Keeping your XP clean of garbage

[Thief Silver]

I've currently got a fuckton of garbage on this machine, thanks to my lovely family that doesn't understand webmail. Trojans everywhere and AVG (which is killing free support, apparently?) won't let me touch them. Apparently we've also got a keylogger that WoW recognized as well.

I want this stuff dead and it looks like AVG isn't going to do a fucking thing to help. Sygate being bought out by Symantec (eew) also killed my free firewall. Can anyone recommend me a good firewall and virus scanner?

Preferably cheap? My family isn't going to want to spend money, I'm sure.
Cheap motherfucking bastards.

I use Kerio Personal Firewall, it's free but it's not. Like you can't do a few things, but nothing you should ever have to worry about it, most of it is just web based monitoring etc, things that Firefox does itself.

And for AVG, I think they're just letting the current version die and jumpting to 7.0s.

[JMET]

This one is still kind of a secret in the industry but from what I have seen so far it is one of the best if not the king at removing spy ware.

http://www.superantispyware.com

[Port]

Oh mighty cka, I have kept my system relatively free of crap and used CCleaner to scrub out even more crap. I defragged last week and have been trying to delete/back up old and useless crap.

My question to you is: without formatting and clean installing, is there anything I can do to squeeze more juice out of my system for Age of Conan? My system makes the base requirements for the game, but I am afraid at the lowest settings, it will run like pure ass.

Req -> My system
P4 3.0 ghz -> P4 3.4 ghz
512 RAM - > 2 gigs RAM
256 meg ATI 9800 series -> 256 meg ATI X1300XT

I'd love to get a new system but my first bonus is a year away. I'd rather not spend anything to upgrade the PC now.

[Nick]

You can try a utility like UltimateDefrag to move your Conan files closer to the faster part of your hard disk. Also make sure you aren't running any unneeded programs in the background, including antivirus and media applications.

[Port]

Awesome, I will definitely toy around with that when I get home.

[Dyne]

You can try a utility like UltimateDefrag to move your Conan files closer to the faster part of your hard disk. Also make sure you aren't running any unneeded programs in the background, including antivirus and media applications.

realistically, defragging with a better app won't make a bit of difference. you should always turn un-needed stuff off when you need the maximum amount of system resources for one app though.

don't expect all the eye candy on with your rig either.

[Nick]

The program I linked doesn't just defragment the drive, it allows you to choose which files you want to place right at the outer edge of the disk and also allows you to relegate your most unused files to the far inside. I'm not sure if it'll help with Age of Conan, but it's an interesting tool with which to mess around.

[cka]

it should run fine on those specs

computer innards are dirt-cheap now anyway, if you do need to upgrade... a low-end c2d and good-enough board would run you maybe $150, that ram could be reused, and I'm sure the video card is more than adequate for it

[Port]

The house is taking priority right now so if an improvement isn't free, I have to pass on it. Only looking to play the game so as long as it plays as well as Bioshock did (on medium settings no less), I'll be happy. Definitely more than ok with taking AoC on all lows though even if it looks bland.

Funny thing, I was uninstalling stuff to free up HD space and something I uninstalled ate my net connection and made my system run 5x times as slow. What saved the day? System Restore, which I think is the third time in the history of the service that it has actually saved the day.

[dakidski]

Here are are a few of my essential windows apps:
Window Washer: cleans garbage.
JV16 Powertools: clean garbage from the registry.
XPLite: Strips useless components from XP.
Spybot Search and Destroy: Keeps my XP spyware/bloatware free.
TweakUI: Configues XP to eat less resources by cutting down on the eyecandy.