My Documents" the system takes a good half a minute to display basic folders and display the Start menu; even after closing the search utility. From past experience (With buggy games) could this be due to a RAM leak?
Anyone know of a Microsoft peel off self-adhesive patch?

[Damion]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

bloodline wrote:
If it's been twelve month since your last reinstall... then I'm sorry to say, it's time to back everything up and reinstall windows. 'Tis the way of Windows.

Not necessarily, I've had my laptop not being reinstalled for more than a year, until I installed Visual Studio 2008 on it (got it for a low price, special student offer). Visual Studio 2008 really screwed up my system. I didn't have to pay much for it, but to think of paying the full price for such a disastrous product which IMHO couldn't even be in Alpha stage :pissed:

One of my PCs is going on 5 years with the same XP install. (3 years on the machines I maintain at work, which are used constantly on a daily basis.) Minus file corruption or hardware fault, Windows can easily be maintained indefinitely.

Granted, a re-install is necessary is some (rare) cases, but it's better practice to fix the problem IMHO.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

It's not about XP, which works fine, it's about Visual Studio, which did work fine until version 2005, and did NOT work fine with the 'enhancements' in the 2008 version.

[Damion]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
It's not about XP, which works fine, it's about Visual Studio, which did work fine until version 2005, and did NOT work fine with the 'enhancements' in the 2008 version.

Ugh, sorry man, I was actually responding to the earlier part of the quote (didn't mean to include your bit).

[Hodgkinson]

Any tips of the trade for keeping XP going? (Eg, apart from AVscanning/Defrag/Scandisk)

[Boot_WB]

I was recently experiencing ridiculous slowdowns on Thunderbird - moving a single e-mail to particular folders (ie ones with lots of stored messages) could take up to two minutes. Tracked it down to McAffee (Networks Associates), and found a fix - disabling the "Decode MIME encoded files" in the on-access scanner.
As MIME types are still decoded in the "on delivery" scanner, the risk is minimal, and the positive effects were immediate.

I had been thinking that I'd have to ditch Thunderbird and find a new e-mail client, but not any more.

You could also exclude certain drives/directories from the on-access scan - obviously not removable drives, but certain areas of fixed disks shouldn't be too much risk.