Use AutoRuns to Control Windows Background Apps

After some time, a Windows computer becomes slower, with performance degrading steadily because of a bloated registry, along with many small applications running in the background. If your computer can have memory installed easily (through inserting a module in an open memory slot), that would be the quickest way to boost performance. In a previous post, I highlighted the applications CCleaner and EasyCleaner 2 for helping to slim-down the registry. Another utility I use for identifying background apps that load on Windows start-up is Microsoft's AutoRuns.  AutoRuns displays application paths buried in the Windows registry, not just the startup folder, but ALL sections of the registry that Windows refers to when it 'boots-up.'

In 2010, newer computers come with roughly four gigabytes of RAM, and over 200 gigabytes of hard disk drive capacity. With all that memory, one would think that having many programs running in the background wouldn't matter. Au contraire, mes amis. It's not just the memory used, it's the slices of processing power (a.k.a. 'threads') used by these apps that can rob performance over time. The answer? If you've found your computer is slow, download and run AutoRuns and take a look at all the logic loaded in your computer's memory when it starts up. You'll be shocked.

Just because there are many items loaded in your computer's memory, that does not mean all or even most of them are superfluous. Windows requires a lot of logic loaded into memory to handle fonts, disk read/writes, sounds, printers, mice, keyboards, and monitors. Much of this logic is loaded into memory in the form of device drivers, and each computer comes with its own mix-and-match combination of drivers that are provided by the vendor (or which must be manually loaded by you if you're loading Windows by yourself). Device drivers are relatively small and efficient. It's big applications that don't enhance your day-to-day PC experience that are candidates for the chopping-block.

So how do you know which apps to remove?
Soon after Windows starts, open the Windows Task Manager (right-click on the task bar and choose the Task Manager menu item), then select the "Processes" tab and click on the memory column to sort by memory. If you don't recognize a process, highlight it by double clicking on it. Then right-click the process and choose the 'kill' option. Sometimes these will re-appear, which means Windows requires this driver. Some applications will have interesting results if killed (such as "explorer"). Some will not allow you to terminate them since you don't have enough privileges to do so. Note the apps that had the most memory that you got rid of successfully (that didn't re-appear), and try to locate them with AutoRuns. If you do find the app, then all you need to do to prevent it from loading the next time you start your PC is deselect the check-box to the application's left.

Experiment, but be careful. Your reward is a slimmed-down system with fewer process-hungry apps running in the background!

Workstation Maintenance

Rarely have I lost my work due to computer disaster. It has happened, but not too often, because I maintain a fairly strict regimen of computer health. Since computers are the tools I depend on, I perform the following maintenance on Windows PCs and Macs...

Windows (XP/Vista/7):
Download CCleaner, Defraggler, and Easy Cleaner. I run Defraggler about once a week to defragment my hard disk drives, but you can get away with running it once a month or even once a season. Just don't ignore your computer's hard disk drive. I run a combination of the registry cleaners from CCleaner and Easy Cleaner 2 to maintain a healthy registry about twice a month. You could depend on Microsoft's tools in the System Tools folder, but I've grown to ignore Microsoft's tools as lowest-common-denominator and wouldn't mind if someone created a script to uninstall most of the tools from their operating system altogether.

Also, I have successfully run Fred Langa's XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total Rebuild Option for the Registry and found that it really does slim-down the Windows Registry and makes one's computer run faster without having to re-install software like Microsoft Office. I would not run this unless you've backed up your whole hard disk drive and are comfortable with re-installing the backup image if something goes wrong.

Mac OS X:
I was unable to easily locate an open-source hard disk drive defragmenter for the Mac, but a Google search did bring up Coriolis System's iDefrag. There is a free version that shows you how fragmented your hard drive is. If you don't want to defragment your hard drive, or feel that the drive isn't fragmented enough to fork over $30, then you don't have to do another thing. If you're like me, and get kind of anal about your hard disk, then $30 is chump-change compared to an inefficient drive.

I also back up my whole hard disk drive using the partimage program off of a Knoppix or Ubuntu live CD, at least for Windows machines (TimeMachine works just fine for my Mac needs), but that will have to be covered in another blog post.