I’ve got a reasonably new laptop with vista on it. It is slow to start up and I’d like to improve it if possible. Are there any free programes that do the registry clean thing (not really sure what it is but there seem to be loads that scan and then say ‘you have 300 things that need fixing now give us 30 quid’).

Is it worth running any other kind of program, i.e. spyware/malware scanners?

I’ve got avast free version running as AV software.

ccleaner?

regcleaners will make very little difference IME

download startup control panel, and untick anything you don’t need starting automatically.

Wot he said – CrapCleaner Clicky

IOBIT.com for a free cleaner that takes care off all sorts of startup probs.

cheers guys,

tried CCleaner and scanned/cleaned etc so will see if that works. I’ll have a look at the other links above too.

Is there a website(s) that explain all this type of stuff in very simple terms? I’ve plenty of time on my hands at the moment and quite fancy learning basic computer stuff like this (it will have to be basic though).

ccleaner.

Use Windows Defender – free download from ms. Select software explorer and startup programs and disable or uninstall all the bloatware.

What retro siad – that utility is great altho IIRC vista has something similar. By stopping stuff you don’t need running at startup you make it boot much quicker

Wait a minute if it is new[u] and boots slowly then you can’t do too much unless you remove excess programs not needed.

How long does it take?

Whats yor laptop spec?

I would get a faster hard drive etc. Is it just getting slow to boot or has it done it since new?

CCLeaner all the way – great bit of kit – use it every week or so – clean your computer – reset the auto loads and ensure you dont have anything you dont want – be brutal… keep you computer as clean as poss – it will last longer!!!

Getting rid of Vista would help 😉

seconded andywhit. just dropped back to xp on my vaio.vista is frankly..crap.

this is called progress. Rubbish! The newer the machine IMHO the slower it starts. why? coz its doing way to many things that I don’t want. To be honest Windows 3.1 did virtually all that I needed. Agreed I might be struggling here a bit but there would be a way round. thank for solving my problem without knowing it.

“Wait a minute if it is new and boots slowly then you can’t do too much unless you remove excess programs not needed. How long does it take?
Whats yor laptop spec? I would get a faster hard drive etc. Is it just getting slow to boot or has it done it since new? “

Its an ASUS A7 series laptop about 12 months old with a 1.9GHz dual core (turion TL58), 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD with vista premium. I quite like vista as it’s the media centre edition with video editing siftware that I can use for helmet cam footage.

The problem is that once you’ve logged on there is a period of about 1 to 1.5minutes where I cannot do anything as various programs are starting up. Things like :-

ASScr prolouge (no idea what this is?)
synaptics pointing device (trackpad)
AV software (avast)
ATI graphics card monitoring
ASUS live update (never seems to work when I try manually updating or looking for new drivers)
windows sidebar
etc

I’ve found the startup manager in windows defender,but I’m not sure which programs I can safely stop from starting up. Will have to do a bit of googling I think to find out what they all do.

cheers for the info

If you’re reasonably confident, just type msconfig into the Run dialogue box and fill your boots. It’s free, but I suppose there’s some safety in creating a recovery point first…

Wait for windows 7?

Wait for windows 7?

Does XP take advantage of the dual core?

Don’t get rid of synaptics touch pad software unless you don’t use the touch pad.

I only notice my pc slowing during boot when my hard drive is getting full.

Whats the capacity? I ended up partitioning my HD so my boot system is one partition and flies and I save larger files on the 2nd or external drive.

Also does the laptop have power management options? if running from the mains make sure its running at full speed and not battery extended time mode which will run slower.

the HDD came partitioned, and the section with vista on has approx 19GB free out of 116GB, while the other section has 30GB free out of 108GB. Too may photos and video files on there 🙁

I do use the power management options, but it doesn’t seem to affect the speed that much, just the battery run time and screen brightness.

What’s win 7?

Windows 7

excellent, a good physical punchbag workout whilst reading one of TJ, SFB or Rudeboys threads 😉

with vista on it

there’s your problem pal. I don’t care if XP looks after dual core or not, it boots shit-hot fast.

With that mike linn utility you can just untick stuff – if yu find you need it just tick it again.

To be honest Windows 3.1 did virtually all that I needed.

Use it then, it’s still available but really, it doesn’t do everything you want it too at all. I’m a unix man at heart and will use linux where I can (and will always use linux for number and file crunching) but as far as I’m, concerned, XP is the best of all worlds. If you’re sensible it’s secure, it’s as fast as anything else out there, particularly if you’re prepared to tune it and it’s very stable in my experience.