Although defragging a drive can be important in overall speed of the computer, Milt just got this one. I have a hard time believing that a few months old computer (prob w/100+ gig HD) needs a defrag already.

This would be necessary for a machine that is barely out of the box? I mean, i unpacked this thing 8 weeks ago and have done no work on it. Just a few hours of browsing and....... well, you know, dozens of hours on Pelican.

Jeez, Pelican sure has changed my life. But, that's another thread, eh?

Next time, buy a Mac.
OS X defrags anything over 20Mb on the fly and no need to worry about Viruses/Spyware/Trojans etc.

/not trying to stir it up, I use Windows too. OS X is just more evolved than XP.

Milt,
both are pretty easy, and a disk cleanup is pretty quick. Might want to try them anyway- it would suck to d/l a bunch of anti-spywarre stuff then find out it just needed de-fragged.

I hope you figure it out!

Paul.

Ditch Norton, get AGV, it's free and isn't such a reource hog.

my wife's 3 gig HP has 60 resources running even with the stuff I don't want closed. Did a clean install of XP on my 1 gig and it's more like 20, and boots and runs very fast.

At 2:28 AM, it ought to be.... ;)

today, the Profile screen only took 21 seconds to open. Once open, it only took 4-5 seconds to respond to the next move.

Milt - why are you using the time to open the profile screen as a proxy for your computer performance? I just did it for grins (mine and yours), and it took more than 20 seconds - all time waiting for the host (and the associated bbs software) to run. This had little/nothing to do with how fast my computer runs.

Time to launch a program or perform an internal task is a reasonable proxy. I'd start there.

To find out how fast your internet connection is running, try one of these: http://www.dslreports.com/stest

And consider using Firefox 2.0. IE is pokey.

EDIT: Oops, I see that you already do.

Don

My semi-educated guess is that it's a combination of the bloatware shipped with the PC, and possible infections with crap.

I *never* use the OE install that comes with a box - I always wipe the disk and re-install.

Nortons makes any computer super slow.
A friend of mine also had a lot of trouble renewing her subscription as well(preloaded on a new computer). The subscription key didn't work, Nortons website didn't work, e-mails to the company didn't work, and ther were NO phone numbers available for help. Fk them!
McAfee has worked great since.

Look up "process list" on google for a list of all the processes(programs) that are supposed to be running. There was a good website called "Black Viper" that had a list of the normal/needed ones.

Stuff like MSTask, Realplayer, and all those updaters don't need to run in the background. Only Explorer (and the firewall/virus software if you're online) are needed for the computer to run.
On Win ME and earlier versions, you could configure what with START/RUN/"msconfig"

more info in sub-headings here: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-106