MSCONFIG

[Anton Redman]

I am still stuck in the Dark Ages using Windows ME but with legal copies of Word, Excel and PowerPoint I am loath to migrate. Since installing a new HP printer and CamMedia I have had occasional problems with the computer locking and or failing to shut down. The responses have also slowed to the point where I was wondering if a small troll was running to Seattle and back to check if was OK everytime I pressed a key. Defrag pretened it was running but never even reached 1 percent of the drive. Also programs loaded from the floppy were running faster than those loaded from the hard drive.  In the good old days I would worked my way through Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat and cured the problem.

MSCONFIG.EXE allows you to option of stoping autoloading programs of individual programs and my PC is now performing faster the Isabels one year old portable. Two culpritss were HP not deleating old drivers and programs when the PC was updated and CamMedia which does not seem to understand multi tasking.

Hope this helps somebody else who still thinks "PIP 11 1" ,  makes more sence that "Copy C to A"  and remembers what QDOS was short for. I was contemplating changing the operating system or upgrading te PC.

[Barrym]

excellent advice - those programs that install themselves in start up and just sit there using resources!  Another good tool is cleaner (from cleaner.com) which as well as clearing away all the c*** has a facility to change what is started at startup

[sid]

Barry

www.cleaner.com   are you sure? It looks like an industrial cleaning contractor's site to me.

I'm interested to find your recommended software.

EDIT:   just found www.wincleaner.com is this it?

Sid

[Clair]

[quote user="sid"]Barry www.cleaner.com   are you sure? It looks like an industrial cleaning contractor's site to me. I'm interested to find your recommended software.

EDIT:   just found www.wincleaner.com is this it? Sid[/quote]or maybe it was www.ccleaner.com?

[sid]

Clair

Possibly! Have you used this? It doesn't mention anything about clearing applications at start-up though. However I see that it's free!  

Sid

[Clair]

I've ben using this for about 3-4 years to clean up unwanted left-overs from surfing sessions...

I came across it after it had been mentioned by Ray Maybury in his Daily Telegraph Tech column.

It lists all programs and you uninstall or delete any from the screen. It also lists all start up programs and you can delete them from there too.

The program can load at start up or at your convenience. There are regular updates and the program will ask you before downloading any.

[Deimos]

Some HP printer driver software can take 100% CPU time for periods. Normally under XP this is not a major problem as the OS gives the foreground application adequate resources to run OK. However, under ME this is likely to be more of an issue. Normally this 100% CPU time occurs when the printer is first plugged-in or switched-on. However, I have also seen it occasionally when starting to print some documents.

Ian

[Clair]

[quote user="sid"]Clair Possibly! Have you used this? It doesn't mention anything about

clearing applications at start-up though. However I see that it's free!Sid[/quote]

Sid, you might be interested in this article in today's Telegraph:

[quote]Q I have just bought a new Windows

XP computer having previously used Windows 98 SE and I have tried in

vain to locate a program called 'Spider', recommended by you some time

ago, which I used to use regularly to delete visited web addresses.

Does this still exist? Brian Stephens, via email

A

Spider was a great little utility and the first widely available

program to clear the infamous index.dat, which secretly records the

address of every web site you have ever visited. It was written for

Windows 98 but as far as I am aware a version for XP was never

developed. Fortunately there's something even better, a freeware

program called CCleaner (Crap Cleaner to its many friends) and this

clears not only the index.dat files but numerous other log files that

track your on-line activities.[/quote]