Computer help forum: Why do all Window systems slow down over time?

Those reasons are that the registry gets bloated with fragmented strings from changed/deleted programs, more tsr programs that use memory even when they are closed, and even fragmented hard drives. New faster systems compensate for a lot of these, especially with SSD's, but Windows will slow to some degree even with good maintenance. I am a power user, and I do clean re-installs every 1 1/2 to 2 years to keep things running peak.

The truth is the computer programs that get installed and anti-virus programs play a part. Hardware and dust have their part. More RAM helps. Free hard disk space, fragmentation all play a part.

The real truth is: The biggest culprit to slowing down your computer is Microsoft! I have installed fresh clean Microsoft OS before loading ANY other programs. Played around for responsiveness, nice and fast. Once I downloaded all the patches, the OS felt sluggish after service packs and patches (this is still before any programs get installed).

I also tried this on a old slow laptop. I used the restore disk on the laptop. I was very surprised with the responsiveness of the laptop. It responded like it was a new computer...very fast. Then I ran all the service packs and patches, then it was back to the old sluggish computer. No other changes to the software.

100% Microsoft patches and service packs are slowing down your computer.

All the other stuff play a role in slowing down your computer, but Microsoft is the underling killer of your computer.

1) When you install Windows, you also in other third party s/w which may be needed to work further. This increase in s/w makes PC slower.

2) Running windows auto-update is another major reason to make PC slower. (disable them)

3) Installing anti-virus is also another reason. (I know its compulsory to use them.

Dear Steve,

According to me I found 3 reasons in your PC for running slow:

1) OS- Vista. This OS is not a successful OS in consumer market, because it "consumes lot RAM (speed) of your PC". You have 2 options- Go for XP or Switch to Windows 7 (Win 7- it is much faster than XP or any other OS from Microsoft). Maintenance work on Vista wont work.

2) Apart from antivirus you have installed anti-spyware/malware which created a LOAD on your PC.
Solution: Choose a single antivirus suite which can give a broad security from within single product.

3) Choose a light weight antivirus for your PC like AVG. Its free.

Repeated defrag/scan-disk is not needed. May be once/twice a yr is enough.

Windows runs slower over time due to it's tendency to harbour junk files and totally forget exactly where it put things, or what is no longer required.

When windows is first installed, it's all nice and fresh, all it's drivers are fine, DLL's (libraries) are correct, etc.

Then you install a program.

That program adds it's own DLL's, it may even add it's own drivers if it's for a piece of hardware or something.

After a while you get bored with that program and uninstall it...

That program removes most of it's files, but it can leave behind some bits, the main junk items are the DLL's. DLL's are shared across multiple applications on the system and sometimes the program can't detect whether or not that DLL is needed any more, so instead of removing it, it just takes the safest option and leaves it there.

Then you also have temporary files that get lost in the system, just look at how much stuff you find left in the temporary folder after a reboot. It's surprising how much is left around, and some of these files don't even get left in the temporary folder, they can be left all over the computer.

These all add extra burdens onto the computer that slow it down.

Windows hoardes junk that's not needed and constantly forgets where it put things, when it comes to uninstalling them.

Thankfully though not all operating systems are like this.

Some of the best for not slowing down are the Linux Live CD's like Puppy Linux. This is because every time the computer is restarted all the old files are replaced with new ones, so it's like doing a new re-install every time you reboot. Of course it can write some files to hard drives, to allow you to install extra programs, but it's very easy to get back to the original and start from a fresh install on these.

Windows is a Monster.

(1) Everytime there is a new virus, one more gets added to the definitions. Take Norton 360 for example. Last time I used it, it checked for something like 80,000 viruses. When a new virus gets made, they add it to the list of updates which makes the program and files longer. Waiting 8 hours for it to scan your system is not an example of efficiency. The only way I could speed it up is to delete my temp folder.

(2) The updates. Windows had over 60 vulnerabilities one year. All of these patches take up space and processing power.

(3) Plug and Play. I plugged a new thumb drive in and windows has to find the driver for it even though thumb drives come in relative sizes like 512 Megs, 1 Gig, 2 Gig, 4 Gig, 8 Gig, 16 Gig, 32 Gig. You would think there would only need to be one driver that handles all of these sizes but then you have to worry about different companies that make them.

(4) Seek time on the platter. Your hard drive fills up over time making it take longer. Having to access data on the inside of the platter is faster than having to access data on the outside of the spinning platter. If you had a 45 record that was 3 minutes and 26 seconds long, it takes the needle that long to reach the outside. The same thing happens with the hard drive.

(5) Computer companies don't want to spend the money keeping Windows on one hard drive and your programs on a second hard drive. I think that would keep Windows operating more optimally because you could just electronically switch from one hard drive to the second because then you wouldn't have to wait for the head on the hard drive to find a new position.

(6) The number of drivers in a computer is probably a lot because there are different vendors of products. I don't know what the number is but some of my friends want to be inflammatory and say that there are 50 drivers for different monitors in Windows. If you have standard parts then you wouldn't have to worry about having to go to different foundries because one supplier could make all the necessary parts and you wouldn't have to have different programs to make the hardware operate differently.

(7) We're taught in school that quantity and not quality is what we have to output. The reason we have to output quantity is because we can't always expect inspiration to kick in so we're told to just output. The same thing happens with programs you buy. A customer wants a feature added to a program you buy and that adds to the bloat. Bloat is what makes your computer less efficient. SpeedScript was a free word processor for the Commodore 64 and it was only 5 Kilobytes in length. Compare that to the size of Microsoft Word or any of the other word processors out there. Everything is getting bigger because the customer demands more fonts, features, different printer drivers, etc.

(8) Your computer is designed to be obsolete. I remember when XP was coming out, Microsoft warned that you had to have fast enough specs to run it. I also bought a Sandisk thumbdrive with a program called "Secure Access". I was copying 2 GB to the vault and after 20-30 minutes, it wasn't finished encrypting so I didn't consider it very practical in keeping my files safe because it takes a lot of computational power.

(9) Look at the size of your iTunes download. That is all I have to say.

(10) Appreciate the Amiga computer. The Amiga's operating system fit on a floppy disk so instead of going through an operating system that is gigabytes long, the processor only had to go through an operating system the size of a floppy disk. If Microsoft went back to a smaller operating system, you wouldn't have to wait but they have too many peas in their pod doing too many things.

My computer became so slow that I called my technician. He said I had a "corrupt" registry. After he corrected that it worked much faster.

Many persons who have responded to the issue of gradual slowing down of PCs agree that Windows updates are one of the major source or burden that gets added to the hard disc and slow down the system. But, when we see windows updates, most are marked "important", and only a few marked "optional". Really, are so many updates that important? Is there some way to choose which 'important' update to accept and which one to reject. Others are not far behind, Adobe, Java and not to speak of anti-virus program updates. Our PCs should not become receptacle for lot of muck spewed out by MS and other vendors. How to control and choose Windows and other software updates?

...& then you just need to bite the bullet and buy a new roof. Let's look at software & hardware evolution. When you see a new release of a major component of your system-I.e., the operating system- IMHO it's ALMOST time. I usually hold off until the inevitable bugs in such massive coding projects have been identified and hopefully addressed. 2 or 3 months, maybe. This new 'roof' is theoretically now designed to accommodate and utilize all the major advances the software & hardware industries have come up with...up to the day of release! The very next day, the OS can be made out of date by any new development in either industry...or even by those who write viral code! Thus, their coders come up with item(s) to be included in the next 'Patch' for your roof. It is as inevitable as it is unending.

If anyone would like more specifics on how this is done, particularly with the thumb drive, let me know.
It gets a little complicated if you're not familiar with UNIX/Linux filesystems.
Also, when formatting the thumbdrive with Plop Linux, it will want to use FAT32 for the primary partition. There is a 2G file size limit on FAT32, so I always make a 100M partition for the main PlopLinux/boot, and the rest I format as EXT3. Then I can store huge files/disk images on that 2nd partition with no trouble at all.

This whole thing is also a great way to back up your system, for disaster recovery purposes.
If your system dies, you can simply boot the thumb drive and restore it with a new disk.

Robert, there is nothing wrong with your computer, well, at least not as the other readers have suggested. I'm sure you take care of your machine, as do most CNET readers. The problem lies deeper. Look up the word "software bloat" in a wiki. The problem is that the 80's & 90's produced a plethora of programmers and as computers got faster, there was no longer the need for programmers to produce fast, elegantly written programs due to RAM and Hard Drive storage limitations. Remember the promises of "Zero Wait State"? HAH!

Programmers became lazy and write solutions for form over function. In addition, the belief is that as hardward got faster, there would finally be a state of acceptance that leans more toward mediocrity than superiority. Here is a fact, albeit a sad one. Microsoft Office 2000, specifically Outlook, was faster in 2000, than any version since, with ANY computer. There are other interesting tidbits as well in this lookup thread. One is, 80% of users don't use 90% of the functions in 100% of programs.

Good luck.

"(4) Seek time on the platter. Your hard drive fills up over time making it take longer. Having to access data on the inside of the platter is faster than having to access data on the outside of the spinning platter. If you had a 45 record that was 3 minutes and 26 seconds long, it takes the needle that long to reach the outside. The same thing happens with the hard drive."

This is wrong on so many levels. 78, 45, and 33 1/3 RPM records, start on at the outside edge and ended near the center. Records had a single spiral grove which you had to follow, (with one exception) that you had to follow to get one point to another. Hard disk data is placed in concentric circles and the read head can move between tacks and skip the intervening data. The one exception is that you can skip tracks on LPs. PS CDs and DVDs are recorded on a spiral from the inside to the outside.

Thanks for all the help that you 111 people submitted.

The use of MSCONFIG and CCleaner were especially helpful.

I did find another tool that helped me. That is Toolbar Cleaner.
In the good old days software vendors would ask you if you wanted
another toolbar or download another application. Now they just
dump it on your system. One toolbar that has popped up its ugly
head is mixi.dj. I tried everything to remove it and it would always
come back. Toolbar Cleaner works to get rid of it.

I have monitored this discussion since it started. No one has had a definitive answer or a good fix except to start from scratch and do a "clean re-install".

I have found an answer that seems to work. If you have an XP or Vista system - Upgrade to Windows 8. Contrary to what most people say - it is Windows 7 with a "live tile" optional front end that is just faster and more responsive all around. If you, like I do, load a little Sticky Note app or another Desktop app at Startup, then you bypass the "live tile" front end completely and end up on Desktop which looks like Window 7.

Unfortunately, you missed the $40 upgrade offer that I took advantage of that ended January 31st.

I have upgraded a old intel Core Duo XP system and made it very responsive. I am running a first gen intel quad with Windows 8 and a second gen intel quad with Windows 7 with all the same software and Windows 8 is faster and more responsive than the Windows 7.

Ok so, you don't click on the Start Menu to Shut Down (did that ever make sense anyway). You just go to the corner and click on settings or if you have trouble finding the corner, then just do CTL, ALT, DEL on either the Desktop or the Start/Metro front end and select shut down or restart.

For all you Techies out there. You can use the front end to automatically give you all your techie system choices in Live Tiles (I forgot what I clicked on but just google it) and you can find the equivalent of my Computer in the little Library folder on the desktop.

I have ran XP in the past before i bought a laptop which has a external drive as i keep some amount of good music ,pictures,programs ect...as i noticed in previous computers i had were almost grinding to a halt with the whole slowing down process. So when i bought this laptop i thought new virgin media broadband 10mb nowt great so then Firefox 18 now as I-E-9 wont work (recover webpage all the time) and yes it takes at least 3/4 minites just for that browser to load but now i really take my time and chill online, so i have a great working set-up and for the life of me defrag as it gets to 28% and throws the towel in then all i have is the back-up left which can be done on to my external drive this after a year odds it only now will back - up again externally. I really thought after all these years things would be so much better online and a good little laptop 3 years down the line and it is just either update central or 10 years to complete a simple back - up. as every program conflicts in one way or another as i can do more on my old apple g4 as there is no registry but slow with graffix but if i could up the auntie then i am sacking windows as it's since windows 95 i sat all my examines in computers years ago as a 45 year old it's honestly one mass joke on us the customer and i feel so sorry for folks who simply dont know computers for one i have always had essentials security,cc-cleaner,camtasia-7(bought), and built-in is some essentials web-building program i do not use and would love to get rid of and office 2007 too as that is a big no-no as it causes so much conflicts as i am told. Why can a simple defrag just stop working ???? why did my back-up stop working ??? I wish there was a way of just simply doing basic cleaning would solve issues and how wrong are we all...cheap crappy imports from cheap crappy countrys ,and O-S that suck badly worse than having a fat lass from Greggs it's that slow.