your computer is slow. 24 august, 2000 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

Don't worry. So is mine.

I can not tell you how frustrating it is to buy brand new computers, get all excited about the dual 800+MHz processors and 256megs of RAM, only to boot it up and find that it is not as fast as it should be. Computers these days are supposedly the fastest they have ever been, and yet no matter how many new ones I buy from however many vendors, they all run pathetically slow. Fortunately, there may be a fix ..

Now we all know that Microsoft Bloatware, like Windows 2000 / ME and Microsoft Office 2000 are notorious for making relatively speedy hardware come to a crawl. Unfortunately, there is no choice on this one. We have to run them. Sure, just about every I.T. person worth a grain of salt would gladly give his left nut to have Linux or AmigaDOS be the operating system of choice. However, we are stuck with the Microsoft monopoly. But this article is not about Microsoft's poor programming abilities. It is about hardware manufacturers putting on a hundred extra programs in addition to the Redmond sewage-soft.

Have you bought a new computer lately? It does not seem to matter from which major manufacturer you buy it from, it comes loaded with a gazillion different software applications. I am not talking about your standard Windows ME or 2000 plus Microsoft Office. No, I am talking about all of the little support applications loaded, and the utilities, and the drivers for this and that thing that you will never install in your lifetime. I performed a little experiment on a brand new Compaq desktop and found that aside from the standard Windows and Office applications, the manufacturer put on the drive another 200 megs worth of unnecessary applications, utilities, and drivers. Why? What possible use could this extra 200 megs of crap serve to anyone?

It should come as little surprise to long-term Windows users that every application and driver installed on your computer slows it down ever so slightly. Even when you uninstall the application, usually it leaves things in the registry that boot on startup, hence continuing to slow down the system. So when a computer manufacturer puts on over 200 megs of crap before you ever get the computer, how close do you expect that computer is running to optimal performance? Not very. It may perform well in the WinStone and other tests that measure hardware performance, but in real-world application loading and running, these computers perform terribly.

The poor performance of desktop computers looks downright speedy compared to new laptops these days. Try purchasing a Dell or Compaq laptop and you will still find the extra hundreds of megs of software slowing down your system. The terrible part is that laptops have significantly slower hard drives, motherboards, and memory, so the result is a computer that is nearly unusable. We purchased some brand new Pentium 2 Dell 3500 laptops only a few months back, and they are all running so poorly now that many users handed them back begging for their desktop machines back.

Fortunately, the solution for both desktop and laptop performance is out there. It is called formatting the hard drive. Yes, you have heard this solution before.. It is the perfect solution to a computer that used to run quickly and is now running poorly. It is also the perfect solution for a brand new computer that has never been turned on before. Yes.. You heard that right.. Before you ever boot Windows up, boot to DOS and type the FORMAT command.

Why format from the start? Well, this will allow YOU to decide which software applications you really need. Hardware manufacturers include all of the software that they put on your hard drive on CDROMs that come with your computer, so you are unlikely to lose anything. If you are like most people, you will run Windows, Office, and a couple of computer programs you purchase separately. So, format that drive, install Windows, install Office, and go from there. The advantage is that your computer will run significantly faster from the beginning, rather than starting 'barely passable' and within weeks becoming 'unusable'.

We have actually resorted to this technique, taking brand new computers and formatting the drive right away. It does not seem to matter whether the computer is from Dell, Compaq, Gateway, Toshiba, or Panasonic - they all install too much crap before you ever get your computer.

There are a couple of pitfalls you should be careful of. Make certain you have the utilities CD that comes with your computer, because often the hardware on new machines is not supported by drivers in Windows. You also may need to install quite a few of these outside of Windows drivers before things start running normally. Still, I guarantee that the time you spend putting your computer back together again will be gained (and then some) when you start using your new computer.

If you happen to be a big cheese from Dell, Compaq, or any other big manufacturer reading this article, I have a minor request: Let the consumer decide what they want installed on their computer! Better yet, just include all the extra software on CD's, and let the consumer install it if they want. But, please, for the love of Gates, STOP INSTALLING ALL THAT CRAP!

Whew. Done venting now. Really.

Except… While you are cleaning up the hard drive slow down act, how about designing a flash-memory boot of Windows so the damn thing does not take half a millennium to boot up every time? Consumers would pay hundreds for a computer that booted up in a quarter of the time, and really, how tough could that be?

And while I'm at it, how about … Oh. I'm ranting again. Sorry about that. I'll shut up now. I must be going anyway. I have a couple of hard drives to go format and Windows ME to install.

Except, maybe I'll accidentally grab a Red Hat disc instead ..