When my computer gets slow, I open Task Manager...

[Zeke]

...to see what is sucking up the little memory I have (.75 Gig thanks to Art or it would be third of that).

Surprise to see setup.exe running. I didn't ask for anything. What gives?

I closed it mid process.

[Zeke]

SETUP.EXE-19BF5822.pf
SETUP.EXE-112805AD.pf

Those mean anything to anyone?

Bunch of RUNDLL32-xxxxxxxxx.pf too.

[John Rogers]

Well Milt, there are bunch of things that can be stopped after startup and will have no adverse affect on how your PC runs AND will save memory and possibly CPU time.

- Anything that has ADOBE in the name, if you open a PDF the reader stays in memory.

- Spoolsvc which is a print spooler, not needed as todays printers have their own spool system.

- Any RunDLL, these can be used to execute a DLL and start a virus running.

- wuauclt, this is the Windows updater and if you want it turned off you can stop these.

- Quicktime, JQS, Googleupdater and others that are "updaters" and will startup to check for any new versions on the Inet, but if actually needed, they will update.

- Any left over programs from using Microsoft Office or Microsoft Development programming software as there can be 3 or 4 fone, etc programs.

- ANYTHING with HPxxxxx in the name as HP printers load several programs, one is an automatic updater that will hog your network connection at random times.

To see what is hiding inside those SVCHOST.EXE programs try downloading a copy of Process Explorer from Sysinternals and set the lower screen to show DLL files. You might be shocked at what is running in your PC??!!

[id10t]

$ top -i -n 1

top - 13:26:47 up  3:30,  3 users,  load average: 0.36, 0.39, 0.20
Tasks: 145 total,   4 running, 140 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
Cpu(s):  5.9%us,  2.8%sy,  0.0%ni, 90.0%id,  1.3%wa,  0.1%hi,  0.1%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   4061308k total,  1661620k used,  2399688k free,    52948k buffers
Swap:   975864k total,        0k used,   975864k free,   901880k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                                            
 3610 sdj6308   20   0 1053m 195m  46m R   59  4.9  20:14.04 firefox-bin                                                                        
 4692 sdj6308   20   0  859m 229m  29m R   49  5.8   3:41.94 icedove-bin                                                                        
 1363 root      20   0  242m  82m  20m R   12  2.1   3:24.35 Xorg                                                                               
 4939 sdj6308   20   0 19060 1264  904 R    2  0.0   0:00.01 top

Bunch of other stuff running but it is just hanging around...

[Zeke]

Thanks, John. I know having iTunes running in the background all the time is hogging memory, but short of stopping all these programs in Task Manager every time I boot. I don't know much about editing the registry and most would tell you don't?

AFA the files I showed, should I delete them? Will deleting them from the Search Results actually do the job? I've messed up big time before with things that say DLL32.

[John Rogers]

If you are not comfortable with editing the registry then I'd say stay away. One thing you can do is run the utility "msconfig" by using start -> run then type msconfig and click okay. Under the "startup" tab you can look at what is loaded and then uncheck those that are not needed. If you are not sure then you can use a Google search to see what they are. You can do the same thing with the "services" tab and then do a restart to see if things get better.

I had a computer student earlier this year who kept complaining his laptop was TOO SLOW and we took a look and he had a music sharing program running that was taking 30 to 40% CPU time which is monumental and he had no idea where it came from....... We found it, deleted it and also all DLLs and registry entries and he has been happy since.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

My understanding is that most of the really nasty viruses and malware programs will cloak themselves from being seen in the Task Manager summarization anyway. Any IT security guys on here that can comment?

[Bill Douglas]

Thanks John.

[Zeke]

Might do that. Thanks, John.

[John Rogers]

There are some viruses that hide and one reason is to NOT allow the RunDLL program to even start, let alone run as they are usually stuck inside a DLL which are easier to sneak in. Having said that, the rate of what are actual computer viruses has dropped off dramatically over the last few years and for example in the late 90s and early 2000s there was a worry that if the rate of new virus creation continued at it's pace, no one would get any work done as their machine would spend ALL DAY scanning for viruses!

Now it is easier to just send an email telling someone their "account" has a problem and please send the requested info and we'll fix it....... and people do it every day! In addition now emails can be sent looking like corporate official stuff, open the "very important attachment" and bingo, they are in your system! This was discovered in Europe this week and several engineering companies have lost lots of data and information because dummies don't think! At the last place I worked as an Oracle DBA I never opened an email, I would look to see what it was and then walk over to that person's office and actually talk to them. If they needed a document then they could walk over and see me. After nearly 5 years I was the ONLY person that never got hit with a spam attach or malware or virus in the company!

That program I mentioned above will tell you what is running and you can do a search to see what the valid files for size and date/time stamp are and it lets you look inside the running processes. Attached is a screen shot of one of my svchost.exe files with a verify check done.

[nota]

google END IT ALL

it auto shuts down many un-needed programs
and is free to D/L