Auto runs,,,,, helps your computer

[SHobbs]

Thought I would pass this along to the TDR family. I had a coworker tell me about auto runs the other day at work. Google auto runs and download it, it will not download to your hard drive it will ask you to put in a floppy disk. It will download onto the floppy. What it does is show you everything that starts up when you turn your computer on and everything that is running on your system. You'd be amazed at the amount of programs that are running. The auto runs download will allow you to turn off the programs that you don't use all the time and only use the ones you want.



You can turn any program back on or back off at anytime. I did this the other day and I can't believe how much faster my computer is now since doing this. If you have messengers, word or other programs eating up had drive space now you can turn them off if they are not in use. Check it out and see what you think, you can read about without downloading it.



Also there are some programs that you do not want to turn off being it could shut your computer down. Unsure about the program just google it and find out what it does and if you need it.

 

[phloop]

I would like to try this out but the only drive I have is a CD/DVD combo drive and I can't get the floppy to work. :-laf

 

[lmills]

floppy, what the heck is that? LOL :-laf J/K

 

[SHobbs]

It may utilize both not sure I have both cd and floppy. I t asked me to put a floppy in the drive, you could always put it there then move it.

 

[lmills]

either way, I am goig to give it a try.

 

[klenger]

What is the "floppy drive" you speak of?

 

[ToolManTimTaylor]

Remember the days of the 5 1/4 inch floppy??

 

[PC12Driver]

Remember the days of the 5 1/4 inch floppy??

I've still got my original 180k 8" floppy. The "new" 360k 5 1/4s sure were high tech. How did they stuff all that extra info on that smaller disk?...



Start, Run, msconfig. exe will also list all of your startup apps (on the "Startup" tab) and you can toggle them on and off from there. Built into XP, no floppy required.

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Start, Run, msconfig. exe will also list all of your startup apps (on the "Startup" tab) and you can toggle them on and off from there. Built into XP, no floppy required.

This is the way I do it too.

 

[bmoeller]

Yep. Same here.

 

[Carlsummers]

Before I started in IT, I was entering data into an ALTOS 8800 with a 10" floppy drive... . backups were a blast.....

 

[TowPro]

I thought the "floppy" went away when they invented Viagra?

 

[KBennett]

Remember the days of the 5 1/4 inch floppy??

Yep! I had a Commodore 64 and paid $200 for the floppy drive for it, ended up trading the Commodore and drive for a brand new circular saw. The saw still runs great and the Commodore is probably in someone's trash :-laf



Thanks for the info SHobbs, I was wondering where they hid that in XP.

 

[SHobbs]

Bennett,



Not a problem just thought I'd pass it along. I have used the start/run before on my laptop but, the auto runs puts everything right there infront of you.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Before I started in IT, I was entering data into an ALTOS 8800 with a 10" floppy drive... . backups were a blast.....

I'm pretty sure that was an 8" floppy drive. I'm not aware of any 10" drives.



My first PC was a Commodore vic-20 with a tape drive (used audio tapes - talk about SLOW)



As to this autorun thing there is a utility built into windows that will allow you to do the same thing. Click on start->run and type in msconfig and hit enter. You can then turn on or off anything on startup including device drivers, etc.

 

[ToolManTimTaylor]

Yep steve I had one. That and a c-64 , and an old IBM that had a whopping 8mb RAM. EVERYTHING was direct 5 1/4" access from disk. Dos VER 1. 16 if memory serves me right (In fact I think it was just shell)

 

[GIT-R-DONE]

Off Topic, but has anyone " Raided" their hard drives?

 

[PC12Driver]

Yep. I had a Raid-0 setup (striping) where the drives run in parallel for speed (1/2 the file goes on one, 1/2 on the other) In theory you should get 2x the performance, but that's not what really happens. Actually there's hardly an increase for normal use. I kept it that way for a while for the storage capacity (the drives add together). Until the array got out of synch (which they occasionally do), at which point all the data on both drives is lost. Totally, completely, unrecoverably, lost. Not reccomended.



So now I use Raid-1 (mirroring). Each drive in the array is an exact copy. If one cooks, you have a backup. A little slower in theory, but not noticibly to the average user. It's kinda cool to unplug a drive and have the computer keep running like nothing happened. Although it's not a fool-proof backup (if the computer gets spiked or virused the data is still gone), it does prevent against a drive going bad which is probably more likely than a surge.

 

[HEMI®Dart]

I found this guy's webpage tutorial to be the best so far to turn off the XP "junk" you don't need.



http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm



Here's what a found I can't turn off:



DHCP Client = PC won't connect to the internet. I guess I have a Dynamic instead of static IP address.



Themes = desktop display (bottom toolbar) goes to ugly tan color. No bigdeal.



EVERYTHING else I shut off like the web page said. So far so good!



Surfing speed has seemed to increase by 25%.

 

[bmoeller]

I've been removing stuff from my computer that I don't use/need also.



I use a program called Ghost Surf for net use. Works pretty good. When I renewed, I saw they had a program to clean up the registry keys and what not. That has helped considerably.



I also defragged the hard drive.