Replies

…. I use Macrium Reflect Pro, but my friend needs the free version. Can the free version backup to subfolders as well?…./QUOTE]

I may be wrong but I am pretty sure the free version only backs up and restores partitions (and the whole drive). There are free backups that do howeer. Easues ToDo comes to mind for free, though I too use MR-Pro.

I too would try and dissuade you from dumping services without cause. If you are using XP, maybe it is worth the effort. But Vista onward handle processes and services much more efficiently so their reduction rarely accomplishes much positive and can cause serious problems.

One thing to look at is to the option of temporarily removing all Microsoft services from the viewing list which will present all other services installed by 3rd party’s. Google and determine if you really need them.

As for fine tuning make an image backup BEFORE you start tweaking. We have likely all been there and done that. . . to our eventual regret. :p

BlackVipre is a good place to start…here is another:
http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html (Regular is free to download)

I just installed Java 7 U67 on an XP machine @ work. It installed fine.

Joe

Yes, but the point is Oracle no longer tests it on XP. So if someone has a fail and is running XP they are SOL.

Thanks satrow. I knew some of OpenOffice would run without Java, but didn’t know how extensive the requirement was.

Last I heard, Java 7 update 65 is the last one for Win XP.

Yup, pretty disquieting IMHO. You raise an excellent point. I am surprised they still release version 7 updates sans XP support.

Change to IE 10 or 11 – it doesn’t bloat anywhere near as much as FF.

Seriously!!!!

You can try what Berton said and revert back one version. Or try Safari for Windows or Opera. Tis a sad day for those of us who affectionately remember Firefox.

OK, the software side. I had to check to make sure some things were available in vista that are available in Win7 to test performance issues. In most cases yes, but sometimes lacking some features.

Boot into Safe Mode. Is it still slow to load apps? If yes, then a driver or startup app is likely the culprit. How it was recently changed or corrupted needs to be addressed. If no, repeat using a Clean Boot.

Since this is acute, assuming the boot hard drive tests fine [BTW you should temporarily disconnect any other hard drives as I had a secondary drive going bad that accounted for sudden slow start/app load times.] and it doesn’t seem to be drivers or startups, I would test for malware next.

Run Malawarebytes Anti-Malware.

It would also be a good idea to download on a trouble-free PC and burn an ISO of a Rescue Disk from a vendor other than the AV app you currently use. Boot it up, download the antiviral updates and then test your system. I prefer AVG or Kaspersky, but there are several other free bootable rescue disks.

If it passes it is likely malware free. Could still be a root-kit but lets worry about that later.

Since it is acute likely something recently installed is responsible for the slowdown. Check out Reliability Monitor.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950685 [safe mode, clean boot, reliability monitor and Windows Experience Index directions]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/fixing-windows-vista-part-3-top-troubleshooting-tools/437

http://windowssecrets.com/best-practices/common-myths-about-troubleshooting-a-slow-pc/ [One of the best articles I have read on the subject.]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959062 [always dubious of automated fixes myself] Many of the suggestions are for slowly accumulating performance issues not the acute slowdown you describe.

You can try booting up a LiveCD, but effectively you already did this with any boot disk you tried. If it too was very slow to start and work. (Bear in mind until it loads into memory it is loading from an much slower than a HDD optical drive or faster flash drive so some latency will normally occur.) If it loads and works just fine then it likely points to a problem with either the currently not utilized Vista OS/drivers/services/startups or boot drive. If it too is seriously sluggish then a hardware problem. I would still suspect the boot drive even with a pass and temporarily try a known working drive. But it could also be a bad SATA data cable, SATA controller, PSU or SATA power cable… and other less likley things too.

There are a couple of other things short of a clean install that can be tried. In order: SFC /scannow and a Repair Install. If you do either make an image backup of the drive first. While these are supposed to be non-destructive fixes don’t take a chance.

Bottom line you say the 32-bit Win7 update had a unique update compared to the 64-bit version yesterday. It has to be there in your log if it was installed (or attempted to install/fail). Then you could incontrovertibly share with us exactly what it was.

edit: I figured Windows Secrets was bound to be reasonably current on this topic:
http://windowssecrets.com/best-practices/parental-controls-for-kids-and-adults/ Looks like Michael Lasky provides a free Win7 solution to your timer problem (I’m sure it exists in Win8 too (Vista, XP?). Hopefully it allows different times on weekends (and school vacations will need your manual intervention). You will need to set up a password protected (don’t forget it, and it can readily be hacked, oh joy, I’m sure a kid will never figure that out) Admin account for yourself first.

If he has a smartphone—good luck.

Protection, ummmm, you can subscribe to OpenDNS. And there are parental blocking apps that can be installed; and your ISP (or phone co.) may supply them for free (mine do). Good practice for the kid at hacking IMHO.
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/applications/best-free-parental-control-software-9-programs-to-keep-your-kids-safe-1140315#null

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-parental-control-apps-to-help-safeguard-your-kids/

The simplest and surest method for ensuring sleep might be locating the wifi router in your bedroom and setting it up on a wall socket timer that turns the router on and off via the wall socket at certain times. Inconvenient for you if you go to bed after the kids, but if he is like kids I know once asleep they are not likely to wake up with you in the morning and access the net. They get up when you shake them awake.

As was said if your router allows blocking (or better allowing) devices (via MAC address) between specific hours during the days of the week you are set…and he can learn a valuable lesson in MAC address spoofing. Education is a wonderful thing.

This also assumes a neighbor is not running a nearby open or WEP protected (ah, more hacking experience) wifi connection. Not very common any more.

One other thought–though I suspect it may not be available in many or any wifi router. Dual band routers (2.4MHz and 5Mz) can function independently as if two wifi routers were operating. I run my guest bedroom connection off of the 2.4MHz connection. It may be possible to set restrictions on one while using the other. Some wifi routers also allow “Guest” accounts. These may allow restricting hours as well. Comes down to downloading manuals and visiting maker’s web sites to see what parental controls they offer (and keeping firmware up to date).

….I also ran speedtest.net again and now the WiFi in the Win 8 laptop registers around 25 Mbps — a long way from yesterday’s 0.5! I don’t have any idea why it changed….

Seems like progress to me. Could still be a intermittent (failing) bad wifi transmitter/receiver inside the laptop, but if you changed out the driver that may have reset/corrected some problem. Either way the problem lay with the laptop assuming you were initially testing both wifi connections side by side. Keep an eye on it and if it relapses then I’d RMA it if under warranty or repair it myself with a better replacement card.

Since your XP box works as expected (a bit of overhead loss via wifi compared to wired), the wifi box is fine.

Since your Win8 box fails on wifi but works wired comparable to wired above you know the connection is good wired, but the Win8 PC’s wifi is bad. Does the Win8 PC’s wifi work on another wifi connection?

If uninstalling the wifi driver and reinstalling the driver does not clear up the problem, and messing with wifi driver advanced settings does not help then it is time to contact the laptop(?) maker for RMA or if past warranty, replace the card yourself. Easy to hard depending upon make/model. Fairly inexpensive part.

This does assume you have tried the wifi in direct line of sight with the wifi router or at least next to the XP PC. I am assuming you tried both laptops next to each other. If it was interference why would one work and the other not? This also assumes you have correctly set up your access to the wifi connection—but uninstalling and reinstalling should take care of that since I assume you set up your XP connection as well and are familiar with the process.

The FIOS combo unit does effect things though not for this troubleshooting. But once things are working you should find out how to switch to channel 1 or 11 (whichever has the least strongest signal interfering) and see if your wifi speeds improve. Your ISP ought to have a manual to download. Have you tried (wired) accessing the router’s menu via 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.0, 192.168.0.1, or 192.168.0.0? If it asks for a password try both blank or user: “admin”, password: blank or “admin” in both spots.
https://community.newegg.com/eggxpert/networking/f/135089/t/99723.aspx

Open up your task manager at the next crash and see how much memory FF is using. See if the memory even gets released after the Mozilla restart. It has always had a memory leak (at least for over a decade) and they finally got it under some control a few years back but since FF28 it is back. If y0ou find your FF is hogging 2, 3Gb or more well welcome to Chrome…they have a 64bitbeta you can try.

https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms14-aug

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24367-windows-update-view-update-history-details.html

If you want complete, and I mean complete, details you can do this and go to the bottom of the log:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/902093

Sorry it has taken 24 hours to reply.

Is it hardware or OS (load)? You have ruled out some things.

Check to see what percentage of disk space remains on your HDD. There should be at least 25% though I usually don’t see notable slowdowns until much less space remains.

On an old machine I always suspect a failing hard drive on suddenly long boot times and app access times. This is best tested via the HDD maker’s diag testing app found on their tech support download site (may be boot or Windows based). Have a flash drive plugged in first so you can write any log file info generated to it for your records if it is recognized.

If an error code is generated be prepared to write it down. I would assume with Vista the drive is likely out of warranty. DO NOT accept any offers to fix the drive by the testing app (free) until you have backed the drive or at least whatever you care about first. I usually examine the SMART data (with Parted Magic).

It is possible–but unlikely–that memory is causing this (though it is possible only having 2Gb may cause slow behavior after an Windows update has been applied). You can test RAM by booting up and running MS Diag Memory app or memtest86 or memtest86+. (free)

Is this a netbook with a dual core Atom CPU or some other fairly wimpy low power using mobile CPU? I have to ask as this class of CPUs does not lend itself to performance.

I will post back with some Windows diagnostic aids (the software side) to check as soon as I find them. Plus there is a rule out technique I may include.

It can’t trigger a malware alert. That is the point of a boot disk…it provides the OS not Windows. [Unless your BIOS (UEFI) has some block or we are talking a BIOS password and not Win7.]

And if a AV app detects a “malware” in an downloading ISO, so what, you either temp disable the AV or tell it everything is OK and to ignore it: That is why those options are there.

Your alternatives are to restore your boot Win7 partition form the last image backup or clean install it. The latter is a pretty bad alternative and the former sucks if it has been a while since backing it up.