I would suggest checking for a virus’s and spyware again. Sometimes the first time around doesn’t get all of them. After that, see if you can clean up your hard disk. If those don’t help, it may be best to get some help.

I have had one friend tell me that their two year old PC is so slow they are going to buy a new one.
Also I have seen a family friends Windows machine that they assumed was broken purely because of the malware that infested it; again reinstalling Windows; prevented them from skipping the machine and buying another one.
I wonder how many cases someone working in PC repair would see like this.
This is an example of how a defective product actually increases sales.

When I first started quickly reading this article, I assumed we were talking about Macs. My Ibook G4 is only a few years old and it seems a lot slower than it was only a few months ago. Accessing the Web or accessing files on the computer itself, both seem a lot slower than I remember. Itunes really seems slow to search for titles and import songs from cds. I think there are so many variables involved that it is hard to generalize about any computer.

It could be a number of things, as you suggest. It may be the result of an update you did. Did you, for example, install Leopard and maybe not add additional memory to give it a comfort level? More info is needed.

The Windows PC tends to slow down over time even for people who never updated anything, except, perhaps, for installing stuff that brought malware too.

Peace,
Gene

When I first started quickly reading this article, I assumed we were talking about Macs. My Ibook G4 is only a few years old and it seems a lot slower than it was only a few months ago. Accessing the Web or accessing files on the computer itself, both seem a lot slower than I remember. Itunes really seems slow to search for titles and import songs from cds. I think there are so many variables involved that it is hard to generalize about any computer.

Most business PCs used for specific tasks just sit there and do those tasks, well, without much fuss. How many old mid-80s IBM PCs do you still see happily sitting in a corner somewhere with its green-on-black monitor displaying parts, inventory or the like? I just bought a small part for my car and just such a machine was used by the parts counter guy. Even the keyboard was 20+ years old.

I think that computers get gunked up when used on the internet by careless users. Clicking on pop-ups telling you that your PC is infected by malware is probably the best way to take a clean, uninfect PC and, surprise surprise, load it with malware.

I have an IBM ThinkPad as my writing machine and a MacBook as my primary computer. Both are on the internet everyday, and neither has any malware issues. I use the Windows firewall in Vista and the OS X firewall in Leopard, and nothing else. Both installs are approaching a year old, and neither has slowed down. The PC is faster than the Mac in some tasks, slower in others, but neither has slowed down with use. In fact, the PC is much faster than it used to be. Vista SP1 was a nice speed (and stability) boost, and like all recent Windows systems, the system has a simple though effective caching scheme that streamlines boot and makes your most-used applications launch faster. It boots in half the time it did when new. Further, both Vista and Leopard have powerful search programs built into their UI, and both REALLY slow down a new computer or fresh install for an hour or three while they thrash about the hard drive trying to index everything. Do a large file move or copy, and the systems both slow down again. Of course, once indexed, they speed right back up.

There are many things that I dislike about Windows, but I don’t think its fair to imply that a Windows machine on its own will bog down and crawl.

Would running Windows with Parallels or VMWare protect the Windows side of things and make it less susceptible to sludge?

I would think anything that slows the operating system would do that regardless.

Agreed, but VMWare or Parallels can make it easier to recover from these slowdowns by resorting to a backup of the original install (since it’s all just contained in one file). I know, I know, Windows updates would complicate this slightly.

Would running Windows with Parallels or VMWare protect the Windows side of things and make it less susceptible to sludge?

I would think anything that slows the operating system would do that regardless.

Peace,
Gene

Would running Windows with Parallels or VMWare protect the Windows side of things and make it less susceptible to sludge?

Our local Bank of America has a few Mac 512s from the mid-80s running their communications software. It’s probably running a 3270 emulator or the like. As the lady at the bank said, if it isn’t broken, why fix it?