[vox-tech] [OT] Windows Question for Relative

[Jonathan Stickel]

Bob Scofield wrote:
> Here's a painful question, but I feel justified in asking it for two reasons:  
> (1) it's not for me, but for my sister; and (2) I'm doing some Linux 
> missionary work directed at her.
> 
> My sister has a relatively new (one year or so) Dell computer running XP.  It 
> has always run very slowly.  I've made some suggestions which have not 
> worked, such as running Spybot.  I think she's defragged.  I think she's 
> cleaned up with Norton Clean Sweep. 

We could use some more information here to know whether it is really 
slow or just not meeting expectations.  My guess is it probably is 
slower than it should due to the usual virus/spyware and possibly just 
having to many things loading into memory.  It does sound like the right 
things have been done for virus and spyware, but maybe some were missed. 
  You also want to stop useless programs from auto-running, especially 
realplayer, quicktime, and the like.  Look for those icons in the 
taskbar.  Also, ctl-alt-del will give you a taskmanager and cpu-meter. 
Use that to see if rogue programs are using cpu and memory.

> 
> I'm going up to her house in Eureka next weekend and she's asked me to try to 
> look into the problem.  The only thing I can think of is to see if she's got 
> some memory resident programs that I can close down.  Other than that my 
> recommendation is for her to take it into a computer repair shop.
> 
> Does anyone have any other ideas of things I can look into?  Is there any 
> reason to think that reformatting and reinstalling would help?  (I'll take my 
> SuSE 9.2 CD's up there just in case.)
> 

Yes, a reinstall might help, but use a raw WinXP cd, NOT what came with 
Dell.  That one will likely install all kinds of extra crap and you will 
be no better off than before.  Also, don't connect to the internet 
unless you are on a NAT-firewall until you get windows updates through 
Service Pack 2.

And, certainly, installing Linux is the best solution. :)

Jonathan