Super Clean Up

[Gibble]

Hey Guys.

I will be going up to the sticks to visit my father who is not all that computer savvy in a couple of days and wanted some advice. He has my old computer which is not a speed demon by any means, but he only uses it for E-mail and IM with his friends. I was looking for ways to speed it up and had some ideas to run by you. I know I have a lot of programs on there that he will never think about using, so I was thinking about deleting them to clean up some hard drive space. I know there are some programs I can remove from the start up list. I'll Run a beautiful disk cleanup and defrag. Since he is on Dial up I was going to burn a disc with some little programs like Ad aware and Spybot just to make sure he can fight off some junk. Can you guys think of any other little programs that might be usefull?

I was thinking about upping the ram too, but I think I already have it maxed out for that MB.

For an AV he is using 2003 norton pro I think and I was wondiering if it might be better if I got him AVG. Assuming that AVG is less of a hog than Norton.

Like I said earlier, he is on dialup so would a firewall be useful? I know there is one on there already, I think Sygate, but is it needed?

Oh, one last thing, I was assuming that after deleting all sorts of programs it might be a good thing to run a reg cleaner program. Can you guys think of a cleaner that will scan the registry and give me a wonderful list that can be safely deleted? I have used Reg cleaner but I would just deleting entrys one by one, and after deleting so many programs, that could take a while :D.

I guess I should tell you that the system is a P3 6000 with 256mb of ram, some junk TNT vid card running windows 98se.

Thanks for the help and advice guys.

[Panama Red]

Downloading Windows Updates on a dialup can be a pain, but MS has continued with Security Updates for 98se and IE. I'd think those need to be installed too. I don't see much difference between AVG and Norton on my machines. I use both on different machines. Doubt that more memory would do much but dent your wallet. I use Registry Healer and had to pay for the full version. Excellent product but can't help you with the free aspect. If you get any start up programs than you're unsure of you can check them here to see if they're needed or not.

http://www.sysinfo.org/startupinfo.html

[GaryRouth]

If you or a friend of yours has the Windows Security Update CD, it can save a lot of time. It contains the patches and updates up to February 2004 (or thereabouts). The CD can be ordered free from the microsoft.com site - you just provide a telephone #, they send it to you free [they even pay shipping] -- but it takes an average of two weeks to arrive. If your visit is more that two weeks away, try ordering one - it might make it on time [they're good to have around, anyway = for neighbors and friends on dialup who haven't been keeping up to date with the patches]

Your plan sounds pretty good - if the system's got a working AV and firewall, might as well let them stay, if they've been effective. . . . Norton 2004 is a bigger offender than 2003 as far as system usage - though 2004 has had a few speed-enhancing tweaks in the last few Live Updates to some of it's main components. I agree with Panama that it'd probably be hard for your dad to notice any difference in performance gained by switching to AVG [it might perform the actual scan faster, but system usage on "AutoProtect" isn't much different].

And even though it takes longer, RegCleaner is a good choice too. (especially since it's already on the machine)

If it's WinMe that he's running, you could use Norton Ghost, or Drive Image, or your-favorite-disk-imaging-software :) to capture his system once it's all cleaned up and tuned. And then Disable System Restore - this can be yield a fairly noticable boost in performance. But he'll want to run Backups on a regular basis, and do a new Drive Image once and a while.

Hey, I like those old junk TNTs :) [they were pretty hot stuff back in their day] I still have one running in a P233mmx that's on it's way as a donation to a local preschool. . .

256mb of RAM is good. Anymore on a Win9x box isn't going to help. And memory prices for PC100/PC133 are through the roof, since they're getting scarce.

In addition to the sysinfo.org site, if they miss anthing or have a confusing entry, you can doublecheck things over at the answersthatwork.com list.

[So how come you haven't bought Pops a P4/or/XP-M wireless laptop yet, huh? :) ]
. . . Gary

[p.s. ...after your cleanup, make sure he visits Windows Update for the latest patches (too recent to make it on the CD) . . . there's a new one just in the last few days for that pop-up vulnerability that was exploited by a keylogger]

[Gibble]

Thanks for the advice guys, just wanted to make sure I was on the right path. I leave tomorrow so I won't have time to order that cd, but it's something I will keep in mind for the next time I know I'm going up there. Oh, and about the laptop, I just wrote off the car, so I don't really have money for that. :(