JonMikelV Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 I've had my machine (Celeron 333/60G HDD/384M mem) for about 6 years now. Started with 98 & upgraded to 98SE. I've noticed lately that it's been taking longer & longer to boot and once started running slower & slower with more 'jerkiness'.I can't pinpoint when it started but I'm trying to figure out what's causing it. There are a few other 'oddities' that creeped in over time but they were in place before the speed issue.If I boot in safe mode it's OK. Normal boot with NOTHING loading is almost as slow as when I have all my usual crap (Antivirus, Firewall, etc., etc.) loading.I tried running Regmon during a boot and noticed about 12,000 Explorer process registry accesses (open, query, close so I suppose it's really about 4,000) mostly focused in HKCR. I poked in there and it appears that quite a few of my Entries have a 'duplicate' xxxxx.1 entry - effectively doubling my HKCR subkeys.I'm fairly computer literate in general but don't know a whole lot about the registry (though I'm not afraid of it). Does anybody know if this HKCR issue is a likely cause of my slowdown? I hate to research something that isn't going to pan out.Thanks!Oh - those 'oddities' mentioned above include some apps reporting me having 98 while others say 98SE and a nice 3% CPU usage UNTIL I move my mouse at which point it jumps to about 40% and only goes down WHILE I move my mouse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tel Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 Sounds like you might a few too many apps in the startup. DLLs, drivers, hardware...I actually don't know. That's a tough one Jon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonMikelV Posted May 4, 2004 Author Share Posted May 4, 2004 Yeah - too much of something. But I'm not sure how to a) identify it or get rid of it all. A boot after an MSCONFIG with everything turned off (so nothing loads automatically) is almost as slow as a boot with the usual junk showing up.I don't know where else stuff gets loaded automatically. I assume there are some folders in which DLLs or various items are loaded but I'm not sure where and I'm hoping that randomly uninstalling programs to see if they were the cause can be avoided.Thanks for the quick read/reply! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timevoyager Posted May 19, 2004 Share Posted May 19, 2004 I assume you've run Scandisk and defragment commands regularly, so I'll go to the next idea.My son has a Windows 98 system and I can think of two courses of action. One is to download Spybot anti-spyware. It's free shareware (they ask for a donation, but it's not required) and you can probably find it through http://www.spybot.com. Spybot identifies and removes more than 1500 known Internet spyware that can download into your system without you even knowing they are doing it. Even something as innocent as "adding smilies" or toolbars with search engines can greatly slow down your system. Spybot is easy to use, shows everything that it identifies, and gives you the option to delete all the spyware, or selected items. I think spyware should be treated the same as if it were a malicious virus because it is a royal pain in the a**. It is often loaded without permission and without your knowledge, it spys on your activity, and it can seriously slow down your system, even to the point of crashing.The second suggestion is to use Norton Utilities that is still compatible with Windows 98. I actually had a copy of Norton sitting around that was for Windows 3.1 or better, but with a few free updates from Norton's Website, it works fine. If you use the anti-virus, there is a fee to update it if you did not purchase Norton new. Norton utilities does a good job of checking to make sure your basic operating system and hardware is in good shape. It also looks for a lot of junk left in your registry, removes orphan programs that no longer work or are used, and does some other tricks to optimize your system. Often you can uninstall programs or spyware, but certain commands remain in your registry and are part of the boot up process. Norton will dispay exactly what can be removed safely and what you should not touch (although sometimes it identifies crap as important when it really isn't).Good luck. Fred Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carmon Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 I like to Use Ad-ware i find dat the betta than S&D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarun Posted May 30, 2004 Share Posted May 30, 2004 Ad Aware recently detected my IE startup page of about:blank as being a "Hostile Takeover". I was ready to smack the thing. Spybot hasn't failed me though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosapience Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Well, if you're sure nothing cumbersome is loading and that you're virus/spyware free, I'd suspect your computer.Over the course of 6 years a LOT can happen to your system. Fixes/upgrades/dust/powersurges/etc... can all take their toll.Have you checked under the hood lately? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
it_waaznt_me Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Ad Aware recently detected my IE startup page of about:blank as being a "Hostile Takeover". I was ready to smack the thing. Spybot hasn't failed me though.I think Ad Aware was probably detecting a variant of CoolWebSearch ... You can find the details on : http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschro...html#aboutblank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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