Computer Slowdowns

 I was at work and I over heard on of my fellow employees say that his computer slowed down and he did not know why or what. That got my fix-it juices flowing. I love to fix things and gloat about it. No seriously, I thought this would be a good time to make a new friend. So I went over to him and introduced myself and told him I was handy with computers and suggested what the problem could be. So we exchanged cell phone numbers and made an appointment for 6:00PM that same evening.

I arrived on time and was introduced to his father then we made our way to his little cubby hole in the dining room. He turned on the computer and turned it over to me for my inspection. While I was looking at it, he mentioned that he had two spyware programs running at once. I said that is you problem. The computer worked fine up until the time he downloaded the second spyware program.

I mentioned to him that he might have other programs running in the backround at the same time as those spyware programs. So I clicked on run (PC's only) and typed in "msconfig"  in the run box. Shure enough he had several programs running in the backround that he was not using and very seldom used. A lot of people don't know about this. And programers don't want you to know about it because they want you to down load their program plus cookies and spyware running in the backround to keep tabs on you so they can bombard you with those spam ads about what they think you want.

When you type in msconfig and hit enter you get the system configuration utility that has seaven tabs depending on what operating system you are using. It will show the General, SYSTEM.INI, WIN.INI, BOOT.INI Services and Start up. Services will show you everything running or disabled. Don't disable nothing unless you know what it is. The start up is the one we want to deal with. It will show you everything that starts up when you boot up your computer.

This is great if you are working on something on a daily bases and want them to start up without you having to start them up individually. But if you are not using them uncheck them or if you think you are not going to use them a long time go to services and disable them. You can always go back and inable them.

I told him we did not need two spyware programs (I got three but I know what I'm doing LOL) So I went to another tool I use. Control Panel and scrolled down to the one I wanted to remove. Some time people will try to remove the program and do a botched up job and leave behind pieces of the program. In this case Control Panel is useless as was in his case. So I go to another tool called system restore, used to be called "go back" this way I can go back to the day befor he installed the other spyware. And viola! problem solved. His computer was running like new. He told me he was glad I spent the time fixing his computer and asked what could he do for me in return. Well since he was an auto mechanic I told him he could recharge my air conditioner in my car. Well done. we both got what we wanted with no out of pocket expence.