Dave there was a program on TV yesterday that showed how to speed up your internet connection. Silly me I didn't write the directions down.
It was something about going and somewhere in the system and making is so many applications are not running all at once. It did not affect the Anti virus software.
Can you explain how to do that?

I don't know, but I am always very skeptical of companies that advertise for these kinds of things on TV or radio.

Is your computer running too slow? The best thing to do is make sure you're not running a hundred programs at once!

That is what they were talking about on or local talk show in Portland. Programs running in the background. But I didn't write down where to go in my computer to check that. : (

Someone else is going to have to comment here because I don't know. I quit using Windows back when Windows 95 was the latest release.

I keep forgetting that.
Thank you Dave.

Okay, where are all you Windows techie people?

Hit start=>run and type msconfig.

Click the startup tab.
Uncheck everything you don't want running at startup. I unchecked my weather app, mail, etc.
Click OK.
Reboot.

Just make darn sure you know what it is you're unchecking!!

Lee Anne thank you so much. It really helped. There are things on there that I'm not sure of though, so I didn't un-check them. Things are running better now.
I wasn't sure about some of the Adobe stuff in the list. I do have Adobe Photoshop on my task bar, but not sure which is what in the list. It is probably taking up a lot of running space in the background.

I used to do what Lee Anne recommended until I found a free program called Crap Cleaner, since renamed CCleaner. It's basic function started out as cleaning Temp. internet files, cookies, ... then they added others. I manage my Startup programs from there now.

Startup programs are located in Tools, Startup. You still have to be careful about what you choose like Lee Anne says. You can read more here: http://www.piriform.com/cclean...

You can run the CCleaner function by opening the program or by right clicking Trash and selecting it there. By saving the login cookies for ATP, Cubits,... you don't have to log in all the time.

I use the free version, no problems in several yrs.

Lynn, do you have Defrags running automatically on a daily basis?

That's a good one Janice. Also some anti-virus programs can check for updates hourly or daily based on your choice.

My Kaspersky keeps a check all the time.
I will check my defrag. I don't have very much on this hard drive since I've been using a large external storage drive to keep things on.

I had a tune up on my only computer (laptop) just a week or so ago. The guy put Google Chrome on it & that's been working pretty good & he tweaked my start up stuff so it starts up much faster now & runs faster in general. BUT --- Now I'm having this annoying thing happen in my Windows live mail (2009). Maybe you windows techies can help me with that? When I open my email I often get a dialog box asking me if I want to work online or offline -- do I want to work online now? I never had that before the guy worked on it & it's quite aggravating. And when it doesn't do that I get this other symptom which is a dialog box which pops up telling me winmail is checking &/or downloading mail & has the green bar that shows the progress of the download. I never got that before either. I hate it! Can you guys give me some tips please?

I have Vista for my OS.

Lynn, were you able to find Defrag?
Click on the start button, then type Defrag in the search box.
If you haven't been doing them, this should make a huge difference.

I just checked it and it has been defraging every couple of days. It is running better since I unchecked some of the things that were running in the background. : )

That's great, Lynn!

Thank you all.

Um, am I too late to ask questions about what to get rid of on the start menu?
I have, but seldom use PowerPoint and I usually only look at one form/page in Word and in Excel. Is it OK to to take them off the start up or is it a time-eating pain when I do need to open them?

Signed,
Scardey-cat JB

I took them off my start menu. I only use them rarely and when I do it doesn't take long to open them individually.

If you delete your browsing history cookies that can speed up a cluttered slowing computer. Go to the start menu, Control Panel and find the Internet Options icon. Open that and you will find it there, when I click the 'delete' button it gives a list of things not to delete such as saved passwords which can be checked or unchecked.