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I know this isn't strictly speaking a programming question but something I always hear from pseudo-techies is that having a lot of entries in your registry slows down your Windows-based PC. I think this notion comes from people who are trying to troubleshoot their PC and why it's running so slow and they open up the registry at some point and see leftover entries from programs they uninstalled ages ago.
But is there any truth to this idea? I would not think so since the registry is essentially just a database and drilling down to an entry wouldn't take significantly longer on a larger registry. But does it?
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not looking for advice on how to make a PC run faster, or asking why my PC in particular is slow (it's not), I'm just curious if people who say "bigger registry means slower PC" are accurate or not.
I think its a symptom, not a cause, as fever is a symptom of an infection.
When you install windows updates, at least in xp and up, a folder called SXS is maintained for rolling them back. These rollback points are also stored in reg keys.
The size of the sxs(side by side) folder grows exponentially and definitely has been linked to why, when some people simple reinstall with sp3 instead of installing sp1 and rolling up to sp3 they get better performance, even with the same programs installed.
1) Start -> Run -> msconfig
2) Check the Startup tab
3) If you don't know what it is, uncheck
4) Reboot
Its not the registry, its the crap you have running in the background.
In short, not really.
In the old days when machines were slower the answer was yes; but having a modern processor rip through even a 60MB registry is not a problem.
Typically, the real reason a modern machine starts running slow is due to everything from malware to virus scanners: Mcafee, Norton's, etc are prime targets in my mind.
Also, the WinSXS folder tends to grow as service packs and applications are installed. This seems to have a negative impact on system performance. There are only two possible solutions in this scenario. First, if possible, reinstall the OS with the latest service pack already slipstreamed into the install. Second, if that isn't possible AND you are running Vista with SP1, you can run the vsp1cln.exe tool (see technet) which will clean up a lot of the older versions of components. Note that this tool can only be executed once and it does not allow you to roll back.
any problems occur on the registry could also make your computer much slower.the fix registry problems you need to install a registry cleaner as this will fix the errors and make your pc back to its normal state.
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My mac is sending me the frequent alert of low disk space. When I am checking the system storage then it's showing 170+gb is occupied by the system. I am not sure where is my space is getting used?
I tried a few cleaner tools also but couldn't get help much.
Please help to resolve it?
After doing research over various forums of mac's and StackExchange I figured out that it's mostly because of the following reasons.
Log files (Might be crash log files/docker files)
Your email messages stored in outlook (in my case it was almost ~20 GB)
Logs related to cores when a system restarts (~ 10 GB)
Docker Images (This had ~70 GB in my case).
Your nonsystem documents/downloads/itunes
So the question is how to find what all things are unnecessary and safe to delete? These system files are not visible directly.
I tried using a few tools like cleanmymac etc but all were paid so I couldn't get help much there.
To clean up your non-system unnecessary files, you can directly take the help of the storage management tool of mac. You just have to click on optimize storage and it will show all the non-system files.
To cleanup unnecessary system files, use below command
sudo find -x / -type f -size +10G
This command will give you all the files occupying more than 10 GB. You can analyze the files and delete them as necessary.
The highlighted cores are nothing but the state files of your mac to reboot from last state when your mac restarts so it's safe to delete.
Next step is to delete a hidden tmp folder
It will show the size as 0 bytes because your user won't have permission to read it. But will be occupying a hell amount of space. So delete it by giving root permission.
Now, Look if there are any docker images present in your system. Clean them all (Docker.raw).
Using all these steps I was able to clean almost 100+ GB.
Recently found that this issue was caused by a memory leak in one of the Java applications I was running. I had to start the Activity Monitor, searching for Java processes and Force Quit them. Rinse and repeat every time my space runs out. Also fix your code where you can to get rid of memory leaks.
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Problem:
I keep getting Hash: Element not found errors.
Technical Details:
uTorrent 3.2.3 (latest as of this writing)
Running about 30 Torrents (all downloading)
Win 7 64 bit
Dell N5050 :sigh:
Symptoms:
Force recheck is disabled (sometimes)
When I resume the torrent, as it halts when this happens, it proceeds smoothly until the next Hash: Element not found error
It doesn't happen at a particular %age
Solutions Attempted:
Searched online a lot to find a few below
Re-download elsewhere. Set download folder and change it and re-download the torrent. NO! DOESN'T WORK! and its FRUSTRATING that I'd to DELETE my 90% downloaded torrent!!
Good 'ol thump. Swear at the screen making heavy fist thumps and hand gestures. Surprisingly, this doesn't work!
Force recheck. Doesn't help and sometimes not available.
Disk I/O errors. Came across an article which said this might due to Disk I/O errors.
Realized I was using a DELL laptop
Realized HDD had failed on a previous DELL
Tried Solution #2 again. Same results.
Seemed like the most likely explanation to the problem, hence read articles about HDD checking and downloaded a few suggested softwares to check HDD Health
Interestingly, the HDD was a OK
None of these worked!
I got this error when my hard drive ran out of disk space, so I think it is related to some file / disk access issue, depending on where you are writing to
I was trying to download some large files to a network drive (Windows XP to Samba) and I was getting the same Element Not Found error.
In my case, enabling the disk cache has solved the issue. I had to uncheck the Disable Windows caching of disk writes and Disable Windows caching of disk reads options under uTorrent Options -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Disk Cache (this way enabling the cache).
Source: http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/34159-error-element-not-found/page-2#entry251137
I really think this question belongs to SuperUser though.
The working solution turned out to be pretty simple.
Check your Anti-Virus!
My antivirus was quietly quarantining a few suspected files.
Added those files to the exclusion list.
All is well again.
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I have got i5-560m dell laptop with windows 7 (x64) on board with 8gb 1333 ddr ram. I started installation of VS 2010 professional with full option.... something like 12 hours ago... and it is still at 4th component on installation list. It does something because after hour... progress bar is moving.... but that crappy installation window has got problems with refreshing itself so I cannot toggle it to visibility by alt+tab or click on it.... just minimizing everything brings it to my eyes. But this is not main issue. The most confusing aspect is the process itself! It consumes already 3,9 GB of RAM with CPU load of 22%... and acts very slowly when whole system responds very quickly even though over 5gb of RAM is consumed now.
My question is... there is any magic I should do before I run this installer (which is marked as 32-bit process in task manager - why?). Sincerely I killed almost all redundant processes after 8 hours because thought some other stuff blocks it... but didn't help at all. How long it should take? Could it be somehow speed ed up?
It shouldn't take that long. I would say maybe half an hour max. The setup is probably hung up waiting for some resource or input from another process (I've had setup's hang for several minutes because of UAC before).
I would say do this:
Cancel the install
Turn off UAC
Reboot your system
Try the install again. Note: If it's from a DVD, try making an image of it and installing from there via Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120%.
Don't forget to turn UAC back on.
If you have UAC turned off, try turning it on, maybe VS is looking for that.
I install it in 10-20 mins. Something is wrong with your laptop. If you got antivirus app disable it, if the matter still exist, then probably that's cause of viruses or spywares. Another possibility is misconfiguration of windows or some apps.
The best solution is reinstalling windows.
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I'm using Window 7 Ultimate. I get a problem with two processes, namely explorer.exe and sometimes dwm.exe.
The two processes tend to use cpu between 20-30%.
And it only occurs when i play some game on my PC. My PC works perfect until I play some game.
And another important observation:
They consume no cpu as such but only consumes when I try to refresh my desktop. I mean when I right-click on desktop. It takes seconds for refresh.
I have no virus problems.
I had already tried following things:
Kill explorer.exe and relaunch from task manager. (Problem still persists)
Kill dwm.exe, well it relaunches again. (Problem still persists)
Log Off and Log On. (Problem still persists)
Restart. Problem Solved. (But need an alternative).
Can anyone kindly suggest some quick fixes to the problem?
Those who get the same problem may refer to this question at super user asked by me.
https://superuser.com/questions/254343/window-7-problem-explorer-exe-dwm-exe
My problem solved with ShellExView.
Yeah, this is to be expected. Both of those are critical components of the Windows operating system.
Explorer.exe is responsible for the desktop, the file manager, the taskbar, and most visible components of the Windows shell. Generally, when you're not interacting with a particular application program, you're interacting directly with Windows Explorer. And it's still there in the background when applications are running, managing those applications and the underlying system.
DWM stands for "Desktop Window Manager", which should help to give away what it does. It's a graphical subsystem that was introduced in Windows Vista, and it's responsible for the fancy 3D effects that you get on your desktop now. It drives the "Aero" user interface, so things like glass transparency, Aero Peek, Aero Shake, and a host of other eye candy features are implemented by this process.
Understanding what both of those processes are and what they do should help to explain the phenomenon you cite in your question:
They consume no cpu as such but only consumes when i try to refresh my desktop. I mean when i right click on desktop.
When you refresh your desktop, you're invoking functionality provided by both of those processes. Explorer is responsible for drawing the desktop itself (programmatically, it's implemented as an iconic ListView control managed by Explorer), and DWM is responsible for the graphics subsystem that gets the desktop, in all its beautifully composited glory, onto the screen in the first place.
Using between 20-30% of your CPU is hardly an outrageous draw. That leaves plenty left over for your foreground applications. It's also difficult to monitor exactly what percentage of the CPU those processes are using without altering the results.
But, from the symptoms that you've described, you can be sure that you don't have a virus or anything else wrong with your computer. That's just Windows running, doing its thing. If your computer is struggling to keep up with the game that you're playing, you may need to consider upgrading some of your computer's components (namely your RAM, processor, and/or graphics card).
If you're recently upgraded your computer to Windows 7 from an earlier version (like Windows XP), and have noticed your performance slow down as a result, your graphics card may be struggling under the 800-pound gorilla that is DWM. All of the Aero effects are expensive to run—not a problem for today's overpowered and overpriced video cards that generally sit around doing nothing, but a significant performance hit for older systems that used to run just fine with older versions of the OS. You might try reverting to the Windows Classic theme, which will disable most of the Aero-themed goodness, but will also put some of the "pep" back into your computer's step. Do that by right-clicking on your desktop, selecting "Personalize", and changing your theme to Windows Classic.
Both explorer and dwm are "necessary" files that Windows runs. Explorer.exe is basically all the user interface you see on Windows: the desktop, the taskbar, explorer, etc. Similarly, dwm.exe is the Desktop Window Manager: it governs all the effects that were added with Vista and 7, like the taskbar thumbnails that appear when you hover over a taskbar item, transparency, etc. So it makes sense that you see action on them when trying to refresh the desktop.
I've never actually looked to see how much processing power they use at any given time, so I can't say whether that's excessive or not, but there's really nothing wrong with either one; they probably ought to be running, and unless they're causing undue CPU use, you probably don't need to worry about them. And if you do need to worry about them, then it might be a consequence of your computer not being powerful enough to run Windows 7.
All that said, this isn't really a question for this site. I'm still pretty new here myself, but I think this should be moved to Superuser?
I'm stuck trying to debug a problem which only occurs on my machine. It doesn't exhibit on any of the other devs' systems, nor on our production test server. I've tried pretty much everything I can think of short of completely wiping my hard disk and starting from scratch, or sneaking into the office in the middle of the night to swap my computer with someone else's.
This brings to mind the titular question, then: short of those drastic measures, what do you do when trying to resolve issues that no one else has? I'm open to advice that's general or specific.
[Not sure if this should be CW or not.]
Have you attached a debugger to the program to find the exact point of failure? That is what I would do first.
Sometimes third party software can be the root cause of these sorts of issues. Things like Anti-virus software install low-level filesystem and network drivers that can cause random intermittent failures. You can try killing all processes that aren't base OS services and your app.
Depending on your OS there are different tools that you can use to see what's going on under the covers. E.g. on Windows you can use Process Monitor to see what Registry keys it opens, what DLLs get loaded, etc. You can run this on your machine and on the success machines and compare to see if perhaps some required module is missing .
But seriously, use a debugger. That's what they are there for.
Two things:
I start with the obvious: What's different on your box? More memory? Odball PCI card? Different Microsoft APIs or service packs?
For oddball random software and/or OS crashes:
Check your system for heat issues.
Check your RAM for bad bits.
In this situation, I would try to check out the code and cleanly rebuild it from a different directory to make sure that there are no miscellaneous files in your working directory that are causing a problem.
If you are doing work against a database, I would also try tearing down the database and reconstructing it, possibly using a dump from another developer's machine.
Check the versions of any external third party software - database version, OS version, even software patches.
Look at the configuration on someone else's machine who doesn't have the problem and compare.
Get another developer to sit at your workstation and try to reproduce the problem and also go to their workstation and try it. True story - a fellow developer had a bug that he could only reproduce on his machine...it turns out that he was doing something slightly different in the GUI that no one else was doing (tabbing to a button and then hitting enter, everyone else just hit enter). It never occurred to him that other people might just hit enter to submit, because that "didn't make sense" to him.