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#21
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
On 02/22/2010 01:37 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:03:47 -0500, MEB wrote: ** ANGUS: Find out what is presently running within the system using one of the autorun tools, MSConfig, and other methods and tools which you have seen the group mention here before. Do we need to run through some of that again? If there's a URL or old thread (locatable via Google Groups) you can point me to, then fine, but I don't want anyone to go to too much trouble over this, as I have so many niggles with my present installation, and this is just one which I hoped there might be a quick fix for, which would make it easier for me to get around to reinstalling the whole thing from scratch, which needs doing, and which I mean to ask about separately - when I can face it! That re-install reluctance is understandable having done it myself several dozen times for testing purposes... MSConfig [also available via MSInfo - the discussions were concerning "clean boot" settings hence a search term you can use] shows SOME of the running/auto stuff, though I always recommended sysinternals autoruns since it shows all of the settings and running aspect plus the reason/hook/association for them. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...s/default.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192926 -clean boot http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796 http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm - Gary's old page Note the below defrag answer as well. We should ask if you have done any tweaks or system/browser updating since EOL, and whether you have a standard system? As far as I know, it's pretty standard. I really don't enjoy messing with Windows, and just tend to use the standard user customisation features. I can't think of anything I have done which could have led to this problem, which just seemed to come out of the blue a few weeks ago. (Apart from the failed update to avast!, which I've already mentioned.) This particular installation of Win98SE (I've done 6 altogether on this machine, this one dating from January 2007) has always had a lot of odd flaky little things wrong with it, it has never felt as solid as any I've worked with before, but there has never been anything major enough to make me think seriously of reinstall- ing it. But for months now, it has been suffering the death of a thousand cuts: lots of little things, none individually worth worrying a lot over, but all adding up to a system which is a constant displeasure to work with. (I'm including things like software updates no longer being available. I must reluctantly abandon Win98SE as my main OS. But I want to keep it for some uses.) The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). I haven't defragged for a long time. Does there come a point when things suddenly get a LOT slower because of fragmentation? I never expected that; I imagined there would only be a slow decline in performance; a sudden change of this magnitude would seem counter-intuitive; but is it a possibility? Short answer: yes. Long: Part of your issue may be a dis-contiguous swap file. If you haven't defragged in awhile and you manipulate large files and/or run large and/or multiple programs, then the swap on your disk may exist in several places, hence lots of head travel back and forth. The answer is to do that defrag, HOWEVER, here is where what is running in the background severely affects the defrag speed and abilities. Though your present available system resources are low [per your below MSInfo] you will be freeing some by disabling some of the startup programs PRIOR to attempting the defrag AND once you accomplish that, you ALSO disable Virtual Memory [you should have more than enough after disabling the startup/background programs]. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE Once you get the startup stuff disabled [clean boot or other method], and delete any temp files, disable Virtual Memory by: Control Panel - System - Performance - Virtual Memory - disable Windows handling. AFTER a re-boot run Windows [in normal mode] scandisk, and defrag with defrag /P [which moves even some of the supposed unmovables]. After you run both, re-enable Virtual Memory. From a semi-recent post: Is it possible to run defrag with 1-click script (vbscript or bat), for more convenience? Firstly script need set up a Clean boot configuration with MSCONFIG ("Selective startup" with all boxes unchecked), then restart Windows 98 in Safe mode and run defrag command. This has been done several times before here. Short answer: Yes. Though this is a "qualified" yes. Note though, run-once entries and/or autoexec.bat {or other batch files} entries need addressed upon re-start. In at least a few discussions, such already made apps or scripts were discussed, such as: GeoDisk [which had issues when I tested it with my configuration at that time]; using scripts, though not by directly using msconfig; why use an app when the intent is to use a script; it should do this in its own coding. Obvious Registry areas that need addressed: 1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\Run 2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*Run 3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce 4. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*RunOnce 5. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServices 6. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServicesOnce 7. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce\Setup Some things often over-looked which can cause these delays and/or re-starts a 1. screen savers; 2. power management; 3. your {potentially} permanent Internet connection; 4. your network, particularly wireless connections; 5. networked folders and/or drives; 6. limited memory and/or disk cache and swap settings; 7. most anti-malware applications do NOT actually shut-down (remove themselves) completely even when disabled; 8. ANY usage of the computer during the scandisk/defrag process; 9. the above are/cause *monitoring activity*, hence these and anything else which does this can potentially cause re-starts and/or disk writes, INCLUDING defrag which writes relocation and other changes to the disk [changing FAT locations/entries, etc.], or applications which write their changed entries directly to the registry. An alternative is to check Do not show this again when defrag/scandisk pops-up the box complaining about disk changes, and running it when the computer has the most limited usage {like when you are asleep} using Task Manager or similar, AND limiting the disk/partition size when running, e.g., doing the disks/partitions during different sleep periods [different days]. For script examples see: Bill James · Microsoft MVP http://billsway.com/vbspage/ For instance [though this doesn't address clean boot]: 'ScanFragAll.vbs - ScanDisk and DeFrag on all hard drives. '© Bill James - - rev 10 Oct 1999 Option Explicit Dim WshShell Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") WshShell.Run "scandskw /all /n /silent",1,true WshShell.Run "defrag /F /P /all /noprompt",1,true It's only WinZip that there is a problem with (in terms of very slow file access, I mean). Also, the WinZip window seems to behave oddly as soon as I start the program, sometimes (perhaps not always): just dragging the mouse across it seems to cause a very sluggish response in some of the icons. Yes - the mouse pointer is moving v-e-r-y slowly and jerkily across the toolbar, even though I'm not using WinZip to do anything, and the rest of my system seems to be behaving quite normally. (I did create some *.zip files last night, and I don't think I have rebooted since then. I think WinZip tends to be generally less sluggish after a reboot.) Hmm, could be a couple things from malware, video drivers, icon cache issues, to... *IF* the system is clean and after you defrag, then you could do a simple check by deleting the icon cache from DOS and rebooting. C:\windows\ShellIconCache [no extension] though I think its at least a hidden file so an attrib would be necessary. Dos start - cd to your Windows folder - attrib -h -s -r ShellIconCache del ShellIconCache reboot and it rebuilds over time/usage. And what IE version is installed? I'm afraid I don't even know that! I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. OK, I've found a program called 'Microsoft System Information', which tells me: Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222B Clean install using Full OEM CD /T:C:\WININST0.400 /SrcDir=D:\WIN98SE\WIN98 /IZ /II /IS /IQ /IT /II /NR /II /C /U:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx IE 5 6.0.2800.1106 [...] AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1700+ 768MB RAM 34% system resources free Windows-managed swap file on drive C (2197MB free) Available space on drive C: 2197MB of 3757MB (FAT32) Available space on drive D: 3977MB of 7421MB (FAT32) Available space on drive E: 4732MB of 7421MB (FAT32) Available space on drive F: 4327MB of 59601MB (FAT32) -- MEB http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking http://peoplescounsel.org The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government ___--- |
#22
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
On 02/22/2010 01:37 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:03:47 -0500, MEB wrote: ** ANGUS: Find out what is presently running within the system using one of the autorun tools, MSConfig, and other methods and tools which you have seen the group mention here before. Do we need to run through some of that again? If there's a URL or old thread (locatable via Google Groups) you can point me to, then fine, but I don't want anyone to go to too much trouble over this, as I have so many niggles with my present installation, and this is just one which I hoped there might be a quick fix for, which would make it easier for me to get around to reinstalling the whole thing from scratch, which needs doing, and which I mean to ask about separately - when I can face it! That re-install reluctance is understandable having done it myself several dozen times for testing purposes... MSConfig [also available via MSInfo - the discussions were concerning "clean boot" settings hence a search term you can use] shows SOME of the running/auto stuff, though I always recommended sysinternals autoruns since it shows all of the settings and running aspect plus the reason/hook/association for them. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...s/default.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192926 -clean boot http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796 http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm - Gary's old page Note the below defrag answer as well. We should ask if you have done any tweaks or system/browser updating since EOL, and whether you have a standard system? As far as I know, it's pretty standard. I really don't enjoy messing with Windows, and just tend to use the standard user customisation features. I can't think of anything I have done which could have led to this problem, which just seemed to come out of the blue a few weeks ago. (Apart from the failed update to avast!, which I've already mentioned.) This particular installation of Win98SE (I've done 6 altogether on this machine, this one dating from January 2007) has always had a lot of odd flaky little things wrong with it, it has never felt as solid as any I've worked with before, but there has never been anything major enough to make me think seriously of reinstall- ing it. But for months now, it has been suffering the death of a thousand cuts: lots of little things, none individually worth worrying a lot over, but all adding up to a system which is a constant displeasure to work with. (I'm including things like software updates no longer being available. I must reluctantly abandon Win98SE as my main OS. But I want to keep it for some uses.) The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). I haven't defragged for a long time. Does there come a point when things suddenly get a LOT slower because of fragmentation? I never expected that; I imagined there would only be a slow decline in performance; a sudden change of this magnitude would seem counter-intuitive; but is it a possibility? Short answer: yes. Long: Part of your issue may be a dis-contiguous swap file. If you haven't defragged in awhile and you manipulate large files and/or run large and/or multiple programs, then the swap on your disk may exist in several places, hence lots of head travel back and forth. The answer is to do that defrag, HOWEVER, here is where what is running in the background severely affects the defrag speed and abilities. Though your present available system resources are low [per your below MSInfo] you will be freeing some by disabling some of the startup programs PRIOR to attempting the defrag AND once you accomplish that, you ALSO disable Virtual Memory [you should have more than enough after disabling the startup/background programs]. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE Once you get the startup stuff disabled [clean boot or other method], and delete any temp files, disable Virtual Memory by: Control Panel - System - Performance - Virtual Memory - disable Windows handling. AFTER a re-boot run Windows [in normal mode] scandisk, and defrag with defrag /P [which moves even some of the supposed unmovables]. After you run both, re-enable Virtual Memory. From a semi-recent post: Is it possible to run defrag with 1-click script (vbscript or bat), for more convenience? Firstly script need set up a Clean boot configuration with MSCONFIG ("Selective startup" with all boxes unchecked), then restart Windows 98 in Safe mode and run defrag command. This has been done several times before here. Short answer: Yes. Though this is a "qualified" yes. Note though, run-once entries and/or autoexec.bat {or other batch files} entries need addressed upon re-start. In at least a few discussions, such already made apps or scripts were discussed, such as: GeoDisk [which had issues when I tested it with my configuration at that time]; using scripts, though not by directly using msconfig; why use an app when the intent is to use a script; it should do this in its own coding. Obvious Registry areas that need addressed: 1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\Run 2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*Run 3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce 4. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\*RunOnce 5. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServices 6. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunServicesOnce 7. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion*\RunOnce\Setup Some things often over-looked which can cause these delays and/or re-starts a 1. screen savers; 2. power management; 3. your {potentially} permanent Internet connection; 4. your network, particularly wireless connections; 5. networked folders and/or drives; 6. limited memory and/or disk cache and swap settings; 7. most anti-malware applications do NOT actually shut-down (remove themselves) completely even when disabled; 8. ANY usage of the computer during the scandisk/defrag process; 9. the above are/cause *monitoring activity*, hence these and anything else which does this can potentially cause re-starts and/or disk writes, INCLUDING defrag which writes relocation and other changes to the disk [changing FAT locations/entries, etc.], or applications which write their changed entries directly to the registry. An alternative is to check Do not show this again when defrag/scandisk pops-up the box complaining about disk changes, and running it when the computer has the most limited usage {like when you are asleep} using Task Manager or similar, AND limiting the disk/partition size when running, e.g., doing the disks/partitions during different sleep periods [different days]. For script examples see: Bill James · Microsoft MVP http://billsway.com/vbspage/ For instance [though this doesn't address clean boot]: 'ScanFragAll.vbs - ScanDisk and DeFrag on all hard drives. '© Bill James - - rev 10 Oct 1999 Option Explicit Dim WshShell Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") WshShell.Run "scandskw /all /n /silent",1,true WshShell.Run "defrag /F /P /all /noprompt",1,true It's only WinZip that there is a problem with (in terms of very slow file access, I mean). Also, the WinZip window seems to behave oddly as soon as I start the program, sometimes (perhaps not always): just dragging the mouse across it seems to cause a very sluggish response in some of the icons. Yes - the mouse pointer is moving v-e-r-y slowly and jerkily across the toolbar, even though I'm not using WinZip to do anything, and the rest of my system seems to be behaving quite normally. (I did create some *.zip files last night, and I don't think I have rebooted since then. I think WinZip tends to be generally less sluggish after a reboot.) Hmm, could be a couple things from malware, video drivers, icon cache issues, to... *IF* the system is clean and after you defrag, then you could do a simple check by deleting the icon cache from DOS and rebooting. C:\windows\ShellIconCache [no extension] though I think its at least a hidden file so an attrib would be necessary. Dos start - cd to your Windows folder - attrib -h -s -r ShellIconCache del ShellIconCache reboot and it rebuilds over time/usage. And what IE version is installed? I'm afraid I don't even know that! I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. OK, I've found a program called 'Microsoft System Information', which tells me: Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222B Clean install using Full OEM CD /T:C:\WININST0.400 /SrcDir=D:\WIN98SE\WIN98 /IZ /II /IS /IQ /IT /II /NR /II /C /U:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx IE 5 6.0.2800.1106 [...] AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1700+ 768MB RAM 34% system resources free Windows-managed swap file on drive C (2197MB free) Available space on drive C: 2197MB of 3757MB (FAT32) Available space on drive D: 3977MB of 7421MB (FAT32) Available space on drive E: 4732MB of 7421MB (FAT32) Available space on drive F: 4327MB of 59601MB (FAT32) -- MEB http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking http://peoplescounsel.org The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government ___--- |
#23
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference. On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB wrote: The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now. I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles, because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and even an old one about Linux, somewhere. Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, for many months now. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it (I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago), but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.) Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!! I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short- sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-( 34% system resources free It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it go down to 1%! - Wheee!) Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions, and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned), I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes just this one of my very many problems. Is there any reason why I shouldn't: back up the registry uninstall Winzip 8.0 back up the registry again reinstall WinZip 8.0 back up the registry again and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy- duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs, and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly before attempting anything too dangerous. -- Angus Rodgers |
#24
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to
implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference. On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB wrote: The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now. I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles, because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and even an old one about Linux, somewhere. Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, for many months now. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it (I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago), but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.) Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!! I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short- sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-( 34% system resources free It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it go down to 1%! - Wheee!) Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions, and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned), I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes just this one of my very many problems. Is there any reason why I shouldn't: back up the registry uninstall Winzip 8.0 back up the registry again reinstall WinZip 8.0 back up the registry again and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy- duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs, and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly before attempting anything too dangerous. -- Angus Rodgers |
#25
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:09:42 +0000, I wrote:
Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? I was already thinking of downloading a Ubuntu installation CD image (which I can presumably burn to a CD-R, using Nero on my Win98SE system - no problem there, I hope?). Also it seems that nowadays a Linux "installation CD" and a "Live CD" are much the same thing, and this article mentions the Ubuntu one: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-9988099-33.html Why you want a Linux Live CD | Defensive Computing - CNET News So I suppose I should just go ahead and download the current CD image from the main Ubuntu site? (However, I still don't want to do anything with it, not even running Linux from a CD-R, until I have made more complete and redundant backups of all my data - I don't know how badly I might screw up!) Will it be obvious what to do to scan my Win98SE installation for malware, using Ubuntu from the CD? -- Angus Rodgers |
#26
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:09:42 +0000, I wrote:
Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? I was already thinking of downloading a Ubuntu installation CD image (which I can presumably burn to a CD-R, using Nero on my Win98SE system - no problem there, I hope?). Also it seems that nowadays a Linux "installation CD" and a "Live CD" are much the same thing, and this article mentions the Ubuntu one: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-9988099-33.html Why you want a Linux Live CD | Defensive Computing - CNET News So I suppose I should just go ahead and download the current CD image from the main Ubuntu site? (However, I still don't want to do anything with it, not even running Linux from a CD-R, until I have made more complete and redundant backups of all my data - I don't know how badly I might screw up!) Will it be obvious what to do to scan my Win98SE installation for malware, using Ubuntu from the CD? -- Angus Rodgers |
#27
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
YES Infected with something nasty. Like SpyWare!
But all PC get spyware all day Long that's life on the Internet that's why we have Anti-spyware + Antivirus Software and Firewall for,,, nasty, nasty, nasty all day long And Here In the USA we call N-Words! "Angus Rodgers" wrote in message ... There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference. On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB wrote: The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now. I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles, because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and even an old one about Linux, somewhere. Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, for many months now. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it (I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago), but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.) Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!! I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short- sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-( 34% system resources free It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it go down to 1%! - Wheee!) Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions, and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned), I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes just this one of my very many problems. Is there any reason why I shouldn't: back up the registry uninstall Winzip 8.0 back up the registry again reinstall WinZip 8.0 back up the registry again and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy- duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs, and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly before attempting anything too dangerous. -- Angus Rodgers |
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
YES Infected with something nasty. Like SpyWare! But all PC get spyware all day Long that's life on the Internet that's why we have Anti-spyware + Antivirus Software and Firewall for,,, nasty, nasty, nasty all day long And Here In the USA we call N-Words! "Angus Rodgers" wrote in message ... There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference. On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB wrote: The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now. I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles, because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and even an old one about Linux, somewhere. Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, for many months now. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it (I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago), but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.) Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!! I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short- sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-( 34% system resources free It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it go down to 1%! - Wheee!) Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions, and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned), I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes just this one of my very many problems. Is there any reason why I shouldn't: back up the registry uninstall Winzip 8.0 back up the registry again reinstall WinZip 8.0 back up the registry again and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy- duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs, and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly before attempting anything too dangerous. -- Angus Rodgers |
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
On 02/22/2010 04:09 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference. On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB wrote: The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now. I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles, because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and even an old one about Linux, somewhere. Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, for many months now. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it (I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago), but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.) That happens to be one [the replacements] that this group has done repeatedly and in depth, with no adverse effect and to the betterment of the OS. most of Win9X users always thought they should have been given to Win98 during an update, but then that would be Microsoft giving away part of its "new and improved" OS,,, There are several sites which offer them, so ..... Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!! Oh my bad, I should have said it was a "right click - save as" situation. However, that just exposed a major flaw. the exe running from the Internet flaw... but we'll not get into that right now. I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short- sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-( Okay, let's deal with just a couple things at a time or this discussion will become unintelligible. 34% system resources free It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it go down to 1%! - Wheee!) Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions, and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned), I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes just this one of my very many problems. Is there any reason why I shouldn't: back up the registry uninstall Winzip 8.0 back up the registry again reinstall WinZip 8.0 back up the registry again and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy- duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs, and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly before attempting anything too dangerous. Well of course not, anything is worth a try, of course the other 'niggles' aren't likely to go away... And rather than answering in the other and to correct for those not ready to take the plunge into Linux: The using a LiveCD to check for malware also pertains to the ability to download one of those Live AV/malware boot CDs and using that. Several available, like Hiren's [multi-purpose], Barts, Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp [David Lipman's] or one of the others you can find via a search [even from some AV providers now]. -- MEB http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking http://peoplescounsel.org The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government ___--- |
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WinZip 8.0 running v. slowly
On 02/22/2010 04:09 PM, Angus Rodgers wrote:
There's a lot to think about here, and several days' work to implement all of it, so for the moment I'll just look at some aspects which look as if they can be dealt with separately, at an early stage; I've saved the whole post for later reference. On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:13 -0500, MEB wrote: The AVAST! issue bothers me as without any protections you have no real way of knowing whether your system is clean of malware. Yes, I've been worried about that possibility for months now. I don't want to go into detail about one of my other niggles, because I haven't done some preliminary tests which you would reasonably expect me to have done (I've been hugely reluctant to think about ANY of this), but this other niggle has made me wonder if my machine is infected with something nasty. I wish one of the old reliables, like malwarebytes [MBAM] still ran in/for Win9X, but it doesn't, so your looking at maybe a boot/Live CD or a LiveCD Linux, unless you have some other AV/malware detection program in your network(?). Do you, or does anyone else, have any recommendation as to the best Linux Live CD to use for testing and repairing a Windows installation? Also, how much preliminary reading on Linux would I have to do to get started? I have some vague memories of using Unix at college for a few years, and a couple of old Unix books, and even an old one about Linux, somewhere. Forgive me if I introduce too many issues. As I keep saying, I have been reluctant to get entangled in any of this myself, and have been more or less shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, for many months now. If you haven't installed the scandisk and defrag from WinME then now is an excellent time to do so. They are quicker and less prone to issues. http://www.mdgx.com/newtip98.htm I think this is still the link: http://www.mdgx.com/files/SCANFRAG.EXE I heard of this tip years ago, and always meant to implement it (I'm pretty sure I downloaded the WinME defrag.exe years ago), but as an ignorant user, I've been afraid to meddle too much with what M$ have provided for 98SE. Are you absolutely sure that this is a safe thing to do? As safe as using Win98SE's own defrag and scandisk, I mean? (Because of course nothing is completely safe.) That happens to be one [the replacements] that this group has done repeatedly and in depth, with no adverse effect and to the betterment of the OS. most of Win9X users always thought they should have been given to Win98 during an update, but then that would be Microsoft giving away part of its "new and improved" OS,,, There are several sites which offer them, so ..... Ouch! Talking about not safe!!! As a result of one of the other niggles on my system (don't ask! - it's all so complicated now, it drives me mad to have to think about it), that link to defrag.exe opened on my system, and the program nearly ran!!!!! Oh my bad, I should have said it was a "right click - save as" situation. However, that just exposed a major flaw. the exe running from the Internet flaw... but we'll not get into that right now. I just ran IE (for the first time in years) to check, but all the fields in "About Internet Explorer" came up blank! That's not good... hmm you definitely have more issues than just annoyances... maybe in your last install you didn't update fully or are still being affected by the change in html/help handling in IE6 via updates. I dimly remember something did go wrong with IE, and I didn't sort it out, because I never use IE anyway - which I suppose was short- sighted of me, because of IE DLLs being somehow all mixed up with the whole OS, in M$'s delightful way. :-( Okay, let's deal with just a couple things at a time or this discussion will become unintelligible. 34% system resources free It's not usually as bad as 34%, BTW. When I shut everything down it tends to be 85%, or even 88%. (Something the other day made it go down to 1%! - Wheee!) Anyway, before getting down to the heavy-duty tasks of running scandisk and defrag (very carefully!) on all of my partitions, and using a Linux Live CD to test (and if necessary repair) the installation, and permanently installing some Linux distro (for which I've left about 40GB of my 120GB HDD so far unpartitioned), I'm thinking of trying something very simple to see if it fixes just this one of my very many problems. Is there any reason why I shouldn't: back up the registry uninstall Winzip 8.0 back up the registry again reinstall WinZip 8.0 back up the registry again and see if the problem has simply gone away? The other, heavy- duty stuff still needs doing, of course, but at least if this problem went away, I would have far less trouble backing up my data - nearly two decades's worth, from Unix and various Win9X PCs, transferred lovingly via various kinds of floppies, CD-Rs, and network transfers - which I really must do very thoroughly before attempting anything too dangerous. Well of course not, anything is worth a try, of course the other 'niggles' aren't likely to go away... And rather than answering in the other and to correct for those not ready to take the plunge into Linux: The using a LiveCD to check for malware also pertains to the ability to download one of those Live AV/malware boot CDs and using that. Several available, like Hiren's [multi-purpose], Barts, Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp [David Lipman's] or one of the others you can find via a search [even from some AV providers now]. -- MEB http://peoplescounsel.org/ref/windows-main.htm Windows Info, Diagnostics, Security, Networking http://peoplescounsel.org The "real world" of Law, Justice, and Government ___--- |
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