Type rest of the post here
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Faster Windows XP = Disable Automatic Updates
For months now it seems like I've been hearing more and more people complain that their Windows XP computer is running slow. And whenever I hear about this, svchost.exe seems to be involved. But when you analyze svchost.exe using Sysinternals Process Explorer, usually nothing seems out of the ordinary.
Let's say you just installed Windows,.. everything works great. Fast, speedy, high performance. But then after just a few weeks or even months, the computer slows to a grinding halt. Takes forever to boot, takes forever to login. Takes forever to launch applications. All your geek friends tell you that you probably have spyware and that they will format your drive for you (everybody is an IT guy these days because they all know how to point to spyware). But the truth is, there are two things that you can do to improve your performance dramatically.
1> Disable Windows Automatic Updates:
First, there are two forms of this. There is the website (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) and then there is the Microsoft Update software. (This of course requires IE to view the page). Anyway, If you have the Microsoft Update installed, do yourself a favor and uninstall it. It's just an additional burden on your PC that is unnecessary and just uses resources needlessly. Typically, if you go to your control panel, you'll see that Automatic Updates are set to automatically download/install your security updates and whatnot. If you have it set this way, then svchost.exe just gets bogged down pinging the Windows Update website. It's like this:
svchost: Hey, any updates available that I should know about?!?!?!
WindowsUpdate: No, not at the moment. Check back in about 5 minutes.
svchost: Ok!
And then one day..
svchost: Hey, any updates available that I should know about?!?!?!
WindowsUpdate: Yeah, I have 5 security updates, 1 Windows update, a few patches, and a service pack for you.
svchost: Great!
Then svchost packs up all it's stuff and travels down the background intelligent transfer service highway to go run back and forth doing this work of downloading and installing -- in addition to all the other stuff it normally has to do. Many times, even if there are no updates, svchost will max out your cpu at 100% just out of shear boredom.
So anyway, go to Control Panel, locate the Automatic Updates icon. Disable Automatic Updates. Now if you do this, beware that you will have to go out of your way to visit the Windows Update website a couple times a month to be sure that you have all the latest security patches. But wait, now there is a new problem. There is an annoying red shield icon in your system tray.
2> Make annoying red shield icon go away:
Go to start and click on run. Type "services.msc" and hit enter. Locate the service called "Security Center". Double click on it, "stop" it, disable it and click OK to close the window. Bang, annoying red shield icon gone. But beware, if you do this, then Windows has no way of flagging you for security related issues. However, think about this,... when was the last time you ever relied on annoying red shield icon to warn you of security dangers? I'm guessing never.
3> Final notes:
1> There is an alleged "hotfix" for the svchost problem. Although I can't say if it does more harm than good or vice versa.
link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089/
2> I don't know too much about this, but evidently the BITS is a security hole. I believe you can disable it and not ever notice a difference. But if you do, then you might not be able to run windows updates. So disable it but keep an eye on it just in case you need to re-enable it.
Let's say you just installed Windows,.. everything works great. Fast, speedy, high performance. But then after just a few weeks or even months, the computer slows to a grinding halt. Takes forever to boot, takes forever to login. Takes forever to launch applications. All your geek friends tell you that you probably have spyware and that they will format your drive for you (everybody is an IT guy these days because they all know how to point to spyware). But the truth is, there are two things that you can do to improve your performance dramatically.
1> Disable Windows Automatic Updates:
First, there are two forms of this. There is the website (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) and then there is the Microsoft Update software. (This of course requires IE to view the page). Anyway, If you have the Microsoft Update installed, do yourself a favor and uninstall it. It's just an additional burden on your PC that is unnecessary and just uses resources needlessly. Typically, if you go to your control panel, you'll see that Automatic Updates are set to automatically download/install your security updates and whatnot. If you have it set this way, then svchost.exe just gets bogged down pinging the Windows Update website. It's like this:
svchost: Hey, any updates available that I should know about?!?!?!
WindowsUpdate: No, not at the moment. Check back in about 5 minutes.
svchost: Ok!
And then one day..
svchost: Hey, any updates available that I should know about?!?!?!
WindowsUpdate: Yeah, I have 5 security updates, 1 Windows update, a few patches, and a service pack for you.
svchost: Great!
Then svchost packs up all it's stuff and travels down the background intelligent transfer service highway to go run back and forth doing this work of downloading and installing -- in addition to all the other stuff it normally has to do. Many times, even if there are no updates, svchost will max out your cpu at 100% just out of shear boredom.
So anyway, go to Control Panel, locate the Automatic Updates icon. Disable Automatic Updates. Now if you do this, beware that you will have to go out of your way to visit the Windows Update website a couple times a month to be sure that you have all the latest security patches. But wait, now there is a new problem. There is an annoying red shield icon in your system tray.
2> Make annoying red shield icon go away:
Go to start and click on run. Type "services.msc" and hit enter. Locate the service called "Security Center". Double click on it, "stop" it, disable it and click OK to close the window. Bang, annoying red shield icon gone. But beware, if you do this, then Windows has no way of flagging you for security related issues. However, think about this,... when was the last time you ever relied on annoying red shield icon to warn you of security dangers? I'm guessing never.
3> Final notes:
1> There is an alleged "hotfix" for the svchost problem. Although I can't say if it does more harm than good or vice versa.
link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089/
2> I don't know too much about this, but evidently the BITS is a security hole. I believe you can disable it and not ever notice a difference. But if you do, then you might not be able to run windows updates. So disable it but keep an eye on it just in case you need to re-enable it.
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