SP3 & Beyond (Sluggish) (SP3)

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OK…

What’s the deal w/ SP3…I download it…I install it…& the next two days…’Windows Updates’ is throwing more “necessary” (?) downloads at me. I thought SP3 was it…everything…nothing else necessary…no further support. What gives?

Also…both of my PC’s…home music studio & work…load really, really, really, really slow now; & are generally OS sluggish for other functionalities. I’m wondering why I did this.

mark4man

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Windows XP SP3 was released 4 months ago, there have been 4 rounds of monthly updates since then.

I’ve been using SP3 at home and at work since its release, and I haven’t noticed a speed difference compared to SP2. Can you see in the Processes tab of Task Manager which processes, if any, are using an inordinate amount of CPU time?

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Hans…

So…what do I do…quickly open TM as soon as I notice sluggish behavior?

But how will that help me w/ knowing what’s causing the super slow boot-up time…cant get into TM ’till the OS loads, right? And even then…would it indicate the problem?

Thanks,

mark4man

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I installed SP3 shortly after it came out. I found I couldn’t access programs in the add/remove software list with it installed. I think I had another problem as well, though I forget which. I heard that SP3 was supposed to make things a little faster – that certainly wasn’t the case for me. I used an Acronis disc image to go back to SP2. My problems may have been caused by a non-standard installation of the original operating system (XP Pro). I’ve been installing security updates since abandoning SP3 but I’m going to pass on it for as long as I can, hopefully until I abandon windows altogether.

Sorry, not much help, but I question the value/importance of SP3 as well.

Chris (Hunt)

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You could put a shortcut to the task manager in your startup folder. That way it would start as part of the boot process. BTW, have you checked the event logs?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe (& everyone)…

I thought about it again; & realized I had cleaned & defragged prior to installing SP3 (the memory ain’t what it used to be…lemme tell ya’). So I did it again; & I’m now loading at about the same time duration as SP2.

This is still kinda slow, to my liking…so I summoned up ‘Task Manager’ (per Joe’s recommendation…didn’t need a shortcut…I hit Ctrl > Alt > Delete as soon as I could see desktop); & the process using up the most memory was avgrssvc.exe, fluctuating at 88 megs & above. AVG is my anti-virus program, by Grisoft.

So…I guess I can live w/ this current speed; & my menus do seem to be faster. The alternative would be to somehow run that (& a couple other AVG services) only when on the internet…but I have no idea how to do that; & it seems like it would be a pain in the butt anyway.

Thanks again, everybody…

mark4man

BTW – Event Viewer shows (at startup) loading of my audio driver, e1express, Tcpip; & a small bunch of Service Control Managers. This is normal, eh?

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The startup events you observed are entirely normal. BTW, there may be some slight increase in speed as you use the system when XP rebuild the pre-fetch cache.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks, Joe

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Actually…

I have another quick question:

I’ve been going thru my Services & turning them off as per Black Viper‘s recommendations (& subsequently checking to make sure I’m not f’in anything up in the process)…& was wondering:

…is the Indexing Service Microsoft recommends turning off in this way:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899869/en-us%5B/url%5D

the same as this Indexing Service?:

http://www.moonjams.com/Indexing Service_OS Drive.jpg[/url]

&…in the Services list itself (Run > services.msc)…I’m still listed as Manual (after using MS’s method, above). Same goes for the box being checked in my ‘Disk Properties’ dialog.

Is Microsoft talking about something else?

Thanks again,

mark4man

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If you turn off indexing service as in the MSKB article, it’ll be off for all drives, and it’ll be listed as Manual in services.msc.
If you turn off indexing for drive C: as in the moonjams screenshot, the service itself will still be running but it’ll skip drive C, and if you have already turned off the indexing service, it won’t matter what the setting for drive C is.

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For some possibly helpful perspective on Black Viper, you may want to take a look at this thread.

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