What slows down Windows OS computers?

This about sums it up. Sigh people seriously need some studying. Whenever something bad happens on their computer, first thing to blame is windows. They fail to realize they're clicking crap like they have a disorder.

 

Another thing that may have already been mentioned are third party apps that are offered as free but try to slip in other apps on your computer. That's been the trend lately and those additional apps installed take up resources by looking for updates and working in the background etc.

CCleaner, Avast, Veetle, VLC Player are just a few free apps that want to install additional apps. Today I went to download Free IP Hider and it wanted to install Brothersoft Toolbar. I find that many of these free apps are going for the installation of additional Toolbars.

 

Or you can take Apple's Approach:
Lock down every application on the system
But you don't own the computer anymore...

 

Note the fail to realize they're clicking crap like they have a disorder, the 3rd party in 3rd party software fall into the category as often times all you have to do is tell the installer you don't want their bloatware.

 

Regarding the comment about Windows Updates, at least with Windows XP I have noticed that Windows Updates made my old Inspiron 8600 slightly less responsive. But to be fair, I am comparing Windows XP SP1 to Windows XP SP3, the latter of which added a fair amount of useful security features as well as some other features. In general, I find that security patches don't affect system speed noticeably, and as already mentioned, they are absolutely essential in our internet-centric world.

I've also noticed that in general, the more programs you install, the less "snappy" a system feels. Thus, I try to keep my installed programs to only those that I will use (no point in wasting space on something you'll never run).

 

the thing that makes windows slow is everything that's not windows. from 600mb printer drivers, to adobe suites bigger than the os, to itunes taking longer than my os to boot (nearly). this continues onto hardware that is slow, or unbalanced (everything should have at least a momentus xt in by now).

gladly, i'm nearly windows only by now. only a few additional apps (and most from microsoft). and on an ssd. result: great system since day one of installation.

oh, and the other thing not from microsoft that slows down ANY system: the user.

 

I'm aware of that but even certain apps (cough..cough Avast) when you uncheck the box so as not to install another app (Chrome) they try and sneak it in the following screen, so if you think you got it they get you again if your not careful.

Wrt to VLC it automatically begins to download 5 additional apps automatically and VLC is the last one on the list.. NICE !

I had to literally stop each download which was on another Window which happened to be minimized.

 

Chrome is awesome, it's welcome in my computer =]...

Hmm interesting. I will check it out.

 

vlc is free and open source... are you guys sure it bundles other applications?

on topic: the application environment for the operating system is another reason why windows slows down over time... any time you install an application, you give it complete, full, entire access to your operating system to do absolutely literally whatever it wants. Those installers where you can uncheck the 3rd party software are just being friendly - they could just install the software silently without offering you the choice once you click that exe, if they want to. this is also true in linux and mac os x to a large degree (although if you only install free and open source software in linux then you could technically go through the source code yourself).

in part, i think the economics of the software environment contributes to the problem. having a more strict software environment does not impact your ownership of your computer. you have the liberty to install whatever OS you like. I believe the natural course of things is to have centralized moderated software stores, like the apple "app" store, to get software.

apple is definitely doing this, and you can still install software from any source you like, but getting software from the moderated app store gives you certain guarantees about the effect of the software on the operating system.

 

The version I installed yesterday was in fact bundled with other software.

 

Where did you download it from, I remember downloading for a 3rd party place, and sure enough it was bundled, however that was long ago.

 

did you click the big download button from this page:

VideoLAN - VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player

?

I would be *hugely* surprised if they bundled anything with it... someone else certainly could, though.

 

No, didn't try that one.

I think I first went to Download VLC Media Player for Free and Avast was tripped and rejected the download thinking it was a virus so then I went here VLC Media Player, 100% Free Windows Media Player Download for PC

 

and there it goes. people should only download stuff from the actual source, where the developer put it on. anything else: BAAAD idea.

 

No, it all depends on what software you install. My list of programs runs 290 items long, but this machine is as fast and snappy as it ever was.

 

that is disappointing... if you type "vlc" or "download vlc" into google - the first link is the correct one.

 

I typed vlc and the very first link was VLC Media Player, 100% Free Windows Media Player Download for PC

 

either way, this is the developer site.

VideoLAN - VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player

vlc and other open source software should be downloaded from the developer. anyone can easily add anything to it.

 

Yup saw that midway down the page of results. No biggie nothing installed other than VLC because I cancelled the other downloads before they took place.

 

when you run an executable file in windows, you are basically giving it full control to do as it pleases. unclicking a check box means nothing unless you trust that the software maker is an honest person looking out for your best interests over theirs, and that the check box does what he decided to tell you that it does.

however, you should already know this is NOT a good and honest developer because this person took something that was meant to be free and repackaged it with adware or crapware for their own monetary benefit.

 

This should read "when you run an executable file with administrative privileges". What the executable can do depends on the privilege level you allow for it. This has nothing to do with Windows, either. The same is true for any OS.

 

this is partially true for windows vista / 7. the concept of restricted privileges is not unique to windows but the system certainly is. also, since the operating systems are very different than linux, unix, the types of things that are restricted are also very different. In the end, for windows, restricted privileges end up being one layer of protection to prevent some types of malware from tampering with the system. It should not affect your behavior though, you should run executable files with great care - they can still tamper with the system.

 

This is true for any Windows system in the Windows NT line. Of course it isn't for DOS-based toys like Win9x and similar, that have no real concept of OS security.

I am not sure I can parse this one, sorry.

Can you give an example?

I fully agree with this. People should be aware of the possible consequences of running unknown code. Ideally, anything you allow to run on your system should come from a known trusted source, and should be known to not harm your system. This, by the way, sounds harder than it is. Essentially the rule is, don't install random cr@p on your system.

 

every exe you start (nearly ever) gets full user privileges. so it can delete all your mp3, upload all your private photos to some random webpage, etc. there's no admin needed there.
it can put itself (and hide itself) into some user folder (appdata), put itself into the users autostart, and do all sort of things. no admin right ever needed.

admin rights are only needed if you want to do something outside of the users control (the os part, or other users on the same system). this is actually unimportant for most forms of attacks.

some phone os' (not even just smart phone os') are better at this, asking if an app is allowed to access your local data, or your camera, or what ever).

it would be nice if, after the admin and user level, we'll get a third level, which is a no-access level. and apps started from the internet get just that. when they WANT to access user data (loading files, saving), a user has to grant it, like uac. then users can whitelist those apps if they trust them.

but right now, everything you run on your pc can harm YOUR stuff (maybe not the system itself, but you don't care about that. you care about YOUR data on the system).

and in the same way, every app started can put itself in a way into the system, which slows down the windows os (to be back on topic )

 

That's correct, mostly, with the exception of IE's protected mode.

Yep, unless you lock those folders down. Whether or not that's practical depends on your usage scenarios, of course.

Actually, it used to be the case that most attacks assumed users to be complete idiots, and run always with full administrative rights and (on Vista) UAC turned off. Of course, nowadays this is often not the case anymore, so malware has adapted and uses the kind of approaches you were referring to much more often.

Well... Have you ever seen anybody complaining about UAC on Windows? I mean, ever? :wink: Now you are suggesting to have all applications throw up prompts for just about everything they do? Good luck with that one!

You know, don't get me wrong, I think the above is a terrific idea, definitely when you talk about code that has been downloaded from the internet, and runs in your browser. Note that some of this is already implemented, in the form of the internet security zone, as well as the protected mode in IE 8. On the other hand, see my remark above. An even more stringent form of UAC? Again, good luck...

I am fairly sure you remember the idea of Palladium that Microsoft and Intel were pursuing for a while, which essentially meant white-listing code, so that only known trusted software would be allowed to run on your computer. It's not hard to guess why that idea was dropped without much fanfare, too.

 

That part you couldn't parse. I was just trying to note that superuser doesn't mean exactly the same thing in windows and linux. The implementation of control is completely different.

It's important to note that the default behavior for operating systems before vista was to give everything administrator privileges all the time, because the default account was an administrator account. Still true for vista and onward, but you still manually give code execution admin privileges now. That is what I was referring to for the first part.

 

which is what the bracelets where about.

it's not the default so it's unimportant. see below.
and no, it's not practical. you would have to switch users everytime to access data. how fun

they didn't assume users are idiots. they assumed users use the default. big difference.

not for stuff you install on your system, of course (and yes, i know the uac complainings). it would be for stuff that you run WITHOUT having given it the right to be on your system. actually, the uac you get for installing an app would be like setting the flag "yes, this app is allowed to access my data" at the same time.

as said, other systems have that already, and people don't complain (a lot of phones do, and they're more popular than pc's by now anyways).

actually it wasn't dropped for it's features. it was dropped for the fear that someone else controls that list other than the user / companyadmin

 

he's thinking business. there, the default was since day one that no one had admin account except, well, the admin. but home users, yes, there it started with vista.