Dell Dimension 3000 - Slow and freezing

Below procedure will provide a faster boot up, and eliminate wasting memory on programs that are not in use at this time……

Start Up Programs: Click on START, Click on Run, than put in the box MSCONFIG Click OK. Now you are in the System Configuration Utility Program. Click on START UP you see on the top of this Utility Program. Uncheck the programs from here that you do not want to start at boot up, leaving the anti virus, and any third party firewall alone. You can always go back into this program to restart them. They will not be uninstalled. Click on APPLY, than it will ask you if you wish to reboot the system. Do so. After it boots up again, you will be presented with another window from the System Configuration Utility Program telling you that you have made an adjustment. If you don't want to see this pop up each time you boot up, put a check mark in the little box in the lower left corner of this announcement.

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php  Link to a site that can explain what you have starting up, if you do not already know, and which ones you can safely un-check. It’s a long list.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20  Must have free downloads for our computers security.

Defrag the Hard Drive / Run two spyware programs / update and run the anti virus software / Empty the trash can often / Have at least 512 mb of ram if not 1 gb...

If by chance you did not uninstall the program that you did install by the Add/Remove program, or with the programs own uninstaller, and just right click the icon to deleted it, than you may get that warning message that states the file does not exist if later you tried the Add/Remove program way.  You always, always must use either the programs uninstaller or the Add/Remove program to uninstall any program, not just right click on it, and delete it.   If that is what you did. 

Over time, if you install, and uninstall programs, your Registry may get corrupted, and slow things down.   Uninstalling the improper way may slow your system down as well. 

Spyware that installed itself on your system from the internet also is a source of glitch's that slows the system.   Not having at least 512 mb of main memory is again another reason for some slow downs.  Windows XP likes at least 512 mb of memory and if you do not have a dedicated video card, but just the integrated chip instead, this integrated video chip will take some of your main memory to run the monitor, giving you even less memory for everything else....

Thank you SR45 for going to all that trouble and for all the information. I'm not sure what to download from the second link - could you suggest the best download from it.

Thanks xx