I have an old XP Home SP3 desktop computer that I only keep in reserve in case my Vista desktop conks out. I run it once a month to update everything, do a disc clean up and defrag. the total size of the C drive is 40Gb and there is 30GB free space. I cannot understand why it is so slow to start up, my wireless connection is excellent and I have only 3 items on start up, Windows Essential security , Google desktop and Incredimail. There are some programmes on the disk that will not uninstall, I get an error message saying "Invalid File disc F " ( I don't know what that refers to !) . However, I have noticed that when I go the control panel/ Services, there are about 50 services to be started automatically. Could this be causing the slow down? Many thanks for your help in advance.
How-To Geek Forums » Windows XP
rarely used XpSP3 running very slow
(7 posts)
Althought I'm aware that some people have had problems with Incredimail, I've used it for the last 6 years with no problems, I use McAfee total security on my Vista desktop and laptop and Incredimail always comes out well. The only trojans I have ever had have come from programme updates via IE. I scan everything that I download before installing and have never found anything on Incredimail, so I'm reluctant to uninstall it.
Can you post a picture of the invalid disk message? Wondering if you had another drive attached, like a CD, when the program was installed and the uninstall is pointing to the CD drive?
How are you quantifying the XP system is 'slow'? Using Vista as a reference might not be good, especially if there is a h/w difference?
I have a 3.6GHZ Pentium Hyper-threaded XP system with 2 GB's of RAM and when I used that I thought it was fast. I compared that to my wife's XP Media Center 2.2GHZ Core 2 Duo with 2GB's of RAM. It was clearly faster starting and shutting down, but all other operations were close.
I got a new computer with Vista (now upgraded to W7), an Intel i7 920 2.67GHZ and 8GB's of RAM. NO COMPARISON, it is clearly faster.
Anyway, I do have some suggestions for you to try.
One would be booting into SAFE MODE and see if it is much fast.
Another would be go to START --> RUN and enter MSCONFIG and on the startup tab disable all starting items and see if it is significantly faster. If it is, start trying different combinations, 1/2 at a time and whittle it down until you discover the slowdown. By that I mean disable 1/2 the entries and see what happens. Fast, put them back and disable the other half. One should be slower than the other. Now take 1/2 the slow ones and disable them. Fast, disable them and enable the other 1/2. Eventually you should find the culprit, or never think any effects it. Post the name here and we'll see what we can tell you.
Services, well, you NEED quite a few. In the same RUN command enter SERVICES.MSC and you'll see all the services. To determine which you need, look at BLACK VIPER's XP SERVICE SUGGESTIONS as a reference. Generally speaking, I find it isn't worthwhile to change these unless you know a specific reason not to have it running. For instance, no wireless or you'll not use Telnet, you can disable Wireless Zero Configuration or Telnet Services. Although time is spent loading these initially, these particular ones probably only load a stub and take a little memory rather than significant time loading.
Irv S.
I think that you must be right about the CD drive Ispalten because when I went to Computer/drive C /and then clicked on drive F it told me to insert a disc into the drive ! Still can't uninstall the programmes though. Also, I think that you are right about not comparing my XP with Vista, I'm still delighted with the speed of my Vista machine, which has much higher specs than the XP. I only have 3 items on start up so I can't remove them and as for the Services, I guess I'll have to leave them as they are because although I consider myself fairly competant I'm not confident enough in my technical abilities !! Thanks for all the advice, it's very much appreciated.
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