Okay!!!! I have about 50 desktop icons. I use maybe 10 out of the 50. What the heck do I do with the ones I don't use?? Do I just right click and hit delete. What happens to them after that?

I DO use Verizon DSL. So I pay $4.95 a month for the Verizon Internet Security Suite and don't have to worry about anything. It catches potential viruses. (the only reason I started this thread is because Alan, when prompted, ALLOWED the download). He knows better now.
I don't get any pop ups. It finds cookies and deletes them. All in all, I'm happy with it. I used to have a symantec thing but I didn't like it. I also had something from Norton Utilities but honestly, now that I have verizon dsl and verison security suite, I'm good with that!!!

BUT!!! and here's a good question for ya!!!
I use Outlook Express as my mail thing. NOT VERIZON.
So far so good. I usually get ALL my e-mails.
But sometimes, Verizon doesn't let an e-mail go through and treats it like spam. How can I find an e-mail if for example, my bank sent it to me and I never got it. There is no spam folder in my Outlook Express thing.
Anybody know the answer???

Thanks,
Mel

Brian - not correct at all. Stopping all those unnecessary programs from loading does much more than speed up your boot time. First off, they consume memory and thus can affect your overall computer processing. And internet speed, while certainly affected more by the speed of your internet connection, is also affected by overall processing power.

More importantly, most of those programs in fact do use bandwidth. They are designed to open and close internet connections. Some of them may be open quite awhile and/or check for updates and the like quite frequently. Also, some of these processes are very misbehaved and thus may not close properly or at all. They can also malfunction in other ways. Do you ever have unexplained computer blips? Thought so - one of the very first things that any competent tech support person will have you try is to disable ALL startups and see what happens. Takes care of the problem quite often.

And finally - it could also be that one of those itty bitty programs is a trojan that has been missed by whatever security you use.

I do agree that you should be conservative about deleting startups, however there are a couple of sites that provide very helpful information about almost any of these things. With just a little bit of effort, most novices can begin trimming in no time. And "msconfig" is most definitely not the place to do this. I won't bother going into all the reasons, but just use the tool I recommend or something similar.

Also, it is not correct that your desktop icons do not affect your internet connection. Having a lot of them may slow your boot time a bit - but that is all. It really makes no sense to move them, except if your desktop is cluttered.

You may be getting confused between those icons and the processes they represent. The icons do NOT show what programs are running. They represent a segment of your installed programs (not all installed programs put an icon on the desktop). Installed programs have nothing at all to due with running programs.

In fact, it is the program to which I referred, or "msconfig," that will give you a much better picture of what is running. Even those programs do not give the whole picture - as they just show the programs and processes that are set to launch at boot up. You actually have to call up the Windows Task Manager to see EVERY thing that is running on your computer at any given time.

Mel - Normally a broadband provider will provide all their subscribers with a homepage area. You should go there and log in. There will be an area with all of your emails - this is actually the place where all of your emails can be seen before they are downloaded to your computer and put into Outlook Express.

They should have a folder on the email page that has all the emails they have marked as spam. You can view them, delete them, unmark them so they are not spam, etc. There are probably some defaults you can change - for instance, how long they are kept before they are automatically deleted.

rfinney

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Rfinnery – I do agree with you that programs using up memory do have an impact on internet speed, however I can’t see how other programs other than our antivirus, firewall type programs are active searching for most recent updates whilst we are using the net, Adaware is a good example of this being so, as you would be aware that we are prompted to allow access for them and I always configure for them to search for updates without prompting me for permission to do so.

The only time that I do notice any strain of power when using the net, is only when I call upon another program to startup like Nero, to do some recoding for me and at the same time I might even have an antivirus program running as well, other than those circumstances I don’t have any loss of internet strength and that’s without disabling programs as you mentioned earlier.

If you really think it doesn’t make any sense cleaning your desktop, then why does Microsoft by default in XP os, prompt us to clean up any unused icons ?
Here is a site that gives a few simple tips to speed up our PC’s. were useless icons are mentioned .
http://familyinternet.about.com/od/t...upcomputer.htm
Also just simply lowering your graphic settings down to say 16 bits, is another way to slightly improve performance , so I really can’t understand your reasoning about desktop not being an issue as far as performance goes., I think you would agree that anything that has to do with using memory will definatly affect the systems performance..

I am really not confused either about icons and and the processes they represent, its very simple to right click the task bar and bring up the task manager to see what processers are running, not only can I see exactly how much percent the CPU is using, also from there I can see how much physical Memory there is and keep an eye on the system cache as well.and more as you would probably know..
This thread has turned out a thread that would be very typical of a computer forum not a PN forum, but one thing leads to another that’s they way it goes, if every one thought the same it would be a boring old world
we live in
Take care
Brian

Brian,

I agree that using Windows Desktop Cleanup can be useful. However, it will not affect bandwidth in any way whatsoever. It will improve overall computer processing which can help with all computer activities, including web surfing.

Also, I was responding to the recommendation to just move desktop icons. This is much less effective in terms of cleanup that is designed to improve performance. Using Windows Desktop Cleanup is not only more effective but safer. Just moving those icons will often result in error messages with the next boot, because now Windows does not know where they were moved to and will prompt the user for action.

And again, doing any sort of desktop cleanup is going to have a very, very minimal impact on internet efficiency. It should be done for other reasons, such as clutter, boot time slowdown, and overall improved efficiency (which can help with web performance, but really only a little).

The fact is that the startup programs you want to leave alone, do in fact affect bandwidth. However, depending on how many are installed and many other factors, the amount of bandwidth can be quite minimal or more substantial.

But it is desirable to monitor these processes as the real issue is that they are often installed surreptitiously as malware. They can and often do cause unexpected problems, slowdown computer and internet performance, and so forth. What do you think AdAware is doing? One of its main functions is to look at those programs and decide which ones truly don't belong.

rfinney

Although I don't have "many" icons on my desk top...

When I decide to clean them up, I just right click on them and delete them.

Is this wrong? We just deleted 3 Earthlink ones for example, since we don't use Earthlink any more. I just have about two rows at the bottom of my wallpaper -- since I have a landscape on it---they are down there "on the ground" LOL
The picture I have is this: so I don't want icons in the sky etc

If you click on the picture it will show larger... DocJohn has changed the graphics display here recently.

The problem with just deleting those old, unused icons is that when you next boot up, Windows may not know what has happened to them and will create an error message asking to find them. There is no real harm in this, however.

But much better than deleting an icon is to uninstall the entire program. This will not only delete the icon, but also create more free space on your hard drive, eliminate any processes which may have happened to run in the background, and generally erase from the Windows Registry any remnants of the program (some uninstall procedures are better than others in doing this, some still leave traces in the Registry).

You can do this very easily. You go to Control Panel and then to "Add or Remove Programs." Then a list of your installed programs will appear, find the one you want to delete, and have at it.

Even if you have already just deleted the icon for a program, it should still show up in the Add and Remove Programs - so you can go there and safely delete it.

Of course you should only use this procedure for programs that you are absolutely sure you will never, ever use again. If there is even a remote possibility that you will use it in the future, then don't use this procedure. Instead, you can just move the program icon to another folder to get it off the desktop - I think Brian posted about how to do that.

Also keep in mind that there will no bandwidth gain, no matter how many desktop icons you either move or delete. This is not the thing to do to increase internet speed, but it can make for a more organized and/or cleaner desktop. Actually removing the entire program could affect bandwidth, but if it is just one or two programs, not by very much unless it was a misbehaving program. So, even deleting programs is not recommended to increase internet speed.

There is a lot to say for doing some routine computer housekeeping. Brian mentioned about defragging. I have schedules that automatically defrag my hard drives on a regular basis. Also, the Desktop Cleanup can be useful, especially if you have let it become "overgrown." But also beware of overdoing things - for example, there are a lot of scam software programs out there that promise to do a lot of these housekeeping activities, and if you are not careful, they will definitely prune too much.

rfinney

No Mrs D, don't just delete any icons, i definatly agree with that, you have to remove them from control panel, by useing the add remove program.

Well i just phoned up a mate [pc pro] to get the right answers to our little discusion,
He said " cleaning down your desktop thats full of useless icons you will only find a minimal increase in performance in the PC's that are around these days, he said going back to the old win 95 days & 486 machines, it was pretty significent then, when the old 486 machines were battling to run Win 95.

Of course, i then asked about closing down some programs to improve bandwidth, he said no, its got nothing to do with bandwidth at all, closing down programs will increase boot up times only.

So cleaning up all your desktop icons, won't make much of a differance performance wise its only minimal ,other than keeping you desktop nice and tidy and more easier to work with thats all

So thats the finish from this end, i found it an interesting discussion, so
thanks Refinnery.
all the best
Brian

Mel, sounds like you are very happy with your own antivirus program so there is no reason for change.
The icons to the programs that you definatly don't want to use ever again, just go to " Control Panel/ Click on " add remove programs "/ run down the list and then select the ones who want to uninstal, then simply uninstall them, you may have to reboot after each program that you have uninstalled, but if so you will be prompted to do so thats if you have to, the ones that are not in that list, yes. delete them straight from the desktop into your recycle bin and then empty your bin.

For the ones you do want to keep [this is what i have done with mine], you may like to do this, right click on the desktop, run down to " New " then move over to " folder and click on it, a new folder will be created on your desktop, then go to the icons your want to keep, left click on one whist leaving the mouse button down and drag it over to the new folder that you just created then when it goes a blue colour, let go of of the mouse button and it will go into that folder, then do the same for all the rest, except the main ones you use very often, like any Internet browser icon etc.
Some say to just drag them over to the start button and they will come up in the first row of programs, but i don't recommend it, as i have come accross some problems doing it that way.

Once you have cleaned up all the screen candy, then right click on that new folder run down to " Send to " move accross then run down to " My Documents " then left click on it, you have done it, you have sent all of those icons to a folder in" My Documents ". next i normaly check to make sure they are in there, then go back to your desktop and left click on that new folder thats still on your desktop and drag it into the " Recycle Bin " then empty your recycle bin.

Now, to get to them when you want to use them, just go to "my documents" find that new folder [ you can name it anything you like] double click on it that will open it up and use the programs from there, you should notice your pc more responsive when using the net because you have given back more bandwidth to use on the net.

Outlook express is only a program that you need to be able to send and recieve emails, your antiviris program Verizon is configured in Outlook Express to look out for any crap that is trying to get through, if it does find something its doing its job properly, any genuine emails will be scanned just like any other emails are, if its clean you will have access to it, if its not, its not going to let you open it up and infect your machine, seeing thats the whole idea of having protection like Verizon.
General rule with emails is, if you don't know who they are don't open it.