I have a Dell dimension 4500 - it's about 7 years old and had 256M of memory. That was an expensive configuration at the time as I recall! I have been using it as an extra computer in the house - but it was getting slower and slower (kind of like me ) over time. I'm no expert by any means, but I aded memory bringing it up to 1 G - it's like a new computer and works beautifully. My question is this - are there settings that I don't know about and don't understand that should be adjusted? I read about pagefile and other types of system files - should I be checking something? Thank you, Len
Memory always helps. A question, is this the original install. Perhaps it is time for a fresh install, you probably received a (set of) restore disk(s). Just be sure to back-up your data before hand. What would help more is probably a good review of what is starting up with Windows. Since you say memory helped it sounds more like an overload of running programs. The quickest way, not the most complete is to have a look at the task bar. All those icons by the clock represent programs that are starting\running when Windows starts. Decide what is needed and what is not. Many programs do have the option for them not to run at start-up. You just may have to dig for it a little. Go through your add\remove programs list. If you have`t or do not use some of the programs listed uninstall them. Check Task Manager for the amount of running processes. This will also help to identify what is running. After this use a "trash clean-up" utility if you do not have one already. Many here use this one. I prefer this one. Then run defrag. You could boot into safe mode to do so but not necessary. Let us know if this helps. Some may also suggest the use of msconfig to disable additional start-up items. This is an option as well, once you have done the other steps.
ThunderZ - Thank you. I think I'm in pretty good shape with respect to what you mentioned. I used ccleaner to manage my startups and clean up junk - temp files, cookies etc. I defragged. A windows reistall would be time consuming but i guess i should do it. Installation disks are xp home before SP1! So i'd have a lot of updating and software reinstalls to do. Someday I hope to have the time. But for now - it's running beautifully! Again, amazing what a difference it made.
