OT: Windows Optimization?
 

I've got a 2.4GHz P4 with 512MB RAM and about 6GB free hard drive space running WinXP SP2, but for the Last few weeks, the system has been running really sluggishly. Games seem to be more or less unaffected, aside from noticably increased loading times, but when I'm working on the desktop, lots of simple things seem to take a long time.
For example, when Windows loads when I turn on the PC, it takes 4-5 minutes before I can actually DO anything. The desktop is there, everything seems to be fine, when I click an icon it highlights, but if I double click to open a folder or run a program, nothing happens til I've left the machine alone for a while. Even then, sometimes just opening a folder takes 10-15 seconds.
I've got about 3-4 anti-virus programs and they all say the system is clean. I've downloaded a few of those Windows optimization programs but they haven't been much help.

So, I'm wondering if this sounds familiar to anyone, or if anyone has any ideas as to what I can do to get the performance I think I should be getting. I've tried everything I can think of and nothing seems to work.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Upgrade to 98!

Meanwhile, you should take a look at what's starting on windows load.
Disable everything that's not nessesary. Drivers, firewall, one antivirus, and that's about it.

The rest of the stuff shouldn't be loaded until you actually want to use it, instead of wasting your time on boot, and system resources all the time.

Get Mozilla to avoid auto-installer popups and various other nasties on the web, too.

For example:
My system tray has:
-Norton
-volume control
-video driver control
-Zone alarm
plus:
- System resource meter
- Temperature monitor (reads disk/cpu sensors- C:\ =37 celcius right now)
- Trillian, since I'm using it right now.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

If you mean like McAfee and Norton, your computer is probably screwed. It's a definite no-no to have more than one antivirus program installed. If you're counting programs like Adaware/Spybot S&D, then you're okay.

Second, have you defragmented your hard drive recently?

Otherwise, it's probably like SJ said, too much crap loading at start-up.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Yeah, for full anti-virus suites, having more than one installed is a huge no-no. It doesn't offer any more protection, and they tend to snipe at each others definition files making all of the scanners useless. Pick one and just use that (use the TrendMicro Online scan if you think something slipped past your VScan).

Check how many fonts you have installed. Since Microsoft decided it would be a genius idea to load every single font into memory at startup, systems with many fonts installed will take longer to finish loading. Get rid of the frivolous ones, and keep the standards (Times New Roman, Courier New, Tahoma are the main ones covering serif, mono, and sans-serif).

Kill startup programs. Like SJ said, there shouldn't be much running at startup, usually just have AV/Firewall, Volume Control, and Video Driver. Using Firefox prevents the installation of random useless programs from the Internet, like IE allows.

Check virtual memory settings. If it's set to be automagically handled by Windows, that should be fine, but it could be messed up. The general rule is to have a swap file twice the size of memory (1gb in your case). Defragmenting the drive helps here too, so your disk doesn't have to jump around a lot when accessing virtual memory that is split into several sections.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Make sure to disable virtual memory _before_ doing the defragmentation, so that the drive can be defragmented as much as possible. Reenable virtual memory after it the defragmentation process is completed. This ensures an even more continuous block of HD clusters for the swap file. Also, you might consider disabling the auto-magic management. It tends to be unnecessary (assuming you have the size set to a large enough amount) and slows down the computer when Windows changes the size of the swap file all the time. You can do this by setting the minimum size to the same value as the maximum size. This will also have the advantage of locking the swap file in place, preventing it from being created in fragmented parts of the hard drive as it is resized. It will stay in the same clusters of the drive. It is critical to defragment before fixing the size of the swap file for this very reason. Having a separate drive partition for the swap file can be handy as well (assuming you fix its size).

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Go through these sites and you will propably notice a difference:


http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks1.htm
Where page 6 is the most important page, the services..

and perhaps you can find something else aswell at

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,,5155,00.asp

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

If you're into all that, you might want to drop by {here} as well. This little freeware program will defrag the (now permanant) windows swapfile. Windows tends to create it fragmented. They have other small, free, well-thought out, utilites on that site.
I've heard that's not too great an idea. The separate partition helps prevent data from fragmenting the swapfile, that's true. But the drive heads really have to work overtime, reading two separate directories, zipping from file table to data part -- not so speedy. Now a separate hard drive to contain the swapfile, sure, that'll help.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

We had a really good thread on this a few years ago.

I have no time to do the search on it. Perahps some one else could and post that thread. Lots of links and such to this topic

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

I've gone into MSConfig, gone to the startup tab and disabled everything I know I don't need, but there's still an awful lot of stuff that I don't know what it is, so I'm reluctant to remove it. Does anyone know if Windows puts vital programs/drivers into that Startup section?

What I meant was that I've got 3-4 anti-virus programs installed on the computer. I only have one actively running, but have used that 4 different programs to run a complete scan of the HD to be totally sure there's no viruses. Last defragged the hard drive about 3 weeks ago.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Oh. I can answer this bit at least. You can try the websites {here} and {over here}. They decode for you the cryptic names of several things the Windows may try to load. They identify them as crucial, or known spyware. If a file is not on these lists, I'd search Google or ask about the filename specifically -- that's how the world finds out about new viruses.

This forum became world famous a while back as we were musing about a file called {siae3123.exe}. No one knew what it was back then, but its now known to be a trojan dropper.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

From the microsoft website:

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Sounds primarily like a fragmentation issue. Also, like others have said, more than one AV product will really fubar things. Check programs that start on bootup, and any services you do not need. A lot of spyware will clog machine startup as well, so make sure the system is clean of all spyware.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

You can turn everything off there.
You'll only "need" (not really but they're good) to have three things running in the start-up in msconfig.
That's the antivirus program, what program do you use (if it's for example mcafee, have all programs staring with mc... enabled)?
And perhaps the volume icon, usually "systray". (Don't think this is needed in XP though), so that would make it two items)
And a firewall if you don't have a hardware firewall.


This will mean that you won't have any special keyboard functions etc.

But you can start by turning everything off, and then if you miss something, start them one by one, or post the list of the names here and tell us what functions you are missing and we'll tell you what to enable.

When people have problems with something in the autostart, I usually tell them to disable half of the items in msconfig, then do half and halfs until the problem is isolated, you can use that way aswell to see if there is anything you miss by disabling half of the items, if you miss nothing do the other half, if something bothers you, enable half of the disabled items and so on...

I belive AgentZero has answered the defrag and antivirus issues and it's not those...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Yeah, if he defragmented three weeks ago, then it shouldn't be a fragmentation issue, unless there's some really weird stuff going on with virtual memory... but that doesn't explain the extreme slowness of a decently fast system.

Ruatha is right about disabling most stuff in MSConfig. You can disable almost everything in the startup tab and still have a workable computer, just without some features. Basically what you won't want to disable are the AV and Firewall processes, the video drivers for the higher-end video cards (if it's an nVidia card, it will start with Nv, if it's ATI, it will start with ATI), you might have something called mobosync which is basically a hardware monitor, and other than that, everything can be ditched. If you really think something might be important, paste the name of the program file (eg. tfswcrtr.exe) into google, and see what it says about it.

Also, when you're starting up, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and bring up the Task Manager. Go to the processes tab, and sort by CPU. Post here with the processes that are taking the most CPU time and percentage, and we should be able to help speed things up.

And, pick one AV program, ditch the rest. Uninstall all of them, re-install the one you're going to stay with. Even if you aren't running all at the same time, the definition files interfere with each other, and it's an overall bad idea. Four isn't any better than one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

OK, well I cleared out everything except AV, Firewall & video drivers, but it doesn't seem to have helped much. I've also got rid of all my anti-virus programs except one.
As for the Processes, most of the time it seems to just be System Idle Processes taking up 99%, but CIDAEMON.EXE and cisvc.exe occassionally jump up to around 20%.

The biggest problem, for whatever reason, seems to be opening folders. If I launch a program from the desktop, it seems to work OK, but a lot of the time when I try opening My Computer, using the Start Menu, or opening a shortcut to a folder from the desktop, it either takes a very long time, or nothing happens at all.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

How long has it been since you installed Windoze?

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

This issue is important, unfortunately. As you install programs, and delete them after trying them, they may leave garbage in your registry. Windows has to process the large file full of tailings and can slow down. The usual solution is a data file backup, low level format, Windows reinstall, then program reinstall, carefully, only what you want this time. I like to defrag at each program install. Well, at least defrag after Windows install (do Windows update first!), and then after programs are all installed.

Some less time consuming suggestions: Spybot, ver 1.3, has a function above and beyond the spyware removal of ver 1.2 and lower. You will have to poke around to activate the function, but it will remove registry entries for Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office, Windows Media Player, and others that contain, for example, your recently opened files. Lots of this stuff is stored even after you delete the program. This is how trialware insures you don't delete then reinstall the program. Remember Microsoft is very customer-oriented -- its just that the customer is the software vendor, not you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

Another program I used to clean the registry, is called RegSeeker. It may be hard to find, I think it was the old Version of something that was sold to a commercial registry cleaner company. You can also try one of the several registry cleaners, I'm always consistantly impressed with the throughness and innovation of Norton programs. 'Tho they're never ashamed to have their programs eat resources like candy.

I will be able to provide you with less and less help, I'm sad to say (I don't even know what Version of RegSeeker and who made it, for example). I dumped Windows for Linux a couple of months ago, in part for this particular reason -- the ever clogging registry.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

I actually haven't reinstalled Windoze since I bought the machine 2 years ago. First thing I did when I bought the machine was format the drive and re-install WinXP to make sure there wasn't any junk on the machine I didn't want.
I've gotten a Windows optimizer program, and RegClean as well, which seems to have improved performance a fair bit, but I'm still having problems with the folders.

I think there must be a problem with Explorer.exe because when I try to shut down the computer when the folders aren't opening, it hangs for a while then pops up with a message that says 'Explorer.exe is not responding' when I click the End Now button, the Windows interface disappears, leaving only my desktop wall paper and the system hangs, forcing me to literally pull the plug on my computer, since it's equipped with a software On/Off switch as opposed to a hardware On/Off switch. Whose brilliant idea was that one?

BTW, Arkcon, can I ask a really stupid question. What does Linux acutally LOOK like? I've been looking into maybe making the switch & maybe just keeping a stripped-down Version of WinXP for gaming, but everything I've read about it seems to suggest a command line-driven interface. Which in theory I don't really have a problem with, having grown up with DOS, but practically speaking I don't have the time to learn a new operating system, and would thus be purely interested in something with a GUI of one type or another.

Honestly though, the only thing that keeps me tied to Windows is the fact that my computer is primarily a gaming machine, and I have very diverse taste in games, so switching to Linux or a Mac would sort of defeat the purpose of me owning my computer. I find it maddening that people go out and buy a computer knowing (if they have even rudimentary knowledge of PCs) that it isn't going to work the way they expect. I can't think of a single product where the same is true. Can you imagine going out and buying a car knowing that it wouldn't start in the morning sometimes, the engine would die for no apparent reason at random intervals and that whether or not the CD player, radio, air conditioning or heating would work was a hit or miss proposition? And can you imagine knowing that this was just the price of owning a car? Or when it didn't work properly, being told, 'Well, take the engine out, dismantle it, then reassmble it and put it back in and you should be OK for another few months.'? Or you could buy a different model, but you wouldn't be able to drive it on most roads. If a car maker behaved like MS, they'd either be taken to court and forced to update their standards, or be driven out of business by the competition. But PC owners are just supposed to 'deal with it'.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

2 years? Time to reformat and reinstall Windoze! A registry cleaner is not enough... Windoze slowly breaks itself down in many ways as it runs...

As for Linux, download and burn a Knoppix live CD and run it. Linux is definitely more than just a command line...

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Well, I use the Redhat Fedora Core 2 flavor of Linux. It's default desktop GUI is called Gnome, and its pretty identical to the new Win XP style desktop. Icons on the side, menu bar at the bottom. I just decided to abandon all my graphical games (Starcraft, Aliens vs Predator, Diablo). There are instructions in these forums to get SE4 to work under WinE.

I mostly used my computer to browse the internet, and I also write some letters and crunch some spreadsheet numbers occasionally. Thing is, I stopped using IE long ago, and switched to Mozilla. I lost my registration card for Microsoft Office so I switched to Open Office. I hated Windows Media player, even before the evilness that was Versions 7 and 9. So it just occured to me, why am I keeping the OS around?

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Precisely because you can't play most games under Linux... Wine and Winex (or whatever they changed the name to) are good as far as they go, but they are a long, long way from being a workable solution to the game issue...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Just grab a $50 PC from the local used/parts shop. They're up to about P2-400's now, fully accessorized, which is plenty good for most games.

Then you can have your Games and Linux too.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

That defeats the purpose...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Wine is still Wine. Winex is made from Wine by Transgaming. No games on Linux? Linux games list
edit: Wait are you talking about Cedega, that's just the name they made for Version 4.*. It will change again when they go to 5.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

As long as you can play SE and DOOM, does it matter? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But as for the look of Linux, Knoppix is a good way to try it out. It just boots straight off the CD, no need to install anything at all. IIRC, it uses KDE as it's desktop environment, but with just about every *NIX variant out there, the graphical interface is X11 with different stuff on top. Most Linux distros use either KDE or GNOME on top, some offer both, and some let you use just X11 (I know Fedora does this). Try it out, and see if you like it.

Reasons not to switch... the biggest one is Windows-only applications. For a lot of people who might be inclined to switch, these applications are usually confined to games, like Fyron and Arkcon have said. But sometimes its because certain alternatives to the major Windows applications are found to be lacking in some way. Personally, the only things keeping me from switching over are Photoshop and Trillian (and I think iTunes is OSX/Windows only, so now that I have an iPod, that's holding me back too). There are alternatives to both Photoshop (the GIMP) and Trillian (gAim, Miranda), but I'm not as familiar with them. Maybe over next summer if I play around with them and find all the features I use in the Windows software in the Linux software (and find a way to get iTunes/iPod to work in Linux), I'll switch. But for now, I get W2KPro for free from school, and things are working for me, so no need to switch.

And about your explorer crash problems... if you get dumped to a no-interface blank screen, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and open up the task manager. Go to the Applications tab, and hit the New Task... button. Type in 'explorer' and hit enter, and voila, you should have the interface back.

And if you don't want to go through re-installing everything because of explorer crashes, try experimenting with an alternate shell. I used LiteStep for a while (before UPS mangled my computer... long story). Only reason I didn't install it again is because I didn't back up all the tweaks I made to the skin I was using, and I didn't want to have to re-create everything. Plus it confused the hell out of a lot of friends who get upset when they don't see the friendly 'e' Internet Exploder icon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It will completely go around explorer, so if that is the root cause of all the problems, you can just kill it completely and use the new shell. Google for information on getting/setting it up, and ask for help here if you need it.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Yes there are some cheap crappy games, and a few big companies have made games with native Linux builds, but the vast majority of games don't work in Linux, or run poorly in Wine and Winex (SE4 has problems from what I hear)... That list just proves my point.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Fyron do you play anything but se4?

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Yes. And practically nothing else I play is on that list. Also, the problems with SE4 under Wine that Sivran is having (from IRC channel) really ruin it... no alt-tabbing, combat replays suck, mod launcher doesn't work, and so on... Everyone I have spoken to that uses Linux boots into Windows for games... Having to reboot all the time is definitely not a viable solution.

And it is not just games. There are a lot of programs I use that do not work under Linux, and the alternatives are junk...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

They work for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif
Take a look at the attachment.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Even if they aren't junk, I don't really feel like learning how to use an new 3D rendering program because my current one won't work with Linux. It does work on Mac, but of course I can't have dual-boot system running Win and Mac. Correct me if I'm wrong but even if one formatted the HD and tried to install MacOS it wouldn't work because of fundamental differences in the hardware. Right?

Just a side note from someone who admittedly failed first-year computer science, but if it's possible to make Windows-compatible applications, should it not be possible to make a Windows-compatible operating system?

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Heh, the only Windows compatible OS I know is DOS...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Technically, it could be done. But the details involved are way too huge for any entity (even Microsoft) to deal with. The big deal with Windows is that damn near everything is backwards compatible, so stuff that runs in Win9x usually runs in WinXP, and some stuff that runs in Win3.x does, and some old DOS programs even run under XP. The problem comes in when Microsoft kept "undocumented features", aka bugs, in the backwards compatibility code, since some applications used these in their programs. I don't know of any specific examples, but imagine something like passing NULL pointers to a file system function gave you the data from the Last time the function was used instead of returning an error... a lot of stuff like that was used by "programmers" because it worked at the time, even if it wasn't necessarily correct. Pile up about 15-20 years of that, and making an emulator that does all of that stuff is... well, impossible. Wine and its ilk are getting close, but I don't think they'll get there.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Thanks guys. I've taken your advice (mostly) to heart, and the ol' girl seems to be running nicely again. But Will, you mentioned LiteStep, which I was looking at, but I haven't really had any luck getting it to work and there seems to be a dearth of helpful information out there. So any assistance you can provide would be much appreciated.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Sorry. Just realized I should have been a bit more clear than saying 'it doesn't work'. I downloaded the installer off www.litestep.net ran it, then rebooted. Everything seems to load properly, but clicking/double clicking desktop icons doesn't seem to do much and if I click any of the buttons on the taskbar, the system freezes. I know I probably forgot something or didn't do something I should have, but given the trouble I'm having finding documentation, this isn't really surprising.

BTW, I'm currently looking for a decent replacement to Windows Media Player, so any suggestions are welcome.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Media Player Classic

It was originally based off of WMP 6.4 or something, so it has a nice clean interface. Fully featured media player.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Yes, the LiteStep general documentation is fairly lacking... although the internal documentation for themes and such is decent.

I'm not sure what the problem you've been encountering could be. It might just be problems getting used to the interface. IIRC, double-clicking files on the desktop should launch them with the default application. The buttons on the taskbar, for the default theme, are usually set to the default installation paths for certain applications, the globe being Internet Explorer for left click, AIM for right click, the text pad being Notepad for left click, MSPaint for right click, and the file cabinet being a Explorer window (file manager) for left click, and the command prompt for right click. The triangle of circles icon (the LiteStep logo) and right clicking on the desktop gives the analogue of the start menu, right clicking on the LiteStep icon launches the file manager to the installed folder of LiteStep.

The trick of going to the task manager works with LiteStep as well. So if things hang, you can Ctrl-Alt-Del, and kill LiteStep, then use New Task to launch either explorer or litestep.

Also, I used the installer found on this site, and I think it has some basic customization stuff in the installer, as well as a few plugins. It might be basically the same thing, but you never know.

Oh, and I think when I first started using LiteStep, I had some problems with the resource monitor plugin. When I took it out, a lot of problems went away.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Thanks, Fyron. That Media Player's actually really good. It was able to play a few movies that the Windows player couldn't. Will, I've got LiteStep up and running now, and things seem to be working quite nicely. I did actually download the installer from the same site as you, but once I reinstalled it things started humming along nicely. All bow before the mighty power of the reinstall! One thing I'm having trouble with is figuring out exactly how to install modules. The theme I'm running at the moment keeps telling me I need to install certain modules in order for it to work properly. I've downloaded them, but none of them have any documentation on how one actually installs them. Little help?

Aside from that, though, it's running pretty nicely. There's still a bit of a lag when I first boot up, but it's dropped from about 5 minutes to 30 seconds to a minute, max. If I were a MS advertising exec, I'd say LiteStep increased the performance of my computer 5-10 times. ;-)

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

For most of the plugins, you just need to get the *.dll file for the plugin, and put it in a plugin directory, called modules, IIRC. Some have some extra setup that you need to do, and usually come with an installer or some basic docs saying what you need to do. This page should get you started, let me know if you need anything more specific.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

OK, but then what? One module had that actually had installation instructions said open the Setup.rc, and add the line LoadModule "c:\litestep\modulename.dll" then Recycle. Did all this but when I try to load a Theme, it still says I need to install the modules I just supposedly installed. This is the only real problem I've having, everything else is running great.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Are you sure it's setup.rc? I'm looking through an older backup I have, and the closest thing I see that would load modules is the theme.rc file. I'd probably be able to help more if I knew the specific module.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

tasks-0.92b, shortcut2-2.0.2 and hotkey-2.0 are apparently the ones that are lacking. I'll try popping things into theme.rc and see what happens...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Looks like it might be a problem with naming... ie, tasks-0.92b.dll might need to be something along the lines of tasks-0.9.dll, or vice versa. Might want to check that the file names already existing in theme.rc (do a quick Ctrl-F on tasks, shortcut, hotkey, respectively) and see that the names in there match the actual file names of the *.dlls you have installed. If they're different, you probably want to rename the files, since there is a possibility the filename is referenced somewhere else, and you don't want to track down that entry in all the config files http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

???
That does not make one ounce of sense...

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

You can run DOS inside Windows without 3rd party tools, hence DOS is windows-compatible OS http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

/me whapeth Aiken. Not entirely sure why, but sure there is a good reason.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Thanks. Things seem to be working ok now. Problem was, when I didn't have a module that a theme needed, it brought up a window where you could download the modules and have them automatically installed, but whenever I used it the system would hang, so I was trying to install them manually. Turns out the problem was with Download Accelerator (DAP). Something about it caused the system to freeze, because as soon as I reinstalled it, the modules downloaded and installed fine. I still think there's a problem with Explorer.exe because LiteStep uses it as the File Manager, and whenever I try to use it I get into trouble.
Does anyone know if there's a 3rd party program that can do what explorer.exe does in terms of navigating the file system, without acutually using explorer.exe. Please let me know & then I can finally be (more or less) free of the MicroSoft yoke.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

There are several out there. One is Total Commander, though I personally do not like it... Google for alternate file managers.

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Total Commander (shareware) - mega file manager, dual pane.
Servant Salamander (free and shareware) - so-so, dual pane.
FAR (OSS, free) - powerful FM without graphic gui for CLI lovers, dual pane.
Xplorer2 - (shareware) - very good and lightweight FM, dual pane, single pane(explorerish).
Directory Opus (shareware) - very good but heavy (in terms of RAM usage) FM, dual pane, single pane(explorerish).

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Cool, thanks. I had a couple good days (literally 2) with LiteStep, but now it's behaving poorly as well. We've got a couple Pentium/233MHz's at work and they run WinNT faster than my 2.4GHz at the moment and that just ain't right. I'm convinced that my explorer.exe file is corrupted, but I can't even get a reinstall to work. As soon as I get to the part where Windows is supposed to install, it sits there and does nothing, even though the system hasn't locked up or anything. I'm sitting here writing this after the installer has been telling me that installation will take approximately 51 minutes. Problem is it's been saying that for 4 HOURS! I'm at a loss as to what I can do, since I don't seem to be able to boot from my Windows install CD. Any tips? Or if someone has an uncorrupted explorer.exe file, can I have it?

Re: OT: Windows Optimization?
 

Check your BIOS, and make sure that you've got the boot sequence set to a logical order. (Floppy, CD then HDD)