Keeping a Microsoft Operating System in a fit state

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:06 am

Occasionally I clean a slow laptop or desktop to put it back to a usable state. It's not obvious how to go about the job. This thread is my attempt to think through what it takes, what to do and what not to do. I'm restricting the thread to machines running an Internet-capable Desktop Microsoft Operating System. Here's a list of what you might be using:

WfWG (Windows 3.11, called Windows for Workgroups)

Windows NT (3.5 or 4)

Windows 95, 98 or 98SE

Windows ME (about which I can say nothing, never having touched it)

Windows 2000

XP

Vista

Windows 7

and here's some background vocabulary I'll try to stick to:

Memory and Storage

The first word which can mean different things to different people is memory. There are two memories in a computer and the long-term one is more helpfully distinguished by being called drive storage instead.

Synonyms for drive storage: hard drive, disk, floppy, memory stick, flash drive, SSD, SD card.

Synonyms for memory: RAM memory.

They differ in that RAM memory is emptied, purged or forgotten when the system is rebooted while drive storage is longer term. Drive storage has a structure chosen by the user, consisting of files within directories within partitions within drives. The user has no control over the structure of RAM memory.

Drive storage

A system will tend to slow down if the main storage gets over 95% full. It does this because it spends more of its time thrashing over the remaining gobbets of space trying to nail sufficient of them together to make a combined storage fragment large enough to do something practical with.

I'll add a post to the thread on how to free up drive storage.

RAM memory

A system will tend to slow down if the RAM memory becomes full. It does this because, rather than complaining and then stopping work, the machine will move the least-used memory areas onto drive storage. When that's needed again, more space has to be made in RAM memory to bring the needed pages back. As the proportion of the computer's time spent in this housekeeping rises, the system has less to spend on real work. It can become a runaway effect with seconds of productive work turning into minutes of elapsed time.

I'll add a post to the thread on how to free up RAM memory.

Physical cleanliness

A computer which can't expel enough exhaust heat is a machine which will progressively fail. That has nothing to do with the operating system but I'll add a post to the thread on how to physically clean the computer.

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:21 am

Here's a snapshot of my XP machine displaying the amount of RAM memory that's used just by XP itself when no user programs are running. It's why running XP on a PC with only 128MB is a bad idea: memory will be paging in and out even before you start running the tasks you had in mind.

So, the very first part of how to get your computer back up to speed if it's slower than when you bought it - get some more RAM memory, if that base figure with no programs is even a half of the physical RAM memory in your machine.

The program displaying the memory statistics is Task Manager. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del often shows a start option for the Task Manager, otherwise Ctrl+Shift+Esc might show it, or if both of those fail then [Start] [Run] taskmgr [OK] brings it onto the screen.

Attached files

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:44 am

And just to show that a 32MB computer is still adequate to browse simple areas of the Internet, here's the Microsoft Operating System state of the art in 1994, Windows 3.11 (though the browser, IE5, is more recent).

Attached files

flopstock · Post by **flopstock** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:21 am

FG;1406728 wrote: And just to show that a 32MB computer is still adequate to browse simple areas of the Internet, here's the Microsoft Operating System state of the art in 1994, Windows 3.11 (though the browser, IE5, is more recent).

How are you connecting?

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:26 am

flopstock;1406740 wrote: How are you connecting?

NDIS and Wolverine, the MS TCP/IP 32-bit extension, over 100baseT and a DHCP server.

flopstock · Post by **flopstock** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:33 am

We just took out our last 98 machine last year. It was only used for file processing in our editorial system and it worked fine.

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:41 am

Putting anything prior to XP online isn't all that safe these days, I can't get a virus checker to run on them. Maybe I just don't know the right checker.

Post by **LarsMac** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:34 am

Of course, not many virus apps roaming the field these days would know what to do with Win3.11, or Win95/98

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:58 am

LarsMac;1406763 wrote: Of course, not many virus apps roaming the field these days would know what to do with Win3.11, or Win95/98

Given how many I had to fight off in offices that had arrived on floppy disks, with names like Ethan Frome, often as macro inclusions in Word documents, I'd rather have something in place. Norton had one but I've looked all over and I can't see a copy. I do enough word processing on that machine to make it worth checking. Though not in Word, admittedly. I run WP51 on that computer if anyone remembers what WP51 was.

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:30 pm

I run WP51 on that computer if anyone remembers what WP51 was.

I remember. I prefer to run Microsoft operating systems on a virtual machine under unix and behind a firewall.

FG-administator · Post by **FG-administator** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:03 pm

Wandrin;1406772 wrote: I remember. I prefer to run Microsoft operating systems on a virtual machine under unix and behind a firewall.

The hardware couldn't manage the effort. It's a desktop in the attic, a Pentium 133 with a far more recent TFT monitor stuck on. The router between all the machines here and the cable modem is my firewall these days, not much which shouldn't passes that. The screen shots at the top of the thread are from the Virtualbox on this laptop, I keep a soft setup of all my physical machines so as to quickly check out any changes before I apply them in earnest. Not that I make many on that one.

It does a surprising amount of work still, partly because it has my running copy of DOS Smartware II with a half million database records from the early nineties. I have those transferred to LibreOffice Spreadsheet for regular reference but the original package is the master. I can't retire Smart II because my father still updates his data in it on his own system, for reasons of familiarity. The influence of that machine is pervasive - one of the children wrote "uncursed pasta" on the shopping list on the magnetic fridge whiteboard at the weekend.