Help giving a laptop a new lease of life

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by silverfox99, Jul 14, 2006.

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  1. silverfox99

    silverfox99 Registered Member

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    My mum is bringing her laptop over at the weekend as it's very 'slooow' (she says). She's running NAV2005 which I know is a resource hog so I intend to uninstall NAV and get her to purchase NOD32 which should make a bit of a difference hopefully.

    Then

    Run WindowsUpdate
    Disable MS Messenger and any un-needed 'auto starts'
    turn off swap file
    restart into safe mode
    Run Defrag
    Run Spybot S&D & Ad-Aware
    Run Windows Washer etc ('clean up' progs)
    turn swap back on
    restart

    ?? anything else obvious I can do to give her laptop a new lease of life?
     
    silverfox99, Jul 14, 2006
    #1
  2. WSFuser

    WSFuser Registered Member

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    u can try following guide:

    TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide

    it includes a section on disabling unneeded services.

    also, u should lower the amount of eye candy in windows xp. i think that is covered in the guide too.
     
    WSFuser, Jul 14, 2006
    #2
  3. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    it is your choice to remove Norton but most people don't realize that it really not the resource hog people try to make it out to be. And the detection rate is excellent.

    bigc
     
    bigc73542, Jul 14, 2006
    #3
  4. Blackcat

    Blackcat Registered Member

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    Agreed, but it might not be the best choice for an old laptop.
    Adding more memory may also help.
     
    Blackcat, Jul 14, 2006
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  5. ThunderZ

    ThunderZ Registered Member

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    What ever way you decide to go, if you remove NAV, this will help. http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039 It really weeds itself into a system and a normal uninstall will geneally not get it all and may then cause problems\conflicts with another AV you may install.
     
    ThunderZ, Jul 14, 2006
    #5
  6. Bubba

    Bubba Updates Team

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    Since you mention "swap file" causes me to ask....what operating system....Win 98 ?

    Knowing the OS will definetly help when offering\confining suggestions specific to your OS.

    It would also help to some degree knowing the brand\model of PC and as Blackcat alluded to....memory might be needed if this PC is lacking.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2006
    Bubba, Jul 14, 2006
    #6
  7. WSFuser

    WSFuser Registered Member

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    maybe he meant page file?

    silverfox99 - if it is indeed windows 9x, please ignore my link.
    well it is 2005 not 2006. iirc, when people said NAV was lighter i think they were referring to 2006.
     
    WSFuser, Jul 14, 2006
    #7
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