Problem performance Win XP and Outlook 2003

  • Thread starter Thread starter VanS
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VanS

I’ve got a client demo tomorrow morning out of town and my problem is my
laptop system has gotten progressively slower and slower. I did a defrag
maybe 2-3 months ago and that didn’t seem to help. It just seems to more and
more just crawl-very long times to open and close apps.(Win XP Pro SP2, Intel
1.86 Ghz processor, 2 G memory and about 75G HD with 10% free space and
OUtlook 2003)

My virus –Norton 360 auto updates-but am thinking it well could be my
Outlook Inbox. First when I had to reinstall Win XP Pro 10-12 months ago I
believe it then created two Personal Folders in Outlook with each its own
Inbox, and other boxes. But also the main Inbox I use had over 30,000 emails
in it. I know the capacity of the boxes can be increased but I’m wondering
strongly if this could be the main drag on my system? So is this an
excessive amount of emails (i've not cleaned in long time) or could the 10%
capacity HD be the issue? Or the duplicate Personal Folders?

Any ideas? Thanks, God bless,
Van
 
VanS said:
I've got a client demo tomorrow morning out of town and my problem
is my laptop system has gotten progressively slower and slower. I
did a defrag maybe 2-3 months ago and that didn't seem to help. It
just seems to more and more just crawl-very long times to open and
close apps.(Win XP Pro SP2, Intel
1.86 Ghz processor, 2 G memory and about 75G HD with 10% free space
and OUtlook 2003)

My virus -Norton 360 auto updates-but am thinking it well could be
my Outlook Inbox. First when I had to reinstall Win XP Pro 10-12
months ago I believe it then created two Personal Folders in
Outlook with each its own Inbox, and other boxes. But also the main
Inbox I use had over 30,000 emails in it. I know the capacity of
the boxes can be increased but I'm wondering strongly if this could
be the main drag on my system? So is this an excessive amount of
emails (i've not cleaned in long time) or could the 10% capacity HD
be the issue? Or the duplicate Personal Folders?
Click to expand...

I like 15% free, but it depends really on the size of the drive. If it is a
500GB drive - 15% free all the time is overkill really, but if it is a 60GB
drive - it's reasonable. ;-) In your case - I'd try to keep it at 15%.

It's your "AntiVirus" really - but you could be right in calling it a virus.
For a system like yours, I would remove any and all Norton products.
Especially all-in-one suites like the one you have. They are *known* to use
more resources than many alternatives and truly provide little to no more
protection. I would recommend Avira AntiVir (free) or eSet NOD32 (AntiVirus
only, cost) for the antivirus solution and using the built-in Windows
firewall with *no exceptions* at least while traveling with the laptop. You
should also do periodic scans with freeware MalwareBytes or purchase
MalwareBytes to complement the other protection devices OR purchase
MalwareBytes for a more active protection. (I'm not suggesting spending
more than $90 U.S. for protection and you can get away with spending $0
using common sense/good practices.)

As for Outlook - for my customers I recommend never having over 1000 emails
in their inbox - now they are using an Exchange server - so that makes
things different. However - having to parse that many items everytime you
look in that single folder - well - think about that. But - I doubt Outlook
is slowing your entire system down. Easy test - close Outlook. Better?
Lots better?
 
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