Bob said:
1. WinXP Pro
2. All the Defaults
3. McAfee (I'll have to check if any others are enabled)
4. What does PFW mean?
5. Where do I find if Windows Indexing is enabled?
6. I just installed Google Desktop Indexing.
7. I have Sysinternals PE and am in the process of learning how to use
it.
8. I do have some other security apps running (Spyware Doctor comes to
mind).
9. I have Diskeeper running in the background - continuously
defragging.
1) PFW - Personal Firewall, including the XP SP2 firewall. You only
want one of these enabled, and only one third-party PFW installed.
2) If you have more than one resident AV installed, I can almost
guarantee conflicts. And this includes not completely uninstalling a
previous AV app.
3) I don't know about Google's indexing service. What is it indexing?
If it is continually writing to your HD, it, together with your AV
monitoring it, can eat up cycles like popcorn.
4) Windows Indexing service. Set it to manual, or disable it, and see
what happens to your CPU. You can always turn it back on if it turns
out not to be the culprit. I personally see no need for it. You can
get to any WinXP service from
My Computer -> Right-click -> Manage -> Services
(
http://www.theeldergeek.com/indexing_service.htm)
5) If you are using Spyware Doctor for real-time monitoring, it will
eat up some of your CPU cycles. This should not be a problem, unless
there is a conflict with something else.
6) I think that you have found the culprit. Constant defragging can
cause a problem if your AV is monitoring HD activity. You can toggle
one or the other off to investigate. (Don't disable your AV while you
are doing anything risky on the internet.) Also, read the Diskeeper
help pages on using it with a real-time AV app.
7) Two general rules for using a WinXP box.
I. If you use it, keep it (OS, software) up-to-date.
II. If you don't use it, uninstall it (software), disable it
(services), or close it (ports).
You can Google for lots of sites that deal with securing a WinXP box,
particularly as it relates to XP services and ports.
Ron
