Re: Physical Memory

Well, the reason I wanted you to post the list was to see if any virus or spyware would have shown as being present, at a quick look I don't see anything there that looks like malware so that would seem to be eliminated as a cause of your slowness problems. One big hog that I see there is Symantec, you may want to reconsider your use of this AV program, there are much lighter AV programs available, Avast for one is much less demanding than Symantec.

Other than that you will just have to go thru the list and consult the web sites that we pointed you to earlier and decide for yourself what it is that you really need running, if you see things in there that you only use once in a blue moon then you should remove them from the startup location. To disable the unneeded items you can go in the programs that you want to remove from the startup and see if they have an option to turn off the boot time autostart, the well written and graceful programs always give an option to turn off the start at boot. For the not so well behaved programs you can use utilities like Autoruns that Daave suggested, or the built-in Windows Msconfig utility. I also like this little utility, http://codestuff.tripod.com/ it is small and easy to use, it has a very nice GUI, plus it will keep a list of what you disabled so it is easy to later undo changes if you want to re-enable them. Keep in mind that almost all of the utilities that you remove from the list will still work just fine when or if you start them manually.

As a first candidate for removal from your startup list I nominate ati2evxx.exe, look here for it and see if you really need this running: http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_a.htm

As for the services just use the Windows Services Management Console to change the startup type of the unwanted or unneeded services or look in the software that owns the service to see if it can be disabled. You can print the output list from the Net Start command and use it as a record keeping aid to keep track of the changes that you make with the services.

Is your computer on a home network or is it a stand alone? Are you the only user or do other users also use it?

John


JohnD wrote:

Here's the list. Actually, looking at the items, I suppose they basically look reasonable. By the way, I have XP Pro, so I guess I have Tasklist.exe. What would I do with it?

These Windows services are started:

Apple Mobile Device
Application Layer Gateway Service
Ati HotKey Poller
Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Bonjour Service
COM+ Event System
Computer Browser
Cryptographic Services
DCOM Server Process Launcher
DHCP Client
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Error Reporting Service
Event Log
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Help and Support
HTTP SSL
iPod Service
IPSEC Services
Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service
LiveUpdate Notice
Logical Disk Manager
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Plug and Play
Print Spooler
Protected Storage
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Security Accounts Manager
Server
Shell Hardware Detection
SoundMAX Agent Service
SSDP Discovery Service
Symantec Core LC
Symantec Event Manager
Symantec Lic NetConnect service
Symantec Settings Manager
System Event Notification
System Restore Service
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
Terminal Services
Themes
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
WebClient
Windows Audio
Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration
Workstation

The command completed successfully.


Image Name PID Services ========================= ====== =============================================
System Idle Process 0 N/A System 4 N/A smss.exe 920 N/A csrss.exe 976 N/A winlogon.exe 1004 N/A services.exe 1048 Eventlog, PlugPlay lsass.exe 1060 PolicyAgent, ProtectedStorage, SamSs ati2evxx.exe 1244 Ati HotKey Poller svchost.exe 1260 DcomLaunch, TermService svchost.exe 1340 RpcSs svchost.exe 1464 AudioSrv, BITS, Browser, CryptSvc, Dhcp, dmserver, ERSvc, EventSystem, FastUserSwitchingCompatibility, helpsvc, lanmanserver, lanmanworkstation, Netman, Nla, RasMan, Schedule, seclogon, SENS, SharedAccess, ShellHWDetection, srservice, TapiSrv, Themes, TrkWks, W32Time, winmgmt, wuauserv, WZCSVC svchost.exe 1608 Dnscache svchost.exe 1668 LmHosts, RemoteRegistry, SSDPSRV, upnphost, WebClient CCSVCHST.EXE 1716 ccEvtMgr, ccSetMgr, CLTNetCnService, LiveUpdate Notice aawservice.exe 368 aawservice ati2evxx.exe 1444 N/A explorer.exe 1600 N/A spoolsv.exe 180 Spooler AppleMobileDeviceService. 1396 Apple Mobile Device AluSchedulerSvc.exe 1872 Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler mDNSResponder.exe 508 Bonjour Service svchost.exe 788 HTTPFilter SMAgent.exe 1816 SoundMAX Agent Service (default) SMax4PNP.exe 880 N/A SMax4.exe 948 N/A jusched.exe 1200 N/A svchost.exe 324 stisvc CLI.exe 2156 N/A wmpnetwk.exe 2160 WMPNetworkSvc CCSVCHST.EXE 2360 N/A hpgs2wnd.exe 2620 N/A iTunesHelper.exe 2752 N/A GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe 2812 N/A hpgs2wnf.exe 2828 N/A ctfmon.exe 2868 N/A msmsgs.exe 3316 N/A wmpnscfg.exe 3648 N/A Hotsync.exe 3956 N/A iPodService.exe 1800 iPod Service alg.exe 2740 ALG symlcsvc.exe 4088 Symantec Core LC CLI.exe 1484 N/A CLI.exe 3360 N/A rundll32.exe 3376 N/A aolsoftware.exe 1704 N/A AOLSP Scheduler.exe 1972 N/A aolsoftware.exe 2964 N/A AOLacsd.exe 2312 N/A waol.exe 184 N/A shellmon.exe 2184 N/A cmd.exe 2516 N/A tasklist.exe 2552 N/A wmiprvse.exe 2944 N/A


"John John (MVP)" wrote:


Let's have a look at these zillions of processes. At a Command Prompt issue the following commands, pressing enter after each:

net start >C:\Startlist.txt
tasklist /svc >>C:\Startlist.txt

Note the single redirector ">" in the first command and the double one ">>" in the second command. After you run the commands find and paste the contents of the Startlist.txt file to your next post so we can have a quick look at your running processes.

Windows XP Home doesn't include the Tasklist.exe utility, I can't figure out why Microsoft excludes this utility from the Home Edition, but you can download a copy of it here: http://www.computerhope.com/download/winxp.htm

In addition to the sites that Daave gave you you might also find the following to be useful:

Services Guide for Windows XP
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

Windows XP x86 (32-bit) Service Pack 3 Service Configurations
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

John

JohnD wrote:


Not to walk over Daave, but in his reply to me he mentioned that there would be processes running in the background. I have replied to him that there are zillions of them. It seems to me that your explanation to me must apply to these processes, because after all they are also programs.

So the question that comes to my mind is whether these processes are all necesesary. Is it possible that some might be associated with applications I no longer have? Or that they have been installed without my knowledge off the Internet? Is there a way I can find out and get rid of the unnecessary ones?

I thhought db was suggesting ways I could do this, but apparently what he was suggesting was going to do something else.

Certainly my computer has become much slower than it used to be. I have a 3.0 gig Pentium 4 processor and apparently a half gig of available memory, but it takes forever to load Microsoft Word, say, or AOL.

"John John (MVP)" wrote:



Don't listen to that db character and don't use that crap that he recommends. Memory optimizers/defragers are nothing more than snake oil, they provide absolutely no useful benefit to the memory management of your Windows installation, quite to the contrary they create havoc and force disk paging in order to create an illusion that they have freed memory!

These optimizers work by making demands on the Windows Memory Manager for a rapidly and steeply increasing amount of memory to the point where the Windows Memory Manager pushes all the pageable code and data to the pagefile to satisfy the demand. Once the code and data for all the other applications (the Working Sets) has been paged out the snake oil program then tells the Windows Memory Manager that it no longer needs the memory that it asked for and it releases it, this creates an illusion that memory has appeared out of nowheres.

The only problem with that is that all the other applications and pageable system processes are now in the pagefile and that anything that you do that needs the paged out code and data takes an eternity to run because it has to get it from the pagefile, in many instances some applications will simply crash! Things like using your web browser's "Back" button to go to a previous page or reopening a Word document that you had open only 30 seconds ago will now take forever! Even certain Windows functions will lag and be sluggish.

The funny thing about all of this nonsense is that the snake oil memory optimizer cannot do anything on its own, like all other applications and processes it cannot manage memory at all, the Windows Memory Manager does *absolutely* not permit this, all that the rogue application can do is ask the Windows Memory Manager for RAM and then close the process demanding the RAM or have the process "unallocate" the RAM. Yet even more of a silly thing is that if you open an application, like lets say Word, it will ask for a certain amount of RAM and the Windows Memory Manager will comply, just as it did for the snake oil, and if needed it will page out code and data just as it did for the snake oil. Once your Word program is up and running if you want to open documents the same thing happens all over again. The difference is that the Windows Memory Manager will do this in a measured orderly manner as demanded by the properly designed application instead of in a completely reckless manner as demanded from a rogue snake oil program!

John

JohnD wrote:



Thanks for your response. Perhaps you might read my response to Bruce.

"db.·.. ><))) ·>` .. ." wrote:




the helpful response
would be for the o.p.
to add up the consumption
used by the processes
running in memory.

but what would a troll
like you know, except
being a smart-as*

--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>

"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eFCY$eFEJHA.4900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



JohnD wrote:



System information on my XP PC tells me I have total physical memory of 1,024.00 MB, and Available physical memory of 491.98 MB. Does this sound right? Why the discrepancy?



What discrepancy? Naturally, if your computer is powered on, some of its memory will be in use, and therefore not "available."


--

Bruce Chambers

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