Hey Brian, try running just one anti virus program and just one anti-spyware program. When you have more than one they tend to conflict and cause problems. If you are using a program like Norton Internet Security or McAffee they are known to slow down a computer.

When you start up your computer do you have a ton of programs that pop up on the tray at the bottom right?

I hate to say it but every 2 or 3 years is a good time to reinstall Windows.. it just tends to get slower over time.

__________________
1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

I run Trend Micro anti-virus and spyware all the time.

The tray has five items in it. Everything else is not running on startup.

Believe me, the machine is running as well as it possibly can and it's still 60% slower than when new.

I'm talking about user level be cause I don't give a $hit otherwise; the only thing I care about is turning my computer on; have a couple sips of coffee while it boots (not a cup) and it to play nice with printers on other networks that I may use. Developers need to realize that actual need of the end user and build around that. We do use custom software so I have to be winders mode for that but other wise I am almost always in OS X.

Our newer apps are Java based so they play nice with both, I am looking forward to that day.

Brian,

Anything of suspicion listed in the Task Manager?

__________________
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

Nope, nothing of consequence. Firefox, and the Trend Micro Spam and anti-virus suites are the big consumers. Everything else is negligible.

The machine is clean.

I could shutdown the Anti-virus and Anti-spam just to see if the speed returned to the as delivered condition, but, I'd sincerely doubt that it would.

Well, I did an experiment and shutdown both the Trend Micro suite and Outlook.

The speed of the machine returned to the level that I recall when it was originally delivered.

Word and Acrobat both load in about two seconds after the first attempt. Interesting that the first load was considerably slower.

So, clearly, the Trend Micro suite has the greatest influence on the speed.

Rather interesting because the machine has more than sufficient RAM at 1GB and it's still severely affected.

Oh well........

A lot of antivirus and anti-spam/firewall software programs eat up considerable CPU resources, which in turn slows everything else down. So while the extra RAM helps, when the CPU is handling multiple requests it can slow things to a crawl. My PC is pretty high end, but when I open Thunderbird to check e-mail, I may as well forget doing anything else significant as it consumes a good portion of the CPU's resources.

P.S. Outlook? Have you tried Mozilla Thunderbird?

Norton is one of the worst. It seems each successive release is more pervasive and resource-hogging than the last. What kills me is that the corporate edition of Norton AV is fantastic. It hums along, barely taxing anything. Then you have the home edition....Grrr.

__________________
Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

I mentioned this earlier. Uninstall the virus/spyware you currently have and install the AVG versions. They are free and work well. Just google "AVG free"

__________________
99 ML320
94 SL600
92 SL500
95 E320 Cabriolet
87 560SEC
86 300SDL Grease Car
80 380SLC Euro

13 Fiat Abarth
02 Maserati Spyder Cambiocorsa
00 BMW Z3
90 Rolls Royce Silver Spur
80 Ferrari 308 GTSI
88 Jaguar XJS12 H&E Edition
99 Land Rover Discovery

Get a Mac Hatters, you'll never need Windows again.

I'd been a lifelong Windows person until a little less than a year ago when I was offered a Mac at a new job (still work there). I'm never switching back.

If you really need to do Windows stuff from time-to-time you can do the Virtual Machine thing with Parallels or VMWare which is already out in Beta for the Mac. If you really need a full-on Windows you can use Apple's BootCamp (free) to create a dual-boot machine.

__________________
-justin

1987 300TD, 1987 300TD
2008 R32, 2000 Passat Wagon

I've been wedded to Outlook for so many years that I probably can't switch now......

Thankfully, I don't run Norton anymore.

The machine is certainly tolerable with the Trend-Micro suite and the 1GB RAM. I'm glad I've got a final explanation of the speed decrease.

Thanks to all of you who have critiqued it for me.

The dual boot works but I think there is some problem with MS recognizing the bluetooth keyboard. With regular wired keyboards everythings fine. This is on a Mac Mini.

__________________
1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Two more comments. I had forgotten about Trend Micro. That program caused slow down and other issues for me at a client about 5 years ago.
Now maybe it better now, but perhaps a different anti-virus is in order.

Also, in Outlook you have a choice of e-mail editor. If you choose Word, then it's runs in the background whenever Outlook is running. Outlook is a known resource hog, but with a gig of RAM you should have no problem.

Steve

Thanks.

It definitely affects the speed. No doubt about it. But, with 1GB, it's not intolerable. I rather like the Trend-Micro suite..........and I've now purchased it for two years..........so I'll probably live with it.

Outlook doesn't use Word as the e-mail editor. Word is another hog. I don't open it unless I'm using it.

DITTO.

Outlook doesn't use Word as the e-mail editor.

Don't know what version you have, but in Outlook 2003 you have that option.
Tools | Options | Mail Format.

Steve