Q. What kind of stuff is most likely to slow down a computer?

A. Malware

Do you think that my answer was too short? OK, let’s blame something else. How about we pick on Windows processes

When we install Windows, more than a few processes are set in motion, BUT more than a few are just set up and do nothing until we install something which needs them. Why would these processes start to impede progress if they didn’t at the time when the OS was first installed?

The most insidious processes are installed by ……………………. MALWARE, and they are going nowhere. Try to stop them and you get messages about not having the correct privileges. You could grant yourself enough privileges to create Heaven and Earth, and you still wouldn’t be able to stop the malware processes.

Well, we didn’t get too far with Windows processes. How about Start up items?

This is a muddier area. Of course, not all start up items are bad. Microsoft mice and keyboards put an item each in start up to enable on-screen notification of keyboard functions. I believe that one might call these TSR’s (Terminate but Stay Resident) but they are harmless. You will always have a few start up items which appear to do nothing constructive and ones which do not appear in the notification area. Appearance or lack of appearance can be deceptive, because all start up items do something, if only to allow pop-ups which tell you about updates.

The most insidious start up items are installed by ………………….. MALWARE, and they are going nowhere, but they will happily send you back to the webpage which originally infected your computer if you try to stop them.

Temporary Internet Files?

Yes, these can slow things down a little. Ask anybody who frequents chat rooms. If you can’t get in or stay in a chat room, always blame Temporary Internet Files. I have run with almost 6gb of these and I haven’t been impeded at all. I have always considered this to be one of the more desperate moves to get speed back. However…

The most insidious Temp Internet Files are installed by ……………….. MALWARE, and they are going nowhere because Windows can’t remove any that are in use, and malware Temporary Internet Files are ALWAYS in use. The malware authors ensure this.

So, malware can appear in four guises..

1. a Windows process
2. a start-up item
3. a Temporary Internet File
4. a program which promises to be benign but is actually the computer form of common or garden bindweed.

The fourth item in the list has two variants.

1. The first variant can bring a computer to its knees by infiltrating every corner of the computer, BUT at least the author has the grace to offer an un-installation routine which works.
2. The second variant can bring a computer to its knees by infiltrating every corner of the computer, BUT the author had no intention of making the bogus un-installation routine workable because the program is………………………. MALWARE. The only un-installation routine that works is the one where you put in an operating system CD/DVD and then boot from it..

Now for the big question. Will a Windows optimizer program fix all of the above?

No. Windows optimizer programs only work on computers which are bug and malware free, and even then, you can’t really tell if they truly work because the difference in performance before and after is not detectable by mere humans. The best aspect of a Windows optimizer program is that it brings a variety of ‘housecleaning’ utilities into one package.

So my answer to the first question was right.

Malware will bring down a computer regardless of the amount of hardware resources or the software loading. All of the other issues can be fixed by increasing the amount of hardware resource as you increase the loading on the computer.

Footnote.

I have recently had a chance to use two Windows optimizer utilities for as long as I wanted and neither would cost me a cent. Both of them were easy to use, but I have to admit that I noticed no difference after running them. In  actual fact, the computer ran better after uninstalling one of them because it had sneaked a start-up item in which monitored all of the computer functions. in the background.