Can anyone help me with Windows Vista?

[Reverend_Smitty]

My little cousin just bought a new laptop today. A nice Toshiba with 3 gigs of RAM which should blow my 4 year old XP laptop with only 500MB of RAM out of the water...except it doesn't because Vista as I learned first hand today is a steaming pile of crap.

It seems like windows take forever to open, the internet is crawling despite a fast connection (and the wireless router is the same one I have at home so I know it's set-up right). I can't get anything to download past dial-up speeds (I tried getting Firefox and it told me it was going to take 1 hr and 59 minutes to download a 7MB file!).

So I guess what I'm asking is how can I get this computer moving? It came with Norton 360 which I know is bad software and was planning to remove in favor of AVG or Avast(which is what I use on mine). Also what is this Windows Defender thing? Could that be slowing down my performance? I'm at a loss for what is slowing down the internet. Is it possible I'm stuck behind a firewall that I don't know about? The computer is right out of the box so there is no possibility for virus or spyware. I plan on going back over tomorrow after work so any tips on how to get this computer acting like something other than a 386 on a 28.8 modem would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and please no...she should have bought a Mac comments, she's been scrimping and saving for a year and a half so a $2000 computer was a bit out of her budget

[lizziegrace]

1. I've got a Gateway laptop running Vista with 2 gigs of RAM

And I had no problems out of the box with it on a wireless network. Sorry I have no answers, but wanted to give this a kick for you.

[laconicsax]

2. You could always bring up task manager and see if something's hogging resources.

It could be Windows Defender since it likes to run in the background and hog resources, but with 3 GB RAM I don't know. The internet issue might also be Windows Defender, but I turned it off on day one, so I don't know. I've been running Vista on 1.5 GB RAM for almost two and a half years and haven't had a problem like the one you describe.

[Bossy Monkey]

3. Kill Norton, kill Windows Defender

Yes there's a Vista firewall. I killed that, too and just use Zone Alarm. I, too am using Avast and am pleased with it. Windows Defender is reported to be behind many performance (and Internet) slowdowns, as is Norton. SpywareBlaster is better (than Defender) and free: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

User Account Control is very annoying, though probably isn't responsible for any slowdowns. DS1 posted about how to kill this, though I can't find the thread by googling. However Start --> Control Panel -> Security -> Security Center -> Turn off User Account Control seems to do it. It is very satisfying to do this, and free WinPatrol does a much better job: http://www.winpatrol.com/

Better than Task Manager for detecting bloat is Process Explorer, the rare Microsoft product that's free and that actually works. Funny that there's no publicity for it. Available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Do not discount the possibility that...

the router, modem or connection is faulty.

Someone I know (with a Mac, no less) was complaining about slow speeds and first had the cable company come out and test the wires. A new connection and things worked a little better. Eventually, after much bitching, moaning and whining, they came and replaced the router and everything was fine.

[hobbit709]

5. Get PC Decrapifier and run it

All prebuilt systems come with all sorts of garbage installed.
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download

Also download and install Malwarebytes Antimalware
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Personally, my solution is to scrap Vista and install XP, but Toshiba makes it difficult to find XP drivers on their support site-took 3 hours to find the drivers for a friend's laptop. Toshiba-US only listed Vista drivers, found the XP drivers on a Toshiba-Europe site.

[Nickster]

6. Alot of new laptops come with XP "upgrade" discs or the option to go to XP. If there's nothing in

the box, check the website for a possible link or call their support line. You aren't the only person looking to do that, so they most likely are going to have something to help you.

Here's a link to Toshiba's download area, this might be a good start for XP drivers.

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/home.jsp?nav=Download

[travelingtypist]

7. You can do an online network speed test.

One way to find out if the router is messed up or it's the computer that has
the problem.

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

I don't know Vista, but have you gone into MSCONFIG and unchecked everything
that's running in the background?