Suggestions to maintain Wndows speed

[pipspeak]

Three weeks into my new life with a T43 and already Windows is starting to noticeabley slow down. Applications are taking longer to open and close, boot times are longer etc.

Short of keeping the registry clean, HDD defragged, and killing unwanted background processes (and perhaps replacing Norton with something less bloated) does any one have any tips on how to keep things running fast and smooth?

[pphilipko]

Remove adware and viruses.

Also try Bootvis.

[pipspeak]

I don't think adware and viruses are the problem... Norton finds nothing, and I have two spyware killers installed. I'll check out Bootvis.

[dvorak]

The last time I Bootvis'ed my computer (start up optimization) everything else turned into crawling speed.

You may try "defrag c: -b" or was it "defrag /b" to defrag the boot files.

Otherwise try utilities to defrag the page file, in case it's fragmented.

[MadeInJapan]

Norton's won't find spyware or adware. Do a search for Adaware and Spybot. These are free on the web. Download both and run both once a week. It will make a big difference. There are other programs that will find even more stuff than these 2 but I've found that these 2 plus a good antivirus program are enough.

BTW, related but different question- Does anyone know of any good FREE antivirus programs out there anymore? I know the trial software for 30 days or even 90 days is free but I'd like to know of any that are free for a year or so...something I can recommend to our students who keep getting infected. If having to buy antivirus, what's a good reasonable one I can recommend? We use Norton's corporate at work with a site license, but we only have enough for our employees and so we can't "give it away" to our students.

[GomJabbar]

Does anyone know of any good FREE antivirus programs out there anymore?

Check out this thread.

Which anti-virus program do you use? Poll