MY PC is taking 3-4 minutes to Load after a reboot.....

[hammersley]

what can I do to help this - and please I'm not an IT guy... ... .

 

[DrDiesel]

Do you anti-spy-ware, virus protection or a firewall. Sounds like you might have gained an unwelcome visitor...

 

[bighammer]

Shut off some of the unwanted and un-used aplications that start automatically. Its amazing how much junk there can be in the background...

 

[RDHamill]

you might try to clean out your cookies, and do a defrag if it's not been done for a while.

For a good FREE anti virus program you can try www.free-av.com

It's free for personal use, we find it works well.

To clean out adware, you can find a good program at http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html

and / or

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html.



I'm willing be bet that other TDR members have lots of other programs to recommend, hopefully we'll hear from some.



good luck

 

[RDHamill]

You might also try Windows Defender, you can get it from Microsoft's web site.

those guys that are not fans of Microsoft might not like using this program.

 

[Giachino]

Windows Defender also has an easy to use "software explorer" that can be used to disable startup programs... . so you can kill thinks like adobe, quicktime,... that auto startup and hog memory..... and that arent really needed to be loaded in memory (they'll still work if you disable them at startup)... .



Others to do: Defrag Utility, Full Virus Scan, Full Spyware Scan, remove unused programs... , Disk Cleanup Utility (remove temp files and other... dont select the compress option)



Kids software is also pretty bad... . lots of garbage, remove what's not currently used

Bearshare, other napster like software, online gambling sites..... are all open doors to your computer and should be minimized

 

[Dutch & Di]

Startup programs

Oo. Ooooh, Giachino, you could be my next "hero". I read your post about windows defender and opened mine. When I saw the software explorer you mentioned, it listed everything that was in the "startup" section. Sooo my question is: if I should want to bite the bullett and click remove on some of these programs-will they be removed completely or just from Startup? I'm self taught so I like to tripple check before I click on any delete or remove buttons. Let me know when you get a minute- Diana

 

[Giachino]

Oo. Ooooh, Giachino, you could be my next "hero". I read your post about windows defender and opened mine. When I saw the software explorer you mentioned, it listed everything that was in the "startup" section. Sooo my question is: if I should want to bite the bullett and click remove on some of these programs-will they be removed completely or just from Startup? I'm self taught so I like to tripple check before I click on any delete or remove buttons. Let me know when you get a minute- Diana

I just use windows defender to "Disable"... . i use control panel->add remove programs to remove them... . that's the normal way within windows..... i'm sure win def works as well, but i prefer to do it within the operation system tool in lieu of via an add on... .



FYI, if you disable something, it can come back after upgrades/ updates... . e. g. disable startup of quicktime, 1 month later after a quicktime update, it will set it to auto start again... . so just check every month or so... .

 

[CAT 385]

get an iMac, this thing runs like a top and no viruses to deal with or spyware nothing!!!

 

[Giachino]

get an iMac, this thing runs like a top and no viruses to deal with or spyware nothing!!!

yeah, or run linux,..... but neither supports the smarty, and a lot of people cant use them for work..... suppose it depends on your situation... . I get my stuff for free for work, and the imac doesn't support our worldwide IT Infrastructure (or vice versa)...



Windows vista will fix it! NOT!

 

[CAT 385]

Ya, I understand that is why I have a laptop that I use just for things that do not support macintosh. But apple is getting a much stronger foot hold and more and more software keeps showing up.

 

[Garbe]

You might try downloading the programs Ad - Aware

http://majorgeeks.com/Ad-Aware_SE_Personal_d506.html



Spybot Search and Destroy

http://majorgeeks.com/SpyBot-Search_&_Destroy_Tools_d2471.html



and CCleaner http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4191

these programs are all free and help clean things up.