[RESOLVED] Netbook's msconfig

My friend in CA bought an underpowered netbook, which takes 5 minutes to boot and runs very slowly:

Toshiba - NB 255-N250
1.8 GHZ
Windows 7 Starter OS
1GB DDR2 memory upgradeable to 2 GB
HD runs at 5400 (!)

She's going to use this mostly for downloading pics from her camera, webmail and a little web surfing.

The best I can do right now, aside from recommending more RAM, was to get her msconfig screenshots. This was a very long drawn out affair, as this is her first computer, aside from her using a friend's. Doing it by phone was like pulling teeth, so I'm not getting too involved in any other tweaks, unless the results will be dramatic, which I doubt. :D

So far I know to turn off these:
Web Camera Application
Bing Bar
Message Center
Google Toolbar
Toshiba Flash cards
Synaptics (she uses a mouse)

I'm not that familiar with either laptop utilities or Win 7. What else can she remove?

Shouldn't the Windows processes be listed here too?And will it matter, as far as turning off any services (probably not.)

Download Autoruns for Windows: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb963902.aspx
No installation required.
Simply unzip Autoruns.zip file, and double click on autoruns.exe file to run the program.
Go File>Save, and save it as AutoRuns.txt file to know location.
You must select Text from drop-down menu as a file type:

https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Attach the file to your next reply.

:eek:Will get back to you, as she's in CA and we did it by phone. It took 2 hours to get her to the point of emailing 2 screenshots. Saving a file from webmail and unzipping a program are all new to her. We also had to install Irfanview, because I don't understand the menu bar in Win 7 Paint, which I know only from a screenshot online.

RE: the Win 7 My Computer filing system--

Is My Documents in the same place as XP? Is it on the desktop? In fact, is there a handy screenshot somewhere of the filing system?

Could you make some educated guesses without Autoruns? If not, I'll have another long phone session.

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Will get back to you, as she's in CA

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Good one...LOL

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Is My Documents in the same place as XP?

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C:\Users\user_name\Documents

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Could you make some educated guesses without Autoruns?

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Too lazy to do it from pictures :)
"msconfig" doesn't show everything.

I didn't care to look up each item on the web, which is why I posted. I'll see if I can get another session on the phone to do autoruns. Thanks. :)

Anyone have some handy tutorial sites I can send her for a beginner at Win 7?

A beginner doesn't want to play with "msconfig". Trust me.

But I've been at it for 15 years. That's why I'm giving her a list of what to uncheck. Because I'm a beginner at Win 7, when in doubt, I'll skip an item.

And since Laptops forum is for the hardware part of laptops, I moved this thread to Windows 7 forum.

Here's some good help for getting started with Win 7:

Getting Started with Windows 7

Windows 7 Help & How-to

Using Windows 7

Windows 7: The Complete Guide

Thanks, SS. Will get back after we do Autoruns.

Here's her autoruns log file:

I can see only two startups, which can be safely disabled:
+ "IgfxTray"
+ "Persistence"

Thanks. I know roughly how to use autoruns, but the text file was Greek to me. Why are some I items I removed in msconfig, toolbars for instance, still there?

Which particular toolbar are we talking about?
"msconfig" doesn't actually remove anything, but it just disables some particular entry from startups. To remove some entry, you'd have to uninstall given program.

That's what I meant, sorry. We had already stopped the Google and Bing toolbars.

You stopped them, but if you didn't uninstall them, they'll be listed in Autoruns.
Autoruns is simply a list of registry entries with all possible sources of startups, services, processes and whatever is running on your computer.

Thanks. I thought the text file would make some distinction between processes already stopped and those still running.

As she's not on a network, and doesn't intend to be, anything else we can stop?

Nothing I can really see.

No Services?

Services are better left alone, unless you're really committed to disable couple of them and you know exactly what you're doing.
The best site to play with services: http://www.blackviper.com/

BTW, why all this commotion? Anything wrong with that netbook?

See my first post.

I'll check Black Viper for Win 7, as I've used it on my own XP computers.

See, how it boots to safe mode.
Less, than 5 minutes?

I'll have to get back to you. I'm learning bits and pieces of Win 7 online, and this is her first computer.

She went to BestBuy and bought whatever they pushed on her. Where would you recommend she should buy another GB of RAM? It's DDR2.

http://www.crucial.com/index.aspx would be a good place.
2GB should be plenty for Win 7.

Many thanks.

Sure thing :)

I use Ubuntu Linux NBR (Netbook Release) on my netbook. It's performance is just fine, though Linux does have many issues in the usability area - it is a lot less friendly than Windows. Nonetheless, I like it, I find Windows to sluggish on low powered hardware. On my Eee, everything just works after installing Ubuntu, there are no drivers to worry about at all. I just thought I'd mention it anyway:

http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook/get-ubuntu/download

I have a netbook (Dell.) A 5 minute boot is longer than it should be but these machines are puny.(My boot is around 3 to 4 minutes.) The Windows Experience rating on mine is 2.2. (My main laptop is 5.0) I ended up having to dump my netbook version of Norton's NIS and go back to Windows Firewall and Avast (& also Sandboxie which makes it pretty bullet proof) to regain a decent level of speed.

Toshiba laptops run several of their own branded "doo dads" which probably aren't needed. But before disabling any of them, one should fully research them before stopping them. Also, Kaspersky is on board. Excellent protection. Most certainly choking the life out of the machine.

Realistically, it's going to be tough to perk this thing up much. Since your friend is not knowledgeable, IMO she needs an AV suite. Running just an AV and Windows Firewall may not be enough protection on their own. (I use Sandboxie when online and while it doesn't have a huge learning curve, installing, setting it up and teaching her how to use it would be a little tough long distance.)

I have a friend that wanted a netbook for her daughter for web, email, MS Office, photos and iTunes. I heavily advised her NOT to go netbook because iTunes alone would bring it to it's knees. Thankfully, she bought her a regular laptop and she has been very happy so far. So, bottom line, I'm afraid your friend may be in a no win solution. What you gain in ultimate portability you lose in quality of user experience. Beyond web surfing and email, netbooks are very weak performers.

She might want to consider running Microsoft Security Essentials, it is pretty good at catching any nasties, but is very easy of system resources:

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Will Kaspersky uninstall cleanly?

AFAIK it is pretty good in that respect. There is a removal tool available here, if necessary:

http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208279463

Thanks to all who helped.

You're very welcome :)