Sometimes you pick an iffy thing up via adverts or a part of the registry changes for the worse or you install a new program or whatever

My solution in XP is to roll back to a few days before, or a couple of weeks ago via the system restore function

programs/ accessories/ system tools/ system restore (in XP)

You should be fine after that

EDIT the top bar in 8.1 is usually the search/indexing function, so as you say it may need "auto" to be switched off

Edited By Ady1 on 03/05/2017 10:10:47

There are lots of reasons why this may have happened; I think indexing is unlikely to be the sole cause. It's possible that you are seeing a slow index progress bar because Microsoft's indexing service is also a victim.

Windows liable to pick up various nasties and it tends to clog up over time. Ady1 mentions a few examples. An accumulation of duff entries in the registry is a common cause of trouble, also disk fragmentation and unnecessary background processes. It's quite usual to have two or three problems by the time you realise something is wrong

This website gives a reasonable overview of what to look for and how to fix common issues. As the advice is somewhat labour intensive, there are several utilities that help. I've used the free versions of ccleaner and malwarebytes with success.

Dave

Download Advanced system care, and avast anti virus (both free). Run ASC on a full scan, then open avast, go to scan for viruses, and set to "boot time scan" It will ask you if you want to restart the computer now, click yes, and leave it alone for about an hour! Most viruses will disguise themselves as part of the Windows operating system, and are hard to detect, but the boot time scan works before windows has started, and gets them all! See how many viruses you had and be afraid! Lastly use smart defrag in ASC toolbox to defragment your hard drive(s) Use ASC weekly and defrag and boot time scan on avast monthly. Dont use Macaffee, Norton, or any of that bought crap, they take over your computer, use masses of resources, are the very devil to uninstall, and believe it or not, are not very good either! I have the bought versions of Avast and ASC now, they are cheap and good, but you get full protection with the free versions, you get more scan and clean tools with the bought versions, and thye are both under £20 if you wait for the special offers. I have been running XP original install for about 7 years on my net access machine, with no problems whatsoever, .

Wow, £70 for Norton, I buy Webroot for £30 pa.Very good and runs in the background.

I agree with Dave on CCleaner I use it every day now.

Clive

Hi bandersnatch, yes, latest copy of firefox, funny thing is I didn't get it until about 2 updates ago, never had a problem before that. Incidentally , the main reason I use Avast is because of the "boot time scan" facility, very few virus killers have this facility, so if anyone else knows of another virus killer with a boot time scan, I would like to know. Paul Lousick, I agree with you, I also keep the Iobit malware fighter that comes bundled with ASC up to date, and scan with that as well. There are viruses which will attack and disable your "live" antivirus software, It will look like it is working, but actually, it isn't, and it will not update properly, or scan properly. In this instance, having a different virus killer up to date and ready to go on your computer is a boon! If in doubt, remove it and reinstall a new copy.

Right click on the C drive.

Neil

Yes. But but assuming you have the deal I think you have, Norton only provide 25Gb of storage in the cloud. Instead you could buy a 2Tb USB Harddrive for about £70 and keep your backups safe at home. (Not wishing to start an argument with those who love the cloud, but I wouldn't store anything private on it.)

No problem with Avast (which I use) rather than Norton but be aware that the brand-name of an AVM product has very little relevance to it's current effectiveness. The business model of the supplier, the software engine used and the virus signature databases of these products can and do change over time. For good and for bad. It's true that Norton blotted their copybooks in the past but, at the moment (2017) , Norton happens to be one of the better choices. When buying a software product it pays to check what's known about the latest incarnation, and to compare it with the alternatives.

The main disadvantage of the free AVMs is that they bombard you with adverts suggesting you upgrade to the paid version.

Dave

Hi Martin,

Usually not a good idea to run two Virus Protection packages at the same time – it slows everything down and they can object to each other. I've not used ASC myself but I think it's a cleaner rather than anti-virus so should be OK with either Avast or Norton. Perhaps Phil Whitley can confirm that?

As to backups, Norton should have put a utility called ARestore.exe on your computer. This should work even after the subscription has expired, provided you don't delete it. I haven't used it myself though.

I don't know if a Norton backup is compatible with anything else or not. It may well be a proprietary format. Even if it's not, if I were changing backup software, I'd start by taking a complete new backup so I could restore to that using the new software.

Dave

Yes, ASC is a cleaner, and lives perfectly happly with Avast! I too do not trust or like the cloud storage offerings out there, convenient though they may be, just seems to be rather expensive, and of little use unless you actually need multi point access to all your data. So, Martin King2, have you defragged it, and more importantly, is it running any better and faster?