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July 21, 2006
Where Does the Time and Money and Memory Go?
Dear Larry,
My computer is running so slowly. At someone’s suggestion,
I tried defragmenting my hard drive and deleting temporary files yet that didn’t
seem to have much effect. What now?
R. F.
Dear R. F.,
Strange, isn’t it? That Windows keeps temporary files
permanently unless you go out of your way to locate and remove them!
Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but contrary to popular
belief, defragmenting your hard drive and removing those temporary files do
little to speed up your computer. Even computer professionals and other
columnists I know love to spread these fallacies. While such tasks may be
somewhat useful, they typically do very little to help a PC work faster.
Truth be told, what’s probably slowing down your computer are
background tasks. A Windows PC is a multi-tasking machine. Its processing time
and memory are shared among a myriad of chores, all seemingly running at the
same time. But what in fact is happening is that Windows is managing the power
of your PC in such a way that it gives a slice of time and memory to one task,
then sets that aside and offers a slice to another, so quickly that it really
does seem as if it’s all happening at once.
But computers and their users are greedy and they’ll just keep
piling up the responsibilities until the PC cries, “Enough already—Give me a
break!” Adding insult to injury is the fact that many PCs out there have little
processing power to begin with and are frequently undersupplied with memory. So
it doesn’t take long for memory-hungry programs to start eating away at what’s
there, leaving very little horsepower for you to get anything accomplished at
all.
Now complicate this with the fact that most programs today are
written by companies who are dying to use your computer as their marketing
billboard. Not content to simply install a useful tool on your machine, they
insist on running one or more background tasks to keep their name popping up in
front of you, sometimes on a daily basis. And do they write their software to
share and share alike? Of course not; as far as they’re concerned, their program
is the only one running on your machine.
And then there’s anti-virus. What began as an important tool
has turned into an all-consuming feast for power and money. For example, when
your year’s subscription to anti-virus definitions runs out, Symantec’s popular
Norton AntiVirus offers you three ways to renew: a more expensive option which
they “highly recommend” along with two other options that could just as well be
displayed in “small print.” Nowhere does the upgrade process offer to even check
if your computer can handle the demands that such an upgrade will place on it.
And once you buy it, try returning it. That’s a subject for another day! My aim
isn’t to single out Symantec and bash just them. This is sadly representative of
an industry with tight margins, rampant piracy, and a desire to take as much of
your money as possible—as often as possible.
But I digress. You did ask how to speed up your PC. You’ll
have to review every task that starts up automatically with Windows and consider
extricating it. Knowing what’s safe to do away with and what’s not often
requires the help of someone who knows what they’re doing. Consider having an
expert take a gander at your machine and make some sound suggestions. You might
find it’s time to remove your anti-virus protection altogether! Or it may simply
be time to give up on your clunker of a computer and move on to a newer
model...and start the process all over again!
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
