Regina wrote:
>My mother-in-laws computer is running really slow.>>
Well, you've certainly opened up a whole new discussion front here. With
some excellent advice---I'd certainly agree with the advice about too
little RAM memory---though that might depend rather on whether it's always
been slow for what your mother wants to do, or whether this is a recent
thing. Nortons alone requires a lot of spare memory.
To remove Nortons completely you'll have to go to the Symantec site and
download their removal tool for your particular version. Otherwise it's
almost impossible to remove completely, and a standard uninstall will leave
a lot of Norton remnants behind.
One suggestion I haven't seen yet is this:
Try running the machine in Safe Mode. Try opening a few programs, though
they'll look funny because Safe Mode runs in a very minimum configuration.
If it runs properly and up to speed then this tells you that the problems
lie with your startup software/hardware. IE you have too many things
running in the background.
If on the other hand it's still slow in Safe Mode, then the answers lie at
a much deeper level.
In that case, it might be easier and less time consuming in the end to just
reformat and start all over again, if the machine has never been
reformatted during its life. (Bearing in mind David's timely caveat). Of
course, you will be better off if you have an original XP CD, and not just
the usual "Restore" disk that most brand name computers seem to come with
these days---though it's better than nothing, and Dell should be reasonably OK.
Over time, a lot of junk tends to accumulate and this will eventually slow
things down. With so little RAM, the tiniest glitch will throw performance
out in a big way.
If you don't want to buy more RAM, and your mother's needs are minimal,
then at least do the housekeeping that others have mentioned. Then tune the
machine for maximum performance by disabling all the eye candy---you can
easily do this by opening Control
Panel/System/Advanced/Performance/Settings/"Adjust for Best Performance".
Don Penlington
From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery, and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html
"Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
http://freepctech.com/rode
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