Basic Laptop Help...!!!!!
Discussion
Right..
My laptop has developed a few little 'issues', it sometimes takes ages to do anything [ but at other times is quick]....sometimes it won't open anything [just a few seconds of 'hourglass' then nothing]...and on the net [which recently has frozen a few times]..I am getting lots of 404 / error messages.
I have ADAWARE and run in weekly to clean off junk.
I have NORTON that seems to do very little.
1] What else should I have [free stuff if possible]...?
2] What else should I do...?
I want to really clean out all the crap that must be causing this, and repair the damage [if any] but I don't know if I can do it...?
I also don't wan't a 3rd party going into the many [very confidential] files I have on the machine...
Help....
Before doing anything set up a system restore point (always useful to be able to reverse any changes)....
Norton can be a little bloated so you may be better off installing AVG (for free) and removing Norton. ADaware is pretty good but I would have Spyware Blaster and Spybot search and destroy as well (Spybot also has a "teatimer" that asks your permission for any registry changes - picks up many more requested changes than the one in SP2). You don't mention if you have a firewall? Zonealarm or Kerio do fairly good software firewalls (again all this lot is available free). Once you've swept for nasties Crapcleaner (CCleaner) is useful for eliminating useless bits of files left scattered around.
After you have cleaned up I would pop over to the sysinternals site and get hold of filemon and autoruns - run autoruns and look through the list of stuff that starts up - google anything you don't recognise and if you definitely don't need it get rid of it.
Reboot - run ccleaner and perform the usual system maintenance (Defrag and scandisk).
Hopefully things will be in a better shape and you'll be reasonably protected.
Norton can be a little bloated so you may be better off installing AVG (for free) and removing Norton. ADaware is pretty good but I would have Spyware Blaster and Spybot search and destroy as well (Spybot also has a "teatimer" that asks your permission for any registry changes - picks up many more requested changes than the one in SP2). You don't mention if you have a firewall? Zonealarm or Kerio do fairly good software firewalls (again all this lot is available free). Once you've swept for nasties Crapcleaner (CCleaner) is useful for eliminating useless bits of files left scattered around.
After you have cleaned up I would pop over to the sysinternals site and get hold of filemon and autoruns - run autoruns and look through the list of stuff that starts up - google anything you don't recognise and if you definitely don't need it get rid of it.
Reboot - run ccleaner and perform the usual system maintenance (Defrag and scandisk).
Hopefully things will be in a better shape and you'll be reasonably protected.
Jinx said:
Before doing anything set up a system restore point (always useful to be able to reverse any changes)....
Norton can be a little bloated so you may be better off installing AVG (for free) and removing Norton. ADaware is pretty good but I would have Spyware Blaster and Spybot search and destroy as well (Spybot also has a "teatimer" that asks your permission for any registry changes - picks up many more requested changes than the one in SP2). You don't mention if you have a firewall? Zonealarm or Kerio do fairly good software firewalls (again all this lot is available free). Once you've swept for nasties Crapcleaner (CCleaner) is useful for eliminating useless bits of files left scattered around.
After you have cleaned up I would pop over to the sysinternals site and get hold of filemon and autoruns - run autoruns and look through the list of stuff that starts up - google anything you don't recognise and if you definitely don't need it get rid of it.
Reboot - run ccleaner and perform the usual system maintenance (Defrag and scandisk).
Hopefully things will be in a better shape and you'll be reasonably protected.
^^^
What he said Bloody hell.....
I only just got my laptop back from a computer engineer....
Literally the same afternoon I posted this thread, it went into hibernation during a real player [ playing stuff off of limewire] moment....
I took this opportunity to follow all the advice given in this thread!
It was all weird and took a while to 'seem' normal. THEN when I went to go online it wouldn't - even though the connection was registering fine.
So...I phoned a bloke who gave me a list of stuff to try, I did a system restore - and instead of restarting it just broke totally...
Nothing....not even safe mode....
So it's been with him all weekend.
BUT...it's back now [and all new-born] full brain-out revamp and all seems well.
Apparently, LIMEWIRE has been slowly filling me up with assorted shyte...and that broke NORTON which made me unable to connect to the web....
I only just got my laptop back from a computer engineer....
Literally the same afternoon I posted this thread, it went into hibernation during a real player [ playing stuff off of limewire] moment....
I took this opportunity to follow all the advice given in this thread!
It was all weird and took a while to 'seem' normal. THEN when I went to go online it wouldn't - even though the connection was registering fine.
So...I phoned a bloke who gave me a list of stuff to try, I did a system restore - and instead of restarting it just broke totally...
Nothing....not even safe mode....
So it's been with him all weekend.
BUT...it's back now [and all new-born] full brain-out revamp and all seems well.
Apparently, LIMEWIRE has been slowly filling me up with assorted shyte...and that broke NORTON which made me unable to connect to the web....
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