windows XP very slow

I have a P3 800Mhz w/ 256 RAM
I have 5G free hardrive space

when I installed winXP on a fresh formatted drive, windows ran extremely fast,

but now it is very slugish
I have defragged

does windows need more than 5G's for virtural mem??

 

slow xp

How long ago you install winxp? delete tmp files from c:\windows\temp folder & delete your prefetch files from c:\windows\prefetch folder......now delete temporary internet files & history. Then defrag

 

I installed windows about a month ago
(formatted drive, then install, win98 then winxp)

I deleted a bunch of stuff and now hav 8Gb's free
then ran another defrag

Still very slow

(1 other quick question can I delete the windows dir, where win98 was, or does XP still need that dir.)

 

prolly not

Is this a duel boot, as in win98 or winxp? If not then you installed no clean boot. In other words, if you installed win98, then installed winxp as an upgrade you will never be happy. Solution: Reformat & install winxp only, when asked for the windows verifier, insert your old win98 in the cd tray & "point" to this drive. When acknowledged, remove & place the winxp back in the tray

 

woops, I meant i installed win98 on a clean formatted drive then CLEAN installed winXP. so it is a clean install of xp, NOT an upgrade

I hav 2 dirs

c:\windows (win98 was)
c:\windows0 (winXP is)

 

c is see

Right, NOT Sorry but the operating systems are in the same "partition" A clean is two partitions on same hard drive with OS installed in each. Works smooth, fast & never a talk thru

 

o, I don't have 2 operating systems,

I just have the 'dorment' win98 directory that was left over from the insatall,
But anyway, we are straying from the initaial problem of slowness.

 

ok

Alritey then, you bootup into xp right? What if anything is loaded into win98 c:\program files? Both the old & the new have this as it's default installation folder. Both will also share c:\root files then & maybe more library files like .dll, inf, ocx, etc.
If you have all your stuff saved somewhere such as a cd then I would start over with real "Clean" install. Hey it's a challenge right

 

I'm not sure i agree with you, I deleted the win98 windows folder and nothing has changed.

When I installed winXP, it changed the files system from fat32 to ntfs, and installed it's own system.io and command, the microsoft website claims when you install windows in a new directory, the regestry is completely rebuilt.

I think there must another reason why it is running slow.

 

congrats

Hey real kewl so far, eh? Is the puter running faster? Since you have NTFS then on xp, the os prolly wont interfer. With both being fat32 can you imagine what mite happen when you click start/programs & launch, lets say msword? If you have loaded some proggys in win98 prior to winxp they are the talk thru. Example: in win98 msoffice= c:\program files\msoffice In winxp msoffice= c:\program files\msoffice Now lets see what can go slow here. Look at c:\program files\common microsoft shared
Holly cow they are the same here to! However, they are diff ver: on the rite side of explorer. Purpose here is to find out WHY this machine is sloooow rite?

 

Have you tried to clean out your dead registry entries? A lot of Registry entries that point to nothing accumulate, especially if files are moved around a lot or are deleted. I use one both on my WinME and WinXP (Dual Boot system) and neither OS has slowed down at all. There are several free cleaners as well as shareware versions.

 

Sluggish XP

Disable the Indexing Service (Adminstrative Tools > Component Services > Services ) and this problem will disapear. It is a useless service (like the horrid Office 97 Find Fast which everyone removes/disables) that gradually drains resources and makes the machine extremely sluggish.

Installing Diskkeeper as your Defragmenting program will help in the future too. There is a free trial version available at:

http://www.diskeeper.com

The makers of Diskeeper (Executive Software) actually also made the barebones version included as defragmenter in XP.

 

Sluggish Windows = Indexing Service active

Yes, Cluster size can be a problem. Partition Magic is another good program for this purpose.

But, I don't think cluster size is the problem here. XP has been installed on a machine with Fat32 already and this was changed to NTFS by the isntalaltion process.

And, the fellow reports that "when I installed winXP on a fresh formatted drive, windows ran extremely fast, but now it is very slugish I have defragged..." these are typical Indexing Service Problem signs.

 

If there is still any interest in this thread, I am curious what happened. I have pretty much the same problem on an 800 mhz system with 384mg ram. I have read through this thread and tried various tips, including running the defrag included in xp pro. Since running this defrag the problem seems to have gotten worse. I did pick up a virus around the same time, shut it down and did a full sytem scan with nav2002 and online symantic and no virus showed up, it is not however in quarenteen??? Could it still be on there somehow and slowwwwing meee dooown?
Im almost ready to fdisk but have 14 gig of stuff I really don't want to lose.

 

Addressed to "MWI" from Copenhagen (19th Feb.):

Two questions...

1) I've gone through Administrative Tools, and can find nothing like "Indexing Service" and/or how to disable it. Help!
Pretend I'm a dummy and give me step by step please.

2) Why would defragging with Diskeeper (Executive Software) be better than the XP defragger built in? More thorough?

Thanks!
Cheers
Jay

 

Administrative Tools >

then either:

Services
or
Computer Management > Services and Applications > Services
or
Component Services > Services

and disable the Indexing Service.

As you ere not able to find this yourself, I suggest it might not be a good idea for you to start managing services yet. But, if you do not agree, I suggest you do not manage other servcies than Indexing, as you could seriously affect the system by doing so.

Regarding Diskeeper: the version included with Windows is also made by the same people but is a bare bones version. The full version is much more effective and can, for instance, also do a boot defrag of the directories or do a boot defrag of the swap file etc.

 

Thankyou Sir!
For some reason my eyes went directly to the correct location and "Indexing" is disabled. Why I couldn't see it before - well, who knows.
But I agree with you, I'm very careful how deep I go, as I have messed up before!
Thanks again,
Cheers,
Jay

 

On the subject of "Too Slow ", see also the thread under:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3106

Cheers,
Jay

 

Hmmm...

Keep in mind that I'm no computer genius... But is this a possible cause of XP Slowdown?:

I remember in Win98 there was a "Slow memory leak" problem (this is what it was called at the update site.) You had to download a fix for it, because it eventually ate up all system resources and slowed your machine to a crawl, eventually crashing it. (Had to do a hard-reboot)

Is it possible that it's the same type of problem here, it just hasn't been officially identified yet?