Is Windows ME slow?

My son gave me the PC he used in college a few years ago. It is running ME. The PC has a 600MHz processor, and 256MB of RAM.

When I would try to create a new folder, it could take almost 3 minutes! What was the rate-determing step (out of File--> New --> Folder --> name the folder)? It would vary, but imagine going over to "File" in an explorer window, and waiting and waiting and waiting just to get the pull down menu. Then, again for the secondary pull-down, and then for the new folder to appear, and then waiting for the opportunity just to type in a folder name. UGH!!! I should mention, though, that if I were to try to create another folder right after creating the first one, the 2nd folder could be created almost as quickly as one might hope to or expect to. Strange.

Also, my Norton Antivirus would take more than 24 hours (I don't how much more because I don't think I ever let it finish) to scan all of my files. (Other lesser powered PCs I have take only about 2 hours to scan almost as many files).

I couldn't just "reinstall everything" because my son had lost all of the CDs. So, here's what I did. I bought Partition Magic (and it comes with Boot Magic), and a larger disk. I copied the "old ME" to the first partition in the new disk, and installed a "fresh" version of ME, in a 2nd partition. (I was able to do that because everything I needed was in the Windows/options/cabs folder of the "old ME ". I made a CD of that, and got the Product Key from the registry).

I boot from the "old ME" partition when I need to run things that I have no other way of running (like WORD), and I boot from the "fresh" installation for everything else.

Anyway, things were MUCH faster in the "fresh" installation. I proceeded to install other things like Adobe Reader, AOL, etc. That was several months ago. Over time, though, the "fresh" installation has degraded. Takes much longer now, although still not nearly as long as with the "old ME ", to create a new folder. I just recently installed Norton Antivirus on the "fresh" installation of ME, and it took 12-18 hours to scan all of my files.

So, what is going on here? I don't think the problem has to do with a fragmented disk, as I have defragmented it, and observed no improvement in the speed of things. ????????

I suppose I might as well also mention that the "old ME" would "hang" frequently. I'd be going merrily along, and all of a sudden the PC would be "frozen ": unable to type, or move mouse arrow, and unable even to reboot via CTRL-ALT-DEL. Would have to hit "reset ", and the wait for boot up to go thru scandisk. The "fresh" installation of ME does this, too, but not as frequently as the "old ME ". Does it "hang" after it's been "up" for a long time time? No, it can happen any time. Sometimes it will hang just shortly after boot up, before I do anything.

Thanks for taking the time to read this horror story, and thanks much if anyone has any idea of what could be the problem

-Richard

 

Have you run disk cleanup to empty temps and junk? If this command works in ME(pretty sure it will, I use it for both 98 and XP), it seems to cleanup better than just disk cleanup. Start>run.......type in cleanmgr /sageset:1 OK
A box will come up, check everything except compress old files then OK to exit. Now start>run......type cleanmgr /sagerun:1 OK

Check the startup tab in msconfig to see if you can shut down some of the things that like to put themselves there unnecessarily.

Do you run a registry cleaner?

Visited Windows Update lately?

Do you use AdAware and/or Spybot?

 

>>Have you run disk cleanup to empty temps and junk?

Yes, I run that often

>>Check the startup tab in msconfig to see if you can shut down some of the things that like to put themselves there unnecessarily.

I did that in my "old ME ". Made no difference in the performance.

>>Do you run a registry cleaner?

Also did that in my "old ME ". As I recall in cleaned up THOUSANDS of entries. Then ran a registry compressor. No improvement after that.

>>Visited Windows Update lately?

No.

>>Do you use AdAware and/or Spybot?

I'm pretty sure it was Spybot that I ran on my "old ME ". Don't remember if it found anything to remove, but then I got a message that the trial period had expired.

 

This is what I recommend to really clean out those temp files, in a way disk cleanup in windows cannot.
Boot up the computer using a boot floppy. Do these commands at the prompt;
smartdrv
deltree c:\windows\cookies
deltree c:\windows\history
deltree c:\windows\temp
deltree c:\windows\tempor~1
The first command will appear to do nothing. Press a Y that you want to delete on the others, check for typos at this time.
Take out floppy and reboot, disable System Restore, reboot, then enable System Restore. This will clean out old outdated restore points and give you a new one.

 

It doesn't move at light speed, but it's not slow; BootUp in 50 seconds(not counting add-ons), "New Folder" command in fraction of a second, Norton AV scan of >160,000 files in about 40 minutes.
In addition to the above good suggestions (run Spybot, Adaware, Reg cleaners, Temp file & cookie deletions, DeFrag) maybe check your Add/Remove programs list to see if a resource hog is there that can be uninstalled.
And here's an article "10 Tweaks to Speed Me "
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=12803483

 

Thanks for the info, RexB.

I followed the recommendations in the post previous to yours. No noticible improvement. I have also previously done the things you have suggested. No improvment as a result of that, either.

I have a few questions regarding your recommendation, and the ones in the post previous to yours. First of all, would extremely cluttered cookie, history, and temp folders make MS WORD run slow? (Does WORD care much about cookies?) EVERYTHING on my PC runs slow. I can imagine how having those folder being cluttered would affect IE's performance. Strangely, while my IE does take several seconds to load, and webpages do not come up lickity split, it is almost tolerable, even when those folders are cluttered.

Regarding a "resourse hog ", are you referring to CPU and disk I/O resources?


I ran MS's "system monitor ", and noticed that my CPU usage was pegged at 100%...always! (Actually, turns out that is not quite true, but it is still horrendous). When I run the system monitor on my other PCs which run W98, there is at least some "up-and-down" movement on the CPU usage graph. Then, I found a nice process monitor at "www.sysinternals.com ". I installed in on all my PCs.

I was hoping to find some process that was an obvious monster hog, but there was none. OK, the process monitor program itself uses a alot, ~85% (~65% on the W98 PC) What I've noticed is that most processes, in general, on my Me PC use a MUCH greater percentage of the CPU. For example, I ran a "find" for flies called "*.x" over the entire C: drive on my Me PC and one of my W98 PCs. On the Me PC I observe Explorer using between 10 to 50% of the CPU. On the W98 machine 10% is the maximum Explorer ever uses.

I took a quick look at that article you mentioned. I'll have to take some more time to study it in detail, but in my quick review of it it appears that most of the suggestions will "help a little ", but I need improvements in the "orders of magnitude" range.

 

Cluttered cookies and history folders shouldn't affect performance, but temps could. With resources being pegged out like that though, I would be looking for an app running as a possible cause. Check msconfig to see what all is starting up, maybe disable some things one at a time to locate a culprit. Might also try opening up the case and cleaning out. Could be getting a bit of heat build-up. When I previously asked about recent visits to Windows Update, I should have recommended doing so instead. PC at work (ME) was getting pretty sluggish at one point, lockups, errors, etc. A visit to WU showed 13 criticals needed and after installing those plus a few of the recommended, performance came back.

 

Hiya rlambert7,
like Noahdfear said, mega cookies and history won't affect you until they get way out of hand (like 30% of your HDD or something) though the Temp files stack up so fast that they can get troublesome, so they've gotta' be cleaned out occasionally. (EmpTemp Folders does the trick for me). MarkP62 delete tree commands will make sure they are all gone.

My Me doesn't like Word real well either, so i don't use much else when i'm in Word, which isn't often. Word doesn't care about cookies or history.

Some resource hog is pegging the 100% CPU usage and is definitely a problem we gotta' figure out. A search on my Me will use up to 54% CPU usage, then bottom back out to 0%-3% when idling.

For User Resources (the creation and manipulation of windows, dialog boxes, buttons, and other user interfaces) here is a comparison with my Me: 0% when idling, a search uses 5%, going online uses 9%. Most of these User resources are returned when i exit out of whatever the application is.

I've had 100% CPU constantly show on mine before when having problems and fixed it by a combo of maintenance after first Uninstalling the Software that drove it Bonkers. You have already done the reg clean (I use the-aggressive-as-desired Registry First Aid), Spybot and Adaware to take out the trash, and disk and Windows maintenance (Norton Disk and Windows Doctors, then a deFrag).
Right now, the only thing i can thimk of for constant 100% CPU usage is some app or utility that has buggered your box. Try doing a Control/Alt/Delete and End Task on your running processes one by one until the CPU usage drops.

Keep us posted, I'm curious what's going on.

 

Then you got one of the nock offs ripoff of the real thing
Unfutuatly thats what you'l find if you use a search engine to find anti spyware programs
Places to stay away from:
searchdestroyspybot.com
spybot-search-destroy.com
www-----spybot-spyware.
www-----spy-bot.net
www----spybot-download
www----no-spybot.com
www----spywareremove
www----1spybot
.....and probably many, many, many more....


THE real SpyBot S&D is free no nag contributeware
Most of us here use it and Adaware ,,which has a free version and a pro version

I dont know how the other win ME users feel about this ,, but all
I have seen is problems with norton and norton utilities on win me especialy.
what other of norton do you have installed besides the AV ?
MS KB search windows ME and Norton

does it also seam to stall when you hit the start button (sometimes)?

WHY ?

 

If you don't already have them, here's the download page for Spybot S&D, its free and donations kindly accepted. And Lavasoft Adaware downloads from the MajorGeeks site. Free or purchase versions, and good ad-spyware forums.

If your machine can download/install Ok, ought to install the critical WinUpdates.

 

The problems I have seen with Norton (system works usually, but NIS is resource hungry too) are usually related to folks running too much of the software in the background. The auto-protect is all I run all the time, that and BOClean both load at startup and I have 96% free resources when I first boot.

Definitely get the real Spybot S&D and update it fully before running its' check for problems. Also get all your CRITICAL Windows updates, nothing else (drivers etc. should come from the manufacturer of your pc or its' various components).

Stay away from WMP9 and directX 9 if you can help it.

My WinME system is very quick and responsive, but I have done considerable customization of the OS. Controlling startup programs is essential.