Help for a computer phobe

xmaslove

Hi all,

I'm a major computer phobe, I can use one just about but know nothing of managing the memory etc.

Now the pc is running really slowly, I have loads of music, itunes, limewire etc. and I've been told this is whats clogging it up but when I deleted the stuff from limewire it was gone off itunes also. I've been told that I need to set up a separate folder for my music and not a shared folder, and that I could set limewire to automatically save to this folder. Does anyone have any idea how I would do this as I have no clue at all. All advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

hopeful

This is not answering your question...but Limewire is an awful bit of junk that is, in all likelyhood, the cause of your PC running slowly and doing odd things. Downloads from limewire tend to be half spyware, adware and virus ridden.
I personally would not allow it in the same street as me!

Of course, others here may have other opinions.

ActorSeeksJob

if your pc is running slowly its probably due to you having a lot of programs run on startup, or that you happen to be uploading music/video files on limewire. as long as your hard drive capacity isnt extremely low then it wont matter if you use shared folders or separate folders.

but yes you should save any music files etc from limewire into a seperate folder. not sure exactly how you do it, maybe load up limewire, look for tools or "download folder" or something like that, and specify where you want your stuff to save. i save any emule stuff in C:\Program Files\eMule\incoming

Ruu_Old

Try running a viruscan and use an anti-spyware program also (avg anti-spyware or adaware), limewire might be your problem as some of the content could be virus ridden.

xmaslove

Forgot to say that I already have anti=virus and ad-aware and spyware running and I run these every week so I know it's not causing it.

ActorSeeksJob

doesnt even sound like you have virus/spyware from your post anyway.did you try my above post?

tallus

I'd agree with Hopeful, dump Limewire it's a crock.

Fanny Cradock

That's not necessarily a guarantee that you are free of spyware/ viruses. It is very possible that you are running so many minor programs that are using up your RAM - death by 1000 paper cuts kind of thing. I would suggest getting rid of any program that runs in the background that you are sure you don't need.

One of your first actions should be to defragging your hard drive.

start> all programs> accessories> system tools> disk defragmenter.

This will organise all info into a more ordered and accessible way, thus speeding matter up..


I find adaware useless. I heartily recommend using a combo of AVG Antispyware, Windows Defender and Spybot S&D.

i would also strongly consider downloading CCleaner. This is a brilliant free program that will free up space on your computer and also clean up your registry. Every time you delete or install something there are registry entries that can slow down your computer. A couple of things to note when using this simple program:

1) when you use the cleaner (it's a picture of a brush) deselect the option to clean you browser (e.g. IE, firefox opera etc). If you don't do this you will lose your history which can be a pain in the arse;

2) run the reg cleaner (picture of a blue box). when it completed the scan (only takes a few seconds) it will give you the option to back up all deleted entries. do so. all you have to do for this is create a folder - call it whatever you like - and select it as the destination for the back up.

Gadgetman496

xmaslove wrote:

Hi all,

I'm a major computer phobe, I can use one just about but know nothing of managing the memory etc.

Now the pc is running really slowly, I have loads of music, itunes, limewire etc. and I've been told this is whats clogging it up but when I deleted the stuff from limewire it was gone off itunes also. I've been told that I need to set up a separate folder for my music and not a shared folder, and that I could set limewire to automatically save to this folder. Does anyone have any idea how I would do this as I have no clue at all. All advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Well xmaslove,

to set a particular folder to contain all your Limewire downloads is straight forward.

Create a new folder, any folder you want,

Open Limewire & choose "TOOLS" - "OPTIONS" from the main menu bar.
The very first option you will see is "Saving" There you will see the area on the righthand side where you can specify the folder to use. (see Pic)



I've been using Limewire Pro for years & have never had a problem with it?
Over time you tend to be able to pick the do & don't download items, you can nearly smell the bogus stuff with experience, you know? like some idiot with something out there claiming to be an album & its size is only 3kb & so on.

I have come across many users claiming that it is "A Crock...." & I'm not doubting their experience with it for one minute, but I've never come across anyone offering a better alternative. I've tried a few but found none of them to be as good as Limewire Pro for single song downloads.

Anyone got a really good alternative to Limewire?

-

Sean^DCT4

gadgetman496 wrote:

Well xmaslove,

to set a particular folder to contain all your Limewire downloads is straight forward.

Create a new folder, any folder you want,

Open Limewire & choose "TOOLS" - "OPTIONS" from the main menu bar.
The very first option you will see is "Saving" There you will see the area on the righthand side where you can specify the folder to use. (see Pic)



I've been using Limewire Pro for years & have never had a problem with it?
Over time you tend to be able to pick the do & don't download items, you can nearly smell the bogus stuff with experience, you know? like some idiot with something out there claiming to be an album & its size is only 3kb & so on.

I have come across many users claiming that it is "A Crock...." & I'm not doubting their experience with it for one minute, but I've never come across anyone offering a better alternative. I've tried a few but found none of them to be as good as Limewire Pro for single song downloads.

Anyone got a really good alternative to Limewire?

-

Completely agree with you on this.
I've been downloading since the days of download ratio FTP servers on mIRC.
Limewire was initially slow due to bad programming on the Java side.

Since the latest Java Development Kits and JRE's have been released Limewire runs as fast as any peer2peer Win32 variant.

Limewire pro = good
Limewire free = ok

All this said, you have to have an eye for malicious software.
As you said 99% of the time you can spot it in the filesize or naming of the file.


@xmaslove

Scan your data you want to backup.
Copy it to DVD / Portable Hard-drive
Scan the contents you backep up, again.
Format drive
Re-install your Operating System (guessing it's Windows XP)
Once XP is up install ZoneAlarm Security Suite.
Download latest JRE from http://java.sun.com
Download LimeWire Pro

Soundman

gadgetman496 wrote:

Anyone got a really good alternative to Limewire?

-

I haven't yet tried it myself but I have it on good authority that Frostwire is far superior to Limewire. Less Spy-Ware and the like for starters.

Gadgetman496

Soundman wrote:

I haven't yet tried it myself but I have it on good authority that Frostwire is far superior to Limewire. Less Spy-Ware and the like for starters.

Cheers for that Soundman,

It looks interesting & extremely familiar too

A little bit about where it came from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FrostWire

I will be checking this out :rolleyes:

.

xmaslove

thanks everyone for all the advice, sorry it took so long to get back to you all.

Gadgetman496

Soundman wrote:

I haven't yet tried it myself but I have it on good authority that Frostwire is far superior to Limewire. Less Spy-Ware and the like for starters.

Well Soundman,

I finally got around to installing Frostwire & trying it out

It's all good

Cheers for the tip....:cool:

TerrorFirmer

I'd never heard of Frostwire actually. Don't have any problems with Limewire pro myself but Frostwire seems like a handy all-in-one for torrents and stuff

Khannie

Getting progressively dodgier.......