Newbie to windows laptop - what to remove

Hi, I just purchased on of those $600 (close to $765 actually)Presario r3000z from Office depot and after doing some research on these low end machines it seems there are ways to speed the machine up my removing all the pre-installed stuff that one will not use. This will be my first windows machine as I have Macs. I am primarily only going to use it for things that my Mac can not do - such as update the firmware on my pioneer burner and try to interface more with my cell phone

My question is where do I start? How do I speed this machine up from the factory default? Should I simply re-install the OS (windows xp-home) and that will not install all the additional crap - AOL, etc.? Is there a link I can be referred to that says how & what should be done first?

The only upgrade I did was added the firewire port via way of the 64MB video card and I ordered an addtional 256MB of ram for total of 512. I'm not looking to break any speed records I just want an efficent machine.

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5787

 

Hi Joey,
I second that link[ ]
If there is anything your not sure if you need or not and my article does not help; just let me know and I'll help ya out.

Jack

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" (Ben Franklin)
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

Lots of good advice in that link. However, there is one that should NOT be followed so hastily. That is System Restore(SR). SR is the single, most useful applet Microsoft has added in recent years to Windows. It has saved my bacon on more than one occasion. It can easily restore your machine to an earlier time, if you find a recent driver upgrade, or other software install happened to muck up your puter. It's well worth having around especially if you're a newbie. I would consider leaving it turned on.

Just my .02

redjr..

 

Hi redjr,
If you wnat to optimize the speed and performance of your notebook, system restore is the single best thing you can do to improve performance. Sure it's nice to have a feature that does keep a backup of the registry if something happens or an install goes bad, but not at the cost of slowing the entire system down all the time by the amount that system restore does. What everyone should be doing is periodic backups of their entire drive, because hard drive won't last forever and when the drive crashes 99% no amount of money will bring that data back...it is lost forever. System restore gives people a false sense of security about their data...It does not restore the system, all that is restored is the registry and any other file the user specifically adds to the restore (most users don't do anything to add other files) the registry is a very small but important part of the system, but it is not a replacement for a periodic complete backup every few weeks. Having this complete backup you can restore the entire contents of your hard drive is a better solution and make system restore an unneeded function.

Jack

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" (Ben Franklin)
http://pbase.com/joneill

 

Jack,

Except for possible hardcore gamers, most users of laptops wouldn't notice the difference with SR turned off. I know I can't, and apparently the MS product manager agrees. See referenced link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/faqsrwxp.mspx

My experience over the past 20 years clearly demonstrates that most PC users DON'T backup their systems - registry, programs, data, etc. They all learn the hard way. I should have been clearer in my post. I did not mean to imply that user data is archived with a System Restore point, but that a program that easily monitors key files - without any user intervention - can be a life saver. I have used it time and time again, very consisently to correct a misbehaved install, or some other action on my part that rendered my PC helpless. It's simple, quick and very effective if you understand what it's doing. And, it is still much easier and less painfull then a 'drive image' type of archive. My guess is that Mom and Pop don't even own a true backup/archival program, or imaging software such as Norton Ghost, or Drive Image.

At least for the time being, I'll endure any performance loss on my laptop for the added security that I can restore it to a previous workable state.

I would be interested in any empirical metrics you might have on the average performance hit a typical laptop takes with SR turned ON as opposed to it turned OFF. I'll continue to investigate....

redjr...

 

To all users... Here's another good article by Fred Langa on the subject of System Restore.

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020711S0009

redjr...

 

So I'm sorry I'm confused - I should turn off or disable system restore to speed the system up? I am by no means going to have stuff on this machine that is irreplaceable. If it crashes it is OK and I plan to back up. It is simply a machine to introduce me to Windows and get my feet wet. I don't even have any software for it that I purchased. It is mostly to cruise the internet and experiment - down load music (legally), print postage labels, etc. Having said that, I do want to have a slimmed down or should I say not bloated OS, hence the question.

Thank you for all the feedback as I will visit the links when I get the CPU. But for speed reasons - System restore is disabled?

What about viruses? any good shareware/freewware programs? Since I will be accessing email I guess I am venerable to viruses

Thanks Again

JOe

 

Joey_B,

Given your scenario of use - except for maybe downloading music - you can probably turn off SR. If you're Dl'g music from KaZaa, or similar P2P nets, your are more vulnerable to rouge files being placed on your machine. Be cautious...

redjr...

 

One of the things i do first off on a new computer is get rid of all the programs you will not use. I remove those..

Secondly, i run msconfig.. just go to start > run > type msconfig... then go to start up programs.. i usually ax out everything that isn't nessasary. If you do, and a program has some undesirable result (ie doesnt work) just go back in there, recheck what you turned off, reboot wala fixed. This increases the speed quite a bit.

After that is all done, i run defrag.

I hope this helps!

jesse