2 Software questions

[Book]

1) Why does my computer get messed up after, say, 8 months without formatting my HDD? I keep defragging, registry cleaning, uninstalling unused software, erasing the temporary files and all that, but, still, it's less fast and/or reliable after a certain period of time. Why does this happen?

2) What is the usual number of active processes at a time? I once said in a forum that I hve 41 processes after start up and people told me that they were WAY too many (not even servers have that many). How many do you have, and how could I reduce them? Most of them use the "user name" SYSTEM, and if I ahut them down, my computer crashes, an restarts after 30 secs. What should I do?

[Metalmurphy]

1) Becouse files are allways left behind, registries are allways left behinds, and most importantly the dlls that remain active as "common files", even though you unistall the aplications


2) Depends really, on my desktop i have about 14, on my laptop i got 30. Download Process Explorer (free) - http://www.sysinternals.com/ - to get more information on each process, then google the ".exe" to get even more information. Then download Advanced Startup Manager (trial) http://www.rayslab.com/startup_manager/startup_manager.html - And disable the process you know are safe from startup. Also go to Startup Menu -> Run -> "services.msc" and disable services you don't use

[Hard core Rikki]

NTFS is very bad at fragmentation. Even on a empty drive, a 100 megabyte file can have like 2000 fragments.

Over time, the MFT fragments too, meaning slower access to file.

The most obvious source of problems is the XP patches. Those have a bad history of fixing something (badly) and breaking something else. Avoid autopatching, and only update for critical issues and desired stuff.

Also, check. You might have Starforce installed by some game. If that is the case, IDE speed is likely to lower, ultimately switching from DMA to PIO, wich is also bad for burners btw.

[Book]

1) can I do anything in order not to format my HDD so often? Like keep it for 2 years or so

[darth sephiroth]

use FAT32 file-format and then keep defragmenting. Pluss what has been mentioned.
to get fat32, you'll have to reformat one last time :/

btw. every 8 months isn't too bad. I remember with my previous mother board i was forced to one reformat every month because winXP hated my motherboard. But then i returned to win2k.

If you don't like loosing your game progress/decuments. Get a 200GB or more external harddrive to backup on. (i'm waiting for the one i ordered, because my computer is hurting for a reformat).

[Hard core Rikki]

No formats needed. ADS made by KAV also tend to slow system.

Using the likes of PartitionMagic should be enough. But NTFS is more data-consistant and reliable than FAT32 wich only has higher write speed and is less prone to fragmentation.

[darth sephiroth]

I really don't give a damn about writing speed, as long as it is reliable and doesn't send out fragmentional shards.

[KillerShots]

Then you're stuck. NTFS for (semi) reliability, FAT32 for lesser fragmentation problems. Choose a problem to live with.