TSGL: Scrambled Desktop

[Russell W. Coover]

Cyndi said " I was told to have a little as possible on my desk top, as it
slows down start-up.Is this true?" 

Hi Cyndi,

It's only marginally true. It probably takes your computer an additional
fraction of a second to add those icons to the desktop during startup, and
it also adds a fraction of a second for your computer to read through the
registry to understand what they do. 

What you were probably being told was to keep the number of applications you
have set to open at startup to a minimum. Even though you are not using a
certain application, if it is open, it uses computer memory and CPU
resources. If you have tons of memory and a very fast CPU (even better yet
if you have a "dual core" CPU), no problem. But if you are running only a
marginal amount of memory and an old, slow CPU, you've got to limit those
programs that start with the computer. 

What is marginal memory? If you are running XP, I'd say 512 MB or less. For
Vista, anything under 1 GB is marginal. And it's gotten to the point where
any CPU running at less than 1.5 GHz/s is slow for today's applications.


Unfortunately, most folk have no idea what apps run at startup. I just
bought a new computer (a real surprise to me, I had intended to build one,
but found that I could purchase the computer I wanted to build for a 45%
saving), and found that the manufacturer had added all kinds of unnecessary
and unneeded software, most that started with the computer - they don't
start with the computer now! In addition, a lot of the software that you
might add to the computer also sets itself to start, even though you may not
want it to do so. A good example of that is the Real Player (there are
actually better software solutions than Real for listening to .rm files). So
you have to check. 

My suggestion ... go to Start, Run and type in "Msconfig" without the quote
marks. Click OK and go to the Startup tab. Anything you do not recognize
there should have it's checkmark removed. When you are finished, reboot.
Later, if you find something not running that you thing should run, go back
to Mcconfig and place the checkmark back for that program. Again, any
changes here require a reboot. 

I wish you luck and a fast computer.

Russ Coover


  

-----Original Message-----
From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
Behalf Of Cyndi Horstmanhof
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 8:15 AM
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
Subject: Re: TSGL: Scrambled Desktop

I was told to have a little as possible on my desk top, as it slows down
start-up.
Is this true? 
~*Cyndi*~

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Joe Titone 
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List 
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: TSGL: Scrambled Desktop


At 07:13 AM 3/29/2007, you wrote:
>I leave my computer on 24/7 and just turn off my monitor.  Today all 
>my software icons on the desktop were totally rearranged.  This has 
>not happened in a long long time.  Can someone please explain what 
>causes it and if there is anything to worry about?
>MikeF.

This was reported by Steve Bass as an annoyance.  It happens to me 
periodically without any apparent damage.  Try Save My Desktop

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,22891-order,1-page,1-c,alldownload
s/description.html


Joe Titone
tertia at earthlink.net 
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