Hi Ian,

An easy first thing to check is what programs are loading at startup,
possibly without her knowledge, and overloading the system.
Make an icon for C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSCONFIG.EXE on the desktop.
When MSCONFIG starts, the tab furthest right is labelled "Startup".
It will show a list of programs which load when the computer starts.
It will take some detective work to find what all the programs are.
Uncheck the ones you don't want to start, reboot, and see if it helps.
I find they can later be re-checked if you want to reinstate them.
I'm told you need "Explorer" and "Systray". There may be others which
you need or want. I doubt if illegitimate viruses, trojans, etc are shown in
MSConfig, but it is an easy way to control the intrusive "junk"
that is put on your machine, often without your knowledge.
The above refers to Windows 98 SE, maybe other versions.

Hope this helps, Bob Lendrim



At 09:06 PM 4/19/02 +1200, you wrote:

>A customer asked me to look at her Acer Travelmate 507DX laptop, which she
>says is running way too slow.
>Now, I'm not too familiar with laptops, and I have no idea just how quick
>this thing should go.
>It's a Celeron 466 with 32Mb ram and a coupla gigs free HDD space. I'm
>running it on mains power.
>Should this machine run as fast as it's desktop equivalent, all other things
>being equal?
>Or are laps generally slower than desks? This sure is a plodder. I've
>checked it for viri and tho it's had Magistr, there's none still active.
>TIA
>PS. To give an idea of the speed of this machine, I loaded FProt via DOS,
>started a scan, then went to bed and left it going.
>When I returned to it in the morning, it reported proudly that the scan was
>finished - after 429 minutes :--))
>Ian Porter
>Computer Guys
>Arrowtown
>New Zealand
>[log in to unmask]




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