Computer performance enhancer programs?

[Flip]

Anyone know of any free programs designed to improved performance? My boot time seems to be pretty shitty lately and im getting some random freezes on programs or ones that wont shut down properly.

My virus scan is a good one and up to date, so there shouldnt be any bugs. If you dont use a program, what do you typically do for a slightly older computer? I uninstall useless programs regularly and sometimes defrag (havent in a while, though).

Im not about to give in to that stupid finallyfast.com commercial i see on Adult Swim all the time, but would like something reliable that will work... preferably for free or by a series of Windows clean ups.

[Tessian]

Quick tip: Use MSCONFIG (through Run) to check what's set to run at Startup and disable any of them that you don't want running.

Good thing to check through the running process list and see if there's anything junking stuff up too.

A healthy defrag of your drives every couple weeks or so will also help.

[Flip]

Ah, totally forgot about msconfig. I clean out the startup folder in programs all the time, but the back stuff was killing me. Once i deleted a few more useless programs and stopped retarded stuff from pre-loading through msconfig, i can already see a world of difference. I'll defrag again tonight and i should be golden. I'm sure thats all the stuff the dumb programs do, too, thanks.

[Kupek]

Back up your data, wipe your drive, reinstall Windows.

I'm seriously skeptical of any "make your computer run faster" programs.

[Flip]

Back up your data, wipe your drive, reinstall Windows.

I'm seriously skeptical of any "make your computer run faster" programs.

Thats always a last case scenario for me. While i love a clean HD... theres just so much to re-install and configure. I would need to take screen shots of everything and keep them on a flash drive. Thats an all day task.

[SineSwiper]

Im not about to give in to that stupid finallyfast.com commercial i see on Adult Swim all the time, but would like something reliable that will work... preferably for free or by a series of Windows clean ups.

Fast! Finally! FinallyFast dot com!

*thumbs up*
*some chick comes out of the background and says "Groovy!"*
*computer turns into a tiger and starts to eat viruses*

Yeah, what an awful commercial. What you need is safer dash networking dot org, and lavasoft dot com, and avg dot com. And finally, windows update dot com. A little bit of Tea Timer dot ee ex ee would help, too.

EDIT: One of the YouTube comments suggested ccleaner and ncleaner. Never tried them out, but worth look at them. The best solutions to fixing your PC problems are free.

EDIT EDIT: Holy shit! The two minute version is even funnier! BSODs on a Macbook. Firefox error messages in IE. Some jerkwad from his mom's basement playing a shitty 2D game with a PS2 controller. This commercial has it all!

[Kupek]

I would need to take screen shots of everything and keep them on a flash drive. Thats an all day task.

Are you sure? On my home machine, all I'd need to reinstall would be Pidgin, Firefox, Winamp, and... that's it. Anything else I use so infrequently (like, say, Skype or an sftp Windows client) it wouldn't be a problem to install it on demand.

[Tessian]

EDIT EDIT: Holy shit! The two minute version is even funnier! BSODs on a Macbook. Firefox error messages in IE. Some jerkwad from his mom's basement playing a shitty 2D game with a PS2 controller. This commercial has it all!

I noticed that shit on my own... if you're going to go through the trouble of faking a BSOD you almost have to go OUT OF YOUR WAY to put it on a computer that CAN'T HAVE ONE. LoL so fucking retarded.

Kupek also has a point to, I don't know if this still holds true with Vista, but every Windows OS so far I've had to reformat every so many years just to keep it running. Windows 2000/XP seemed to be every 2 years with heavy use, 4-5 years with moderate/little use. For this reason, and disaster recovery ones, I keep my OS (C:) isolated from everything else. Anything on C: is something I'm prepared to lose if something happens. Everything else is on another partition, so this way if something catastrophic happens to my OS (or I need to reformat for another reason) I can do so. If I have no notice then I may lose some things I hadn't backed up in a while... if I have time (like I did when I went to Vista x64 last month) then I lose nothing. Makes things much easier

[Oracle]

Anyone know of any free programs designed to improved performance?

Linux.

[SineSwiper]

I've never had to reformat my PC every couple of months. I don't understand what the hell you do to your PCs to cause this. The spyware and viruses ain't installing itself.

[Zeus]

I personally like System Mechanic. It does a good job of eliminating garbage hanging around on your comp

[Shellie]

I've never had to reformat my PC every couple of months. I don't understand what the hell you do to your PCs to cause this. The spyware and viruses ain't installing itself.

I dont think anyone said every couple of months. I used to do it every couple of years.

[Imakeholesinu]

I've never had to reformat my PC every couple of months. I don't understand what the hell you do to your PCs to cause this. The spyware and viruses ain't installing itself.

I dont think anyone said every couple of months. I used to do it every couple of years.

I haven't had to do anything to my home PC since 2004.