Replies

My apologies for the long delay in replying, I did not receive any update notifications? I have solved the problem, it was the gmail attachment that creates logs and this can be disabled in the options panel of the gmail plug in.

I prefer not to mix and match Google Apps with Thunderbird (or Eudora 8). What you have experienced should tell you one reason why not to do this. Thunderbird has its own extensions and plug-ins, and there are other potential issues. The same goes for Yahoo Widgets and Thunderbird.

-- rc primak

It’s too late now that you’ve reinstalled your operating system, but it is always a good idea to save your drivers before doing a Windows update. I keep a folder on each machine where I keep downloaded drivers so that I have them should I have to reinstall the system. But, as said above, a new CPU should not have required a re-install. You might have had to call windows to re-activate the system but even that is not difficult.

Another good practice is to make an image backup before making any major updates.

I use the free program DriverMax to keep a backup folder of all my drivers, for just this sort of reason. Reinstalling the drivers is a one-step process with DriverMax.

In answer to the original post:

With the new CPU causing your particular level of difficulty, merely reactivating Windows XP would probably not have solved the problem. I think the clean reinstall may have been the best and safest choice, in spite of the pain and bother involved.

-- rc primak

Eight open PDF’s can tax the resources of even a powerful PC with plenty of RAM. One clue that this is happening is a lot of activity in your drive light (the LED). That’s called “thrashing”, and it indicates that your physical memory is being overtaxed. Other system resources can be overtaxed as well, and CPU Usage in Task Manager would be very high, even with most of the activity being in the System Idle Process. Short form answer: close some of the open PDFs.

Similarly, close unused open applications, as some of these can tax system resources and tie up files which are need by your current working application.

-- rc primak

Getting back on-topic, I like that Microsoft is finally taking responsibility for their own security issues. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the built-in Windows Firewall is probably sufficient, and combined with MSE, you would be safe enough for most purposes. I would add a third-party interface for the outbound Windows Firewall controls, and maybe PC Tools Threatfire for advanced heuristics. UAC aslo serves a proactive defense purpose, once you get used to how it works. For second-opinion scans, Super Antispyware and Malwarebytes will soon have Native 64-bit scanning engines, so those are also excellent choices, but not necessary for first-line active defenses. Staying up to date with Secunia PSI is also a security measure, as is cleaning up your system with Glary Utilities (CCleaner does not yet do 64-bit Windows very well). And using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer might provide a bit more security as well.

JUST MY OPINIONS — DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !

-- rc primak

Hmmm, I think I see why this thread doesn’t come to an agreement. As far as I know, most Firefox users do not avoid tabs, and do not view new features as “garbage” and “bloat.” You are entitled to your views, of course, but please don’t project them onto “all” Firefox users. We all have very diverse reasons for and manners of using Firefox (or our other choice of browser, whatever it might be).

Amen to that. But there are security advantages of FF over IE which cannot be ignored.

Also there are some disadvantages to the Awesome Bar and Personas as a core feature. And the new location awareness is a concern to many of us. If all of these features can be turned off or modified sufficiently, I am on board with FF 4. If not, count me as a Chrome Convert. I know how to modify Google’s location awareness, so I would know how to stay private when I wish to.

I use Firefox Personas and its Eudora/Thunderbird offshoot, and I am happy to be able to make appearance changes to suit room lighting, time of day, and other things which matter to me, but not to everybody. But the initial introduction of Personas really wrecked my transition to FF 3.6 from 3.5, so I am no fan of the way Personas has been implemented as a FF core feature. They could do better, IMO.

-- rc primak

If they fix the memory link finally I’ll be happy – that’s the only change I want.

Umm… that’s a “memory leak”. The problem may be with some plug-ins and extensions, not with Firefox itself. In any event, this is a complex problem, and nowhere near being solved. Closing Firefox and using CCleaner once in awhile seems to help, but that’s about as good as it gets. FF 4 will not improve this issue.

Flash Player and Java Scripts are the main sources of Firefox eating up RAM and not releasing it. The more tabs, and the more active content in tabs, the worse the issue gets.

-- rc primak

FWIW my PC (laptop) is always “off” when not in use. But I sleep it or hibernate it. Sleep takes a negligible amount of standby power and hibernate takes none. But it saves me having to re-establish my work environment — just hit the button and it’s ready to go.

You may not be understanding what shutting down in various ways does to Windows. When you Hibernate or Standby, Windows never really shuts down. This means that no Windows housekeeping or cache clearing takes place. These things can only happen when you actually turn off Windows completely, as in Reboot or Shut Down. Nothing short of this will refresh Windows and restore its pep and zip. Firefox does shut down when you close it, but Windows needs a full reboot or shut down and restart every once in a while. Failure to shut down Windows periodically can cause freezes or crashes. And updates require a reboot for a reason — they won’t be applied until Windows shuts down.

-- rc primak

A friend of mine says he had the same “shrinking hard drive” problem with 64-bit Windows 7 on his laptop. After several months, he determined that the shrinkage would reach a certain size (50 GB max.) and then give back the space. This seemed to be an endless cycle, and it looked to him as though it is an inherent property of 64-bit Windows 7. It looks alarming at first, but once it stabilizes, it isn’t an accumulating problem. At least it wasn’t so for him.

-- rc primak

First looks at the Beta are beginning to show up everywhere now. CNet News, PC World and PC Mag on line have all published reviews recently.

-- rc primak

I use the plug-in all the time, and have had no issues since the Foxit Reader updates in about March of 2010. Maybe the problem was solved, or maybe I have a unique Firefox configuration.

-- rc primak

From discussion thread at: this forum (Not a Lounge Thread!)

How to increase buffer size on a mac [may also work on a PC]
How Can I Increase My Buffer

Right click in the screen of what is being played through Flash.
Menu down to settings.
Click on the folder icon.
Increase the buffer size.

This will make it take longer for the file to begin to play, but it will play with fewer pauses.

With Flash stream from Fancast, my problem was solved by right clicking on the video, click settings tab and increase storage space to 10mb. I have not had a pausing problem since.

By all indications, the end user has no control over the buffer size in Flash Player. There used to be internal controls and a slider, but not in recent versions. Some Web sites have player controls, and this is what the forum thread must be referring to. If the site or the video does not provide controls, you may be out of luck.

This is one of several issues which make me hope for a better alternative to Flash Player, perhaps something based on the newer HTML-5 protocols.

And from the Firefox Support Forums, here’s a thread running six pages about the Memory Leak problem. No concensus as to the cause.

-- rc primak

One thing seems to stand out here. The problem began when you installed VLC Player. On some computers, VLC Player’s installation makes changes in the area of the Windows Registry which has to do with the CD/DVD drive. This issue can lead to weird performance issues, or even more general Windows problems.

First, I would reinstall VLC Player on your computer. Now let’s REALLY get it off the PC. Download and install Revo Uninstaller, and run it at Level 4. Let Revo remove EVERYTHING it finds. Then reboot and see what happens.

If problems persist, try reinstalling the CD/DVD drive’s driver. Someone in the Lounge with more knowledge about this than I have can walk you through this process.

Also, there is a Microsoft Fixit for this type of problem, if the VLC Player installer is indeed at the root of it all (as I suspect it is). Try this Support Article, and run the Fixit at the right-hand side of the page:
http://support.micro…_drive_problems

This is a good diagnostic and repair tool for common CD/DVD drive issues which are a result of Windows, Registry, driver, or software problems.

In your Hijack This Log, I see two entries:

[/size]O4 – HKUSS-1-5-18..Run: [DWQueuedReporting] “c:PROGRA~1COMMON~1MICROS~1DWdwtrig20.exe” -t (User ‘SYSTEM’)
O4 – HKUS.DEFAULT..Run: [DWQueuedReporting] “c:PROGRA~1COMMON~1MICROS~1DWdwtrig20.exe” -t (User ‘Default user’)

This appears to be the DrWatson crash reporting system. Something is crashing and Windows is preparing (or trying to prepare) crash reports to upload to Microsoft when Windows shuts down and restarts. This can use tremendous amounts of CPU Cycles, and can even prevent Windows from starting up properly. Someone here may be able to walk you through temporarily disabling Microsoft Error Reporting and MiniDumps for now, so that we may isolate the CD/DVD problem without all this excessive CPU usage.

I also notice in the HJT Log two troublesome items which start with Windows: Google Toolbar and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. Photoshop Elements has a Photo Uploader which is by default always active and launches with Windows. Both the Photo Uploader and the Google Toolbar are tremendous CPU hogs, and should be unchecked from Startups.

If you have CCleaner installed, go to its Optional features, and find the Startups tab. Uncheck the Adobe Photo Uploader, and if it is listed, the Google Toolbar, and reboot. These programs then would not launch with Windows. They can be rechecked to restore them to Startups after solving the CPU usage mystery.

See if any of this helps and post back for us.
[/size]
And one other thing to watch out for: I see in the HJT Log that you have Apple Bonjour Networking Service installed. This is part of iTunes/QuickTime. It is possible that the VLC Player installation may have corrupted something in iTunes (this is a known issue with VLC Player vs. iTunes). If this has happened, iTunes may need the same Revo Uninstaller Level 4 removal which I recommend for VLC Player above. Then reinstall iTunes/QuickTime/Bonjour Service from the Apple download page. You will lose all of your iTunes settings, but the new iTunes installation would no longer cause any problems during Windows Startup. Just remember to make a backup of any iTunes Libraries onto external media before doing the Revo Uninstaller removal of iTunes!

More from the HJT Log:

Google Update (part of Google Toolbar) is crashing on Windows launch. CPU Usage would go to 100% and then drop off when this happens, causing a significant delay in Windows startup. The solution is to uncheck the Google Toolbar from Windows Startups using CCleaner’s tools.

Windows Task Manager is coming up at Windows Startup. This is abnormal. Why is this happening?

MS Windows Search Protocol is launching with Windows. This is due to Microsoft Live Mesh being installed. Another tremendous resource hog. This is also launching Internet Explorer with Windows startup. Not wise.

Google Gears is also starting up with Windows, as is Java Updater. Both are unnecessary and will slow or even crash Windows at startup. Both programs have available checkboxes to not start with Windows. If you uncheck Java Updater, make sure to manually check Java for updates periodically, or else download and run Secunia PSI on a monthly basis.

Your Logitech Bluetooth driver may need a driver update. Check for this.

Maybe some of these suggestions will help stabilize your Windows startup and the operation of your CD/DVD Drive.

I see no evidence whatsoever of any malware infection. Run Malwarebytes in Full Scan Mode just to make sure, but I think all you have experienced looks like misconfiguration issues originating from installing VLC Player alongside of iTunes, which should not be done. The HJT Log suggestions will only help stabilize and streamline your Windows startup — these suggestions will in no way solve the CD/DVD drive issues.

-- rc primak

In the course of completing a project for a client, I discovered a fabulous, inexpensive PDF writer, DeskPDF, that runs rings aroud Acrobat Distiller. It comes with GhostScript, which is its distilling engine, and it hooks into your favorite PDF viewer, just as does Distiller. For all practical purposes, it has become my preferred print preview for virtually everything, because what you see really is what you get. What’s more, embedded links are preserved, so you can follow them from within your PDF copy of the page.

In addition to saving articles, I use DeskPDF to create printouts of work in progress for my Web development clients. This enables me to show my clients pages that were generated on my development machine, which is, for obvious reasons, inaccessible to them.

It should be declared when posting product endorsements, how much the product costs. This is not a free product.

-- rc primak

There are several problems running around when you are viewing streaming videos in Flash format through Firefox. One is a well-documented Firefox “memory leak” in which they browser does not free up the RAM it is using as a memory cache. This problem increases with the number of tabs, the number of extensions, and the number of tabs with active content.

Another unrelated issue with videos hesitating or being jittery is Flash Player’s caching. You can adjust the Buffer Size in Flash Player to improve performance with video streams. But a lot depends on how fast the bits get downloaded from the server. You Tube is notorious for not delivering a smooth stream, and some ISPs are “prioritizing” or “throttling” certain types of data streams, including video streams. I find that Hulu.com suffers a lot less from this kind of degradation than YouTube, and no wonder, as some ISPs get paid by Comcast-NBC-Universal for prioity access to their bandwidth.

So, increase your Flash Player Buffer cache, and see if that helps. Unfortunately, the Firefox “memory leak” is more complicated, and no really good solutions have yet come to light. Maybe Firefox 4, due out later this year, will help the situation. And if more sites move from Flash to HTML5 (another new feature due out with Firefox 4), streaming video might work even better in the future.

-- rc primak

For Windows Vista or Windows 7, I would not recommend any third-party firewall, but I would recommend a third-party interface to help with the Windows Outbound Advanced Firewall settings.

I run Windows XP Pro, SP3, and Comodo was my second choice, after the Zone Alarm Firewall began getting increasingly unfavorable reviews and test results a couple of years ago. The Comodo Firewall is excellent, and causes me no system performance hit on my old single-core Pentium 4 processor in my laptop. Their Antivirus I would not touch with a ten-foot polecat.

I also do allow Comodo to redirect traffic through their DNS service, because this offers many of the security advantages of a VPN or Proxy Service, but is free of cost. And Defense Plus, even though it generates a lot of pop-ups at first, is in my experience manageable once trained. And highly informative once I got to know what all those processes and programs on my computer really are. I use the predefined Rule Sets to classify processes which generate pop-ups, and this reduces the remaining pop-up alerts by over 80 percent in my experience. Everything can be configured from within the pop-up balloons. Zone Alarm was never so easily configured to reduce pop-ups without reducing firewall defense levels.

I think this thread is not the place to argue about which antivirus is best, except when the AV is being offered alongside a firewall. For the record, my active AV is Avast Free Edition, and I scan with Malwarebytes and Super Antispyware Free Editions for second-opinions. Super Antispyware has caught some rootkits not found by Malwarebytes, and Malwarebytes has caught some suspicious files not idientified as such by Super Antispyware, so I like this mix. But I am not arguing that these are the best products out there — only that they do a very good job in combination. And without conflicting with each other.

And yes, Comodo pushes adware, but it is avoidable if you choose to do a selective install, which you must do anyway to get the firewall without the AV. Just learn to uncheck the boxes, as with any freeware installation. Most freeware has similar “offers” checked off by default, so Comodo is no different, IMHO. This is not a reason to avoid the best free firewall out there for Windows XP.

-- rc primak