Just the antivirus or the built in firewall too that slows things down?? Ok. I found the background apps and turned them off. (The only one I'm concerned about is Microsoft Security, but I cannot turn any of them back on individually.) I also set Webroot to run at 12am daily. It's on when I'm in bed anyway. Occasionally the Microsoft firewall and Webroot protections will turn off for some strange reason. I think the last time may have been due to clearing my cache but not positive.
I think though I can go back to background apps and probably turn them off individually w/o turning off all of them. I think it was the icon at the top that disables all of em. I noticed my realtime protection in Defender is already turned off because if you are using a separate antivirus than Defender turns itself off. There's other buttons I didn't understand so left them on. I'm starting to wonder though if the best advice was to just get a separate SSD drive. All this fiddling around will produce little improvement.
As I already posted, it would help greatly if you post the specs of your computer and also, open Task Manager and post the memory usage percent shown in the Processes tab. It may be that you need more RAM, or have a fairly slow CPU.
Just the Av. As i mentioned before, besides turning off Defender, the suggestions you can find on the net is all you can do. Since you had a decent Pc the problem with Defender should not be an issue. If you have done the other advices in the thread you should now have a picture of the status of your Pc and what the problem(s) might be. With the adjustment you can do, no magic will happen, just slight improvements. About the SSD, do you mean a new in the Pc or a separate as in external? Have you run a sfc /scannow?
Could not imagine life without an SSD as a primary drive. The drive's health will have an effect on the "speed." I had an HDD once--when it was heavily fragmented, it was slow. SLOW. But "slow" is relative if hardware is the constant. Something like Crystal Disk Info software can establish the health of the drive. If machine is slow, it could be a rogue program running at 100% in Task Manager. There are many causes of this broad issue. But an SSD is almost a must-have nowadays. Microsoft is talking about making them mandatory for OEMs' boot drives in the future.
FTR, I never said Defender cannot slow down PCs. It can - for some computers. The point is, any anti-malware solution can, and has - as evidenced by Google. Plug in any program and there will be users reporting performance problems. Does that mean all users of that program have problems? Of course not. But the facts are, there are over 1.6 billion Windows users out there and literally 100s of millions running W10 and W11 are using Defender with no ill effects on performance. But when the numbers of users are so HUGE, it means the numbers for those having problems will be huge too - even though by percentage, the numbers may be on par, or even better than other programs. To make matters worse is the sheer magnitude of Microsoft haters in the forums and IT media taking every opportunity to blame MS, Windows, and/or Defender and to parrot every report in a viral cascade effect, blowing those reports way WAY out of proportion - even when there is zero evidence Defender is even being used!!! Yes, forums are full of users complaining. Why? Because the forums are full of Windows 10/W11 users. If you walk into a Toyota dealership service center, it is going to full of Toyotas in need of repair. Does that mean Toyotas are lousy cars, always breaking down? Over the years, Microsoft has done plenty deserving of criticism. And for those who know me, they know I've done my share (and more) of criticizing. And I will defend, with vigor, the Right for others to criticize. Is am just saying, criticize when criticism is due. Or I will defend those being falsely criticized with equal vigor. @Siamese Dream - If your computer used to be speedy, and your anti-malware solution is the same as you had when new, and now your computer is running slower and slower, it most likely is NOT due to your anti-malware solution - regardless which one you are using. It is more likely clutter, too much starting with Windows, or some changed configuration setting. If you have decided to disable Defender, make sure immediately put something suitable in its place. Do NOT run (and connect to the Internet) without a viable security solution in place.
beside the pointless discussion here. DO NOT mess with things you do not understand. stick with "cleanmgr" and thats it. MS Edge is vital, it need 3rd-party tools to get other browsers tied as "default". i consider such tools as questionable. at least windows owns ms edge webview engine which is similar large as edge itself. pointless to tell you that you drove nuts. i am not sure what you have done also, questionable tweaks do not help out. i guess that your dell 3668 has an i5 intel processor - "3668" is available since celeron cpu so such numbers are not equal to a whole specification. what i can tell you that any ssd will boost a system. i bought samsung 1TB ssd EVO for two of my systems. well done. and i stick with the defender. what i can confirm that any antivirus will slow down, more or less. but some of the are vulnerable, no fun, just a fact. defender is not perfect too, but its integration as also the windows firewall into windows security concept is just perfect. your person considering windows 11 i remember. messing around with windows 11 could run more worse. both windows running without flaws here and my tweaks did not harm windows, they only extended windows. windows 10 and 11 need trial time. if you treat them right they wont blame you
I wish people understood how important and true that message is. Windows 10/11 are not XP. Yet so often some users treat them like they are XP and automatically change the defaults because they always did it that way. Or because it used to be better with XP. Or because they "heard somewhere" it was better (or didn't notice any difference) - typically from someone "who always did it that way". Contrary to what many believe and want the rest of us to believe, the folks at Microsoft are not stupid - at least not those on the program development side. I can't always say that for the marketing weenies and execs - but that's for a different discussion. But the developers really do want us users and our computers to run optimally and securely - if for no other reason than to avoid giving fodder to the MS haters and their followers. And those developers - teams of PhDs, computer scientists, and programmers - have decades of experience and exabytes of empirical data to draw on. The result is the defaults work. Unless you are a true expert in resource management, security, and system performance, it really is best to just leave the defaults alone.
I would not paint Windows 11 in such a rosy light myself. On here with its capable hardware, it's strictly meh. For example, things like sfc /scannow and dism take MUCH longer to complete on my Windows 11 Samsung 970 EVO drive and no: no system corruptions. Yet Defender (with two small supplemental sec. software) runs fine on here--absolutely unobtrusive. If it didn't, it would have gotten the boot long ago. Machine performance trumps software security for me every time. It's a no-brainer. One shouldn't make such sweeping generalizations. It's strictly a machine-by-machine case study. But an SSD to replace an HDD is an almost universal upgrade.
LOL And yet you are using your one, anecdotal example to render a whole point moot! Once again, there are literally 10s even 100s of millions of users out there, running with no complaints. That clearly warrants a "sweeping generalization". Are there exceptions? Of course! But exceptions don't make the rule. We must not lose sight of the fact that essentially each and every one of the 1.6 billion Windows computers out there became a unique computer with seconds of being turned on the very first time. User's setup their unique accounts, network connections, security, installed software. They configured their own desktop and personalizations. And these computers are assembled using components from 100s of different makers. Then we attach printers, monitors, external drives, keyboards, mice - again all made by someone else. And everyone simply expects them all to work. And amazingly, they typically do! Yet if there is a problem, oh wow! Microsoft is so evil and stupid. As seen by the link in my sig, I've been maintaining and building computers for a living for a long time now. And for sure, without a doubt, two facts hold true. (1) The vast majority of our revenue comes from fixing hardware issues, custom builds, and IT consulting. Not in repairing or securing Windows. And (2), since Windows 7 took over market share from XP, when it has been Windows that needs repairing, a large portion of those problems have been the result of users thinking they are smarter than the developers at Microsoft, and have dinked with the defaults. In the past, when XP dominated, most of our repair revenue came from malware removal and security/recovery issues. That is no longer the case - except when users dink with the default settings. Well, there certainly are many, if not the majority, who take security more seriously. I mean, this site is not called Wilders Performance Forum.
OP: Have someone come over who knows what they're doing to have a look, while you watch. An early part of the process will be for them to make an image of your system using an imaging program, so the system can be "put back the way it was" if something breaks. Your slowdown could be due to one of one thousand reasons. It is just a waste of time trying to fix this by posting on a security forum, especially if the needed answers to some of the questions are not being provided. Do you know a patient guru you trust who can help you with this in person?
[QUOTE="My computer is running better now since I cleared my cache LOL, but I was wondering what other basic things I can do to keep it from slowing down too much.[/QUOTE] Many times it's a combination of several small things put together that can make a (big) difference. - This article has a number of simple things that will help to increase performance. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/12-tips-to-speed-up-windows-10-windows-11 - A good solid program to remove LOTS of temporary files is Piriform's CCleaner. And do it regurlarly. - Regurlarly use Piriform's Defraggler or the build-in Windows Defragmentation program. - A favourite tip of mine is to install the good old PcWinTech's CLEANMEM. In spite of having a decent amount of memory I still use it because it keeps memory usage of programs in check. Then it will be less likely that the Operating system has to write data to the pagefile on disk. And Disk I/O is comparatively (very) slow). When I don't run this program (in the background) then I regularly see memory usage go through the roof (e.g. > 70%) especially with Chrome. And sometimes I also see file caches of 1 or more GBs. CLEANMEM will take care of those large file caches. - Disable all MS Edge background processes. https://ugetfix.com/ask/how-to-stop-microsoft-edge-from-running-in-the-background/ - Also: you can GOOGLE it.
Thankfully I haven't messed with anything. I think somewhere along the way I realized that I don't understand computers and adding or taking off things isn't a good idea IMO. Edge is still on there, and about all I can recall loading was adobe, sandboxie, libre office, zoom and skype etc. Also there isn't much need for me to get W11 if I have a good three years left in updates. By then it's probably more economical to just buy a new computer with a new OS.
You have a fairly powerful CPU and plenty of free RAM, so you won't be experiencing performance issues due to these.
- External SSD ? I would prefer an internal SSD. But if you REALLY want only an external SSD then buy one that's (about) the same size as your internal drive or e.g. double that size.
Ok done. It said there were corrupted files that were repaired. I haven't looked them up yet though at windir log. How often do you recommend the scan?
SSD is internal here, does not make sense to plug it on a slow bus. my two 2GB WD drives are still internally, but the backup partition is now larger corrupted files? thats bad. i never had such issues. so i think its time to examine any hard drive for its SMART values get CDI (standard edition) and show us please all values (expand window) https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/ damaged files means bad connection (defective plug), or dying drive (most probable, in special for refurbished computers). a drive which is started a lot for smaller time will die much earlier than vice versa.
@Siamese Dream: - If you want to share the specifications of your system then use Piriform's SPECCY and post here the weblink that SPECCY generates. This link points to an online source and then everyone in this thread who wants can have detailed look at your system.
- Having CCleaner pre-installed shouldn't be a problem if you turn off all "auto-run /-start up" related stuff in CCleaner.
HERE is a Professional lab's check of antivirus performance, as of October 2022. Those tests clocked and rated each tested AV's effect on a computer's speed in doing 5 jobs as follows: 1-File copying, 2-Archiving/Unarchiving, 3-Installing apps, 4-Launching apps, 5-Downloading files. NOTE: they did NOT measure or rate any AVs with respect to impact on computer start-up time. Rightly so, IMO. Some apps are fast to load but slooow in execution, and vice versa. Note that MS Defender rated "slow" on jobs 2&3. On job 1, it rated "slow" on initial file copying & "fast" on subsequent copying of same file. On job 4 it rated "mediocre" on initial launches of an app & "fast" on subsequent launches of that same app. It rated "fast" on job 5, downloading files. On a modern, fast, well set-up computer, the difference could be nothing more than "fast" is 1 blink of an eye and slow is "3" blinks of an eye. On an older, less speedy, not-so-well set-up computer, the difference between "fast" and "slow" would be much more noticeable. Thus, if someone deems his computer is old & slow -- as is my beloved laptop (as well as its user) -- then it should speed things up a bit by disabling MS Defender and installing a lighter, faster AV such as: ESET (excellent AV) or K7 (pretty good AV). BTW, neither of those 2 AVs is free. If a someone wants a faster-but-free AV, Bitdefender's free version is an excellent choice. 2023 is upon us. May all of us live long enough to kiss the cheeks of our children's children's children.
