You have some applications listed that don't have the best reputations for 
stability and memory control.

You can go into the task manager control (ctrl-Alt-delete, then choose 
Task Manager) click on the Process tab, then sort by CPU (click on the CPU 
column heading twice) to see what processes are consuming the most system 
resources at any one time. Most of the time System Idle Process should be 
the top contender, which is normal.

Try quitting and restarting various suspect programs (including your 
version of Jaws) to see if that peps up the performance. Yes it can 
interrupt the work flow, but sometimes it's faster than putting up with a 
pokey processor.

Also make sure that the antivirus software isn't running amok. Should be 
set to scan target file types, not all files.

-*- Dan Comden                [log in to unmask]
     Access Technology Lab     www.washington.edu/computing/atl/
     University of Washington

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007, Penny Gray wrote:

> Hello EASI folks,
>
> I was wondering if you could help me.  I have a student who is pretty
> proficient using jaws, who comes into the office frequently to take tests in
> Disability Services computer lab.  The last test she took was quite a long
> essay.  She was using Microsoft Word 2003 for her test.  She had Adobe
> Reader open as well as another Microsoft Word document to refer to sources.
> The computer she was using Is a Windows XP, 3.2 GHz, 500 MB RAM PC.  Jaws
> version 8.0.
>
> The problem she was having was that jaws was very slow to respond.  I'm not