Both my wife and I are suffering from slow systems.

Her laptop is only 18 months old, my PC is more like 5 years old. The internet where we live is not too grand but we het 5Meg so better than many. We don’t do anything demanding just internet and a bit od word processing.

Both computers just seem to be thinking all the time.

Do these speed up ypur system programms work or would we be better off talking the computers to someone to fix?

Is there a link missing?

do these speed up your systems programs work?

Generally not.

Check what programs are loading at startup. Disable ones that aren’t essential. Uninstall any programs that you don’t use. Check how much hard disk space you have free. Run disk cleanup and get rid of the crap.

CCleaner.  Install, configure and run every few days or weeks depending on hard you’re pushing your machines resources.

Check for crappy AV that hog power, e.g. Norton.  Remove and replace with MSE or similar.

One thing that can make a (small) difference – If your desktop pc has been sat on the floor, take the back / side off and hoover all the crap out of it, it might be having cooling issues.

Otherwise, as above it’s more likely to be some bloatware, or unsupported browser extension that you’ve inadvertently installed.

would we be better off talking the computers to someone to fix?

Almost certainly this. But as a start you could try uninstalling any unused applications, things like Chrome extensions etc which all use up memory. But (no offence intended) judging from your original message I’m guessing you’re not that computer-savvy, and it’d probably be a lot easier just to get someone else to do it.

Mogrim …No offence taken.

I use Avast as my AV ..indeed looking at usage it seems a bit greedy.

Tried to switch it off but is dosn’t want to switch off.

PC has been sitting on the floof for years and looks dust will try a good vacuum.

Do these speed up ypur system programms work

At best, no.  At worst they’ll hose your system.

CCleaner. Install, configure and run every few days or weeks depending on hard you’re pushing your machines resources.

Don’t do this.

Check for crappy AV that hog power, e.g. Norton. Remove and replace with MSE or similar.

Do do this.  Uninstall rather than just “switch off.”  Assuming Windows 10, Windows Defender will kick in automatically, you don’t need to do anything further.

5 year old PC might not have been upgraded to Windows 10.

What Cougar says x100.

When it’s slow, pull up task manager (ctrl-shift-esc).  Look at the performance tab – is anything maxed out?

Upgrades may help – more ram or an SSD – but look at Taskman first.

Alternatively, if you’re just using internet and some word/spreadsheet stuff, get rid and buy a couple of Chromebooks.

They’re cheap, fast, do not slow down and have built in AV.

I’d say they’re perfect for >90% of home computer users.

What’s the issue with CCleaner?

What operating system on the 5 yo one? Could probably do with a wipe and reinstall, but this will no doubt be a pain to any normal computer user! Also older systems did always benefit from a chkdsk and defrag… (in system tools on Win7 IIRC)

What’s the issue with CCleaner?

Basically if you’re not an expert you could easily **** up your computer.

the-muffin-man

What’s the issue with CCleaner?

As per Mogrim the registry cleaner part could cause you lots of issue but also they managed to get themselves hacked back in Sept 2017, so the software was turned into Malware. Should be past history but…

Oldtimers Temp file cleaner is an alternative but hasn’t been updated in a long time.. I lie it was update in Jul 2017…

I’d also run Malewarebyte tools but they like to try to force/trick/scare you into purchasing the app (I have no issue with the app but dislike the tactics used).

Basically if you’re not an expert you could easily **** up your computer.

Yeah.  CCleaner is a fairly powerful tool and has the capacity to cause problems if you just select everything and hit ‘go.’  It’s not something I’d ever recommend to a regular end user, in part because of this but also because even if this weren’t the case it’s not actually doing anything particularly advantageous on a modern system.  CCleaner has its place, and its place is “fifteen years ago.”

As I’ve said time and again about registry cleaners: your registry isn’t dirty, leave it alone.

Re CCleaner, you’ll notice I said:

CCleaner.  Install, <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>configure</span> and run every few days or weeks depending on hard you’re pushing your machines resources.

I agree it’s capable of causing all kinds of shizzle if you set it up wrongly.  However, having run it for years on different machines I’d say it does a sound job of removing crap you no longer need, which from time to time results in a performance increase.  One simply needs to set up the basics correctly and go for it.

If CCleaner results in a noticeable performance increase above and beyond simply uninstalling unwanted background software through add/remove programs, you can have my bike.  On modern systems it’s a placebo at best.

One simply needs to set up the basics correctly and go for it.

Which comes back to the ‘knowing what you’re doing’ aspect that Mogrim suggested.  And, by extension, why I do not recommend it to inexperienced users.

Run Malwarebytes to check you’re clean

Anyway, some things I’d check which are fairly easy to do:

* Open “Add/remove programs” and get rid of anything you don’t use

Edit: that you don’t use and recognise! Don’t just remove programs when you’re not sure what they are…

* If you’re using Chrome, copy “chrome://extensions/” into the title bar, hit enter and see what’s there.  Get rid of any extensions you don’t use.

* If you’re using Firefox, same thing but “about:addons”.

* No idea about Internet Explorer as I’m on a corporate machine here and it’s an ancient version…

* If you’ve got loads of files on the desktop (for example a huge folder with 50GB of video) that can affect performance. Move it to somewhere else (for example a portable hard drive – not a USB stick as they can and do fail more often).

get shot of the Avast stuff (uninstall), and get rid of all the other stuff that you don’t use. Make sure Microsoft updates are all done and then do a full scan with the MS tools. If you need another independent AV tool then try Sophos (they do a free version I think..)

I agree with Cougar – RegCleaner is a bad idea

If they don’t have SSDs, spend your money there.

Then reinstall Windows fresh, following this: https://decentsecurity.com/#/securing-your-computer/

Slowly working my way through this…

Avast removed

Started on some of the apps

Started cleaning up the desktop

Is is noticably better so far … but not yet great

DezB .. I have windows 10 (but started with someting else)

Cougar .. not tried CC Cleaner … but if you will take my word for it prahaps being better can I have your bike?…

Its pretty easy to re install windows for a fresh start.

<p>Indeed, fresh start is the best possible solution.</p><p></p><p>Didn’t defrag stop being necessary when Windows 7 launched as it get done automatically (and why SSD’s needed a special fix before they could be reliably detected)?</p>

If it’s on windows 10 then make sure all updates are done – I work in IT and have seen an increasing number of workstations slowing down hugely, seemingly due to the main 1803 update and the update to the 1803 update.

6 month old laptops with an M.2 SSD, i7 and 8GB ram yet opening task manager was taking 10 seconds, with nothing else open! CPU/RAM/HDD all within normal usage. Changed the active hours on Windows update, ran all pending updates and everything was back to full speed again.

I’ve seen 10’s of machines with these symptoms over the past few months.

Are they full of dust?

SSD plus a refresh of Windows. That’s what I did and the results were amazing

SSDs can be picked up cheaply.

If you’ve got loads of files on the desktop (for example a huge folder with 50GB of video) that can affect performance.

Huh?

Indeed, fresh start is the best possible solution.

Certainly if it’s an upgrade from a previous version.  Get an SSD fitted, clean install of Windows 10, USB caddy for the old HDD.

Didn’t defrag stop being necessary when Windows 7 launched as it get done automatically (and why SSD’s needed a special fix before they could be reliably detected)?

Defrag is still necessary on mechanical HDDs, but it’s done as a scheduled background task so you don’t need to run it manually any more.

SSDs need to be “trimmed” for best performance.  A clean install of W10 will do this automatically, if you’ve cloned an old installation then you should do it manually.  Defrag is unnecessary on SSDs (and actively harmful).

If you’ve got loads of files on the desktop (for example a huge folder with 50GB of video) that can affect performance.

Huh?

I think this was a problem back in Win95 days (and possibly a little later too), but hasn’t been an issue for a long time now.

Folders full of stuff I’ve noticed can cause a lag viewing in Windows Explorer in Windows 10. I have a lot of junk in my Downloads folder with a lot of photos I nick off web sites to post elsewhere, but as I have thumbnail view on it’s causing Explorer to take a very long time to display the contents.

It’s not a slow computer, it’s just crappy code in Explorer. It didn’t used to be like that. Would show thumbnails of those files in view and just loads them as you scroll. Now it seems to be waiting for everything to load before showing anything.

Though could also be it’s reading metadata for other files I’ve downloaded and in the case of applications and videos those can be huge downloads.

I try to clean out the Downloads now, just keeping what I need and filing away stuff in sub folders.

Im not sure if this is had been mentioned yet but make sure you have run windows update and have restarted. With win 10 you usually get one a month and if you aren’t in the habit of restarting then things can get sluggish until you do

Edit : i see that ta11pau1 mentioned this already, oops

but as I have thumbnail view on it’s causing Explorer to take a very long time to display the contents….

…It’s not a slow computer, it’s just crappy code in Explorer.

One thing to check -I don’t know why its not set like this as default but try:

Right click on the folder

properties

customise

optimise this folder for…

Select general items

tick ‘also apply this to sub folders’

Apply, OK, F5

That sorted the problem for me.

Check the disk, with performance monitor

deadkenny

Subscriber
Folders full of stuff I’ve noticed can cause a lag viewing in Windows Explorer in Windows 10. I have a lot of junk in my Downloads folder with a lot of photos I nick off web sites to post elsewhere, but as I have thumbnail view on it’s causing Explorer to take a very long time to display the contents.

It’s not a slow computer, it’s just crappy code in Explorer. It didn’t used to be like that. Would show thumbnails of those files in view and just loads them as you scroll. Now it seems to be waiting for everything to load before showing anything.

Though could also be it’s reading metadata for other files I’ve downloaded and in the case of applications and videos those can be huge downloads.

I try to clean out the Downloads now, just keeping what I need and filing away stuff in sub folders.

I noticed that with the Downloads folder in W10.

Odd thing though, if you paste “%HOMEPATH%/downloads” into the explorer address bar it comes up instantly.

Seems using the ‘Downloads’ quick link goes into to some weird virtual folder living under ‘This PC’ rather than the actual path on disk.

Coincidence… I was looking at an article on this site, scrolled down, and one from yesterday appeared…

Is CCleaner Safe? Not Quite. And We Show You How to Replace It

“obnoxious and shady behavior” oo-er

Oh there’s some stuff about cleaning up files down the bottom of that article, might be useful to the OP.

If it hasn’t been mentioned, always worth a go is deleting everything Windows lets you delete in

c:\users\<your name>\AppData\Local\Temp

always fills up with crap, that folder. Some stuff has to stay, but not much (Skip files it won’t let you del)

I think this was a problem back in Win95 days (and possibly a little later too), but hasn’t been an issue for a long time now.

Certainly used to be the case that having a desktop with a lot of data slowed things down, it might not be the case now with Win10 though, although a quick Google suggests it could still be an issue, of course how reliable these links are is unknown:

https://www.lifewire.com/cleaning-and-speeding-up-windows-desktop-3506952

https://winaero.com/blog/speed-up-your-windows-10-by-having-less-desktop-icons/

Anyway, some more tips, and this time from the horse’s mouth: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4002019/windows-10-improve-pc-performance