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Author Topic: laptop is bogged down ever since...  (Read 11378 times)

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BC_Programmer


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Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
« Reply #30 on: June 26, 2010, 07:55:26 PM »
That just means that the file is likely loaded upon boot so when you try to delete it, it's actually open and in use by the operating system.

No. It isn't.


absolutely NONE of this makes any sense. The file is 10MB. So freaking what? you aren't going to save any space at all by futzing about deleting "large" DLL files, which aren't even a tenth of a % of the total disk space.

use Programs And Features to remove Applications you don't use. Perhaps move your data to another drive. Whatever the case, people have been trying to "free space" by deleting random program DLLs strewn about their disk and all they get in the end is two fistfuls of their own hair. Use WinDirStat to find out where your space is <actually> being consumed. You will find that a good chunk of it is in your own data folders. This is the same suggestion given days ago by Allan (treesize is the same type of program).


If that subdirectory will really get you a lot of space

94MB is not a lot of space.


Sometimes badly written install routines do not conform to the standards,  and they install their application in a subdirectory not under program files.   As long as it seems that the files in there are all related to the moviemaker application and you don't see other obvious program names or directories,  you should be ok per my last post.

Movie maker doesn't have an uninstaller. It <IS> installed into program files, and deleting it will orphan about 40 file associations and COM component registrations. And yet this is how you propose they "clean up".

It sounds like you're system is in a bit of a death spiral..  I would 1st and foremost be totally sure you have all your data backed up because at this point,  one of these times it just may not start up for you.
If it doesn't start up one day, I assure you it's because somebody gave them the idea it was ok to delete random DLL files.

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Generally,  because of how poorly windows cleans up after itself due to both windows and bad application deinstall routines,  if you use your system heavily, especially if you install/deinstall programs somewhat often,  it's just a good idea to re-core your system every couple of years, or more frequently.  
Complete and utter nonsense. Especially considering "recore" isn't even a word any self-respecting tech would use.

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As was posted earlier,  if you're only running 2GB ram,  your system is probably caching a good bit, and with the disk so full,  if you don't regularly defrag,  the caching will really bog down performance.   To run windows with any decent performance, I never let the boot/caching disk get below 25GB free.
The pagefile is where data is swapped. It's not a cache. a cache is used to access data faster then it would otherwise be accessed, in this case since it's being stored on a slow medium (disk) rather then a fast one (RAM) it's not being "cached".

secondly, "cached" data is actually stored in low priority memory blocks by SuperFetch That is Cached data because it is being stored in RAM rather then on disk.

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If you have not defragged, I would certainly try that,  it alone may help the speed due to the above.

First:Defragmentation is not some magical panacea. You aren't going to see a computer go from "turtle slow" to blazing fast just because you moved a few clusters around on the disk. The fact that people actually believe to be the case this indicates that there is a lot of misunderstanding about what defragmentation actually does.
Second: Windows Vista & 7 automatically do some defragmentation during idle time. At least that what I suspect, considering I've had this install running for nearly a year and my fragmentation rate is 1% or less on all drives.




I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

joepinger

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    Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
    « Reply #31 on: June 26, 2010, 09:04:24 PM »
    How do I move data from one drive to another?  Thanks.

    maximdymok



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      Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
      « Reply #32 on: June 27, 2010, 12:49:19 AM »
      Don't know about the space issue, but i have an idea about why your coputer says you only have 2 GB ram instead of 4. If you have a 32-bit OS, it can only read 2 GB ram(and only use 2 GB), so even if you have more than that, windows won't use it. Also, i dont think 10MB is a lot of space, its probably like 0.1 or something like that of your hard drive space, so deleting it wont help much.  Someone experienced correct me if im wrong  :P

      BC_Programmer


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      Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
      « Reply #33 on: June 27, 2010, 08:35:09 AM »
      Don't know about the space issue, but i have an idea about why your coputer says you only have 2 GB ram instead of 4. If you have a 32-bit OS, it can only read 2 GB ram(and only use 2 GB), so even if you have more than that, windows won't use it. Also, i dont think 10MB is a lot of space, its probably like 0.1 or something like that of your hard drive space, so deleting it wont help much.  Someone experienced correct me if im wrong  :P

      a 32-bit OS can access around 3.5 to 4GB of RAM.

      Actually, that's a lie, it has nothing to do with the operating system being 32-bit, although that is something many people draw from the issue. It's actually built into many versions of Windows to not recognize past a certain amount- it's listed somewhere in the EULA probably.(the fact that it varies is based on memory used by hardware) for example, Windows 2000 Server could access up to 16GB of RAM (well, I'm not 100% sure on the amount, but it was way past the "4GB barrier", and it's a 32-bit OS.

      The common "explanation" is that a 32-bit OS can only access up to 2^32 bytes, which happens to be 4GB. However, that's sort of redundant, when you think about it. For example, the IBM XT was an 8-bit PC and ran MS-DOS, and it could use 1MB of memory- but by the logic put forth today to explain the "4GB barrier" the IBM XT should have only been able to access 2^8 bytes, or a scant 256 bytes. Same story with 16-bit operating systems and hardware, which could use a lot of memory (I ran windows 3.1 with 256MB of memory, which is far in excess to the 32KB (2^16) that  I should have been able to access.

      Just to be clear, I am of course not "attacking" you or anything, I'm just trying to clear up a common misconception. it's true that some versions of windows have a "limit" to how much memory they can use, but the limit itself is completely artificial and completely unrelated to the hardware capabilities. The reason was because many applications and drivers might have problems if they were mapped (loaded into memory) at addresses higher then about 4GB, so MS decided to artificially limit the amount of memory windows could recognize on 32-bit consumer Operating systems. Since the server operating systems almost always ran hardware specifically designed for server use, (and generally needed gobs of memory) they added no such limit. Same with 64-bit windows.



      How do I move data from one drive to another?  Thanks.
      buy either an external hard drive or blank discs to burn.
      I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

      jason2074



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      Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
      « Reply #34 on: June 28, 2010, 06:36:42 AM »
      You may also have a virus attack running in the background that replicates thats why you have a fluctuation of memory space. You mention you have a current antivirus. You may try to download a free antivirus(Avira) and rescan your hard disk to make sure. Just diable temporarily your antivirus before installing your downloaded antivirus.

      Allan

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      Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
      « Reply #35 on: June 28, 2010, 06:57:57 AM »
      You may also have a virus attack running in the background that replicates thats why you have a fluctuation of memory space. You mention you have a current antivirus. You may try to download a free antivirus(Avira) and rescan your hard disk to make sure. Just diable temporarily your antivirus before installing your downloaded antivirus.
      1) I'm not aware of any virus that would cause only half of installed ram to be recognized (and present NO other symptoms)
      2) I would not install a second AV, but there's never any harm in running a full system scan with you current antivirus software AND with MalwareBytes (which can be installed along side of your av sw)

      DivineRage002



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        Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
        « Reply #36 on: June 28, 2010, 07:00:36 AM »
        How large is your HD, and how old is it? I haven't seen any mention of that since the beginning of the thread.

        Instead of deleting random .dll files and possibly causing havoc in your computer, I would suggest running a cleanup program such as CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner). It will delete most of the useless/empty/temporary files, and may help free a bit of disk space, without sending your computer FUBAR.

        jason2074



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        Re: laptop is bogged down ever since...
        « Reply #37 on: June 28, 2010, 09:13:54 PM »
        1) I'm not aware of any virus that would cause only half of installed ram to be recognized (and present NO other symptoms)
        2) I would not install a second AV, but there's never any harm in running a full system scan with you current antivirus software AND with MalwareBytes (which can be installed along side of your av sw)
        Yes you are not aware of any virus concerning the RAM. It's a different issue. What i'm concern is the fluctuation of his memory space from 10 to 20%. And Joepinger's current antivirus posted having some errors.