Is MS slowing down your OS?

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

About a year ago a friend said something that at the time thought was ridiculous, but after seeing many slowdowns, I'm beginning to believe it....He said that Microsoft will put put a patch that slows down your PC to make you either buy another computer with MS's latest OS or buy the latest os.
Sure you can blame it on bloatware, but I'm thinking that it is in MS's best interest to let you think that. I know that my OS drive is still PATA, but with a quadcore and 4 gigs of ram, it should not take five minutes to get a :usable" desktop in XP home edition.
Here lately, if I have to restart, I will just go make a cup of coffee, or a sandwich, because it will be that long b4 I can do anything computer related anyhow, and I hate waiting on anything.
So I am thinking that I should turn off auto updating, and just risk whatever security flaw they "discovered" in the meantime.

What do you all think, IS MS purposely slowing the old OS to get you to buy the new?
And if so, how would we know?
I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions on this.
Thank you all for looking at my rant

 

[TiZakit]

I'm sure this is exactly why enterprises are just now going from xp to 7. /sarcasm.


It makes no sense. I have PCs in a production environment running updated xp that run fine.
Not one or two, but several hundred that we are moving off of XP for software compliance reasons.

 

[pcgamer4life]

I'm sure there are patches and updates that, over time, will consume more resources than a 'vanilla' install of the OS. After 10 years running XP, I guess it's possible that the accumulation of patches and updates might start to slow down an old machine that has a ton of crap already wrong with it.

But no, I don't think Microsoft pushes out patches with the sole intention of making your current machine or OS obsolete.

 

[caddi daddi]

with xp I have to reimage the disk every month or so, with 7 it's every 3 or four months.

reimage it and update it and it's back to it's old self again.
I think it's just the crud that collects in the file system that causes it.
windows just seems to like to grow and grow and grow and hang on to stuff you have tried to get rid of.

 

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

Yea, I was just saying that Joe Sixpack wouldn't know if the patch MS just installed would fix any problems, or cause any...and I dkn if I was clear enough, but my computer runs fine...just takes forever to start, and for Joe/Jane Sixpack, who starts his/her computer every day it could get annoying. Me though, I never turn off my rig, except to do maintenance....so I don't see the problem every day, but it seems that when I do restart, it takes longer each time to get to a usable desktop.
Maybe it is just me being impatient?

 

[sobe]

I think it might be because you don't have an SSD ;D

 

[freakdiablo]

I've been going on the same W7 install ever since I upgraded to an SSD (60gb first gen Vertex, so maybe 3 years now). So far, no real slowdown. Went for maybe a year or so on a Vista install before that.

However, I still believe an OS can slow down over time, but not due to MS intentionally sabotaging it. If they did, then instead of going to a new PC with Windows, users might say something along the lines of "hey, my last PC ran windows and it slowed down after a while, how do I know this won't do the same and I won't be back here in 2 years?"

What they do is what most software companies do. They don't support their stuff forever. They set an EOL date, then tell people after that their computer is no longer running an OS, it's running a liability, and get people to pay for an upgrade that way.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Takes my sig rig ~5-10 minutes to be 'usable' (ready to mine coins)..........

So either it's true, or I should get rid of my WD Green drives


It wouldn't surprise me if M$ actually did that though.

 

[freakdiablo]

I don't know if it's fair (SSD vs not just a HDD, but Greens), but my computer goes from cold dead off to useable in ~25-30 seconds, and that's with this annoying BIOS screen this 670 gives me and my windows P/W screen. Get similar boot times off all my PCs. Of course I don't have a PC with a HDD boot drive that's also running windows though

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

I don't know if it's fair (SSD vs not just a HDD, but Greens), but my computer goes from cold dead off to useable in ~25-30 seconds, and that's with this annoying BIOS screen this 670 gives me and my windows P/W screen. Get similar boot times off all my PCs. Of course I don't have a PC with a HDD boot drive that's also running windows though

Amazing how fast SSD'd are to my Greens eh?

When I finally build my own rig, SSD (or WD Black) drives

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

OS rot, XP is famous for it, patches , left over files, fragmented harddrive, program files, programs and yes an old IDE drive will be slow by todays standards too.....

Toss in flash, java and other crap....

i doubt MS would slow down the OS, they are in a war to make sure their OS is fast an efficient so people dont abandon ship to OSX or other alternatives.

 

[gangaskan]

i would be more inclined to see a massive registry causing a slowdown more than anything.




also, one other thing is some companies will not support xp period.

 

[Xeon_KI]

Maybe this is what he was referring to?
Not really a patch that makes the OS slower, but the process of looking for patches.
http://arstechnica.com/information-...m-making-windows-xp-miserable-could-be-fixed/

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Maybe this is what he was referring to?
Not really a patch that makes the OS slower, but the process of looking for patches.
http://arstechnica.com/information-...m-making-windows-xp-miserable-could-be-fixed/

I 'd

 

[c627627]

On my my older Athlon XP computers, I install Windows XP/Windows 2000 dual boot. I install Windows XP SP2 and update it without installing SP3 because I noticed SP3 does slow down older Athlon XP systems.


As one of the posters above noted, reimaging is key for speeding up older and newer systems. Partition the drive wisely, do not keep personal data on OS partition, preferably have a dual boot in there and nuke & reimage as often as once a month. Of course, if you want to speed up the computer, SSDs are cheap and even a small one will hold at least two OS partitions nicely (just make sure you don't format an SSD under Windows XP, they have to be formatted under Vista/7/8.) SSD will increase your speed dramatically.

Other than SSD, keep a good eye on what loads at start up: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/what_run_in_startup.html


My favorite 32-Bit programs since Windows 95 days which work under Windows XP are:

This one intercepts %$#&! intruders inserting themselves into Windows Startup without asking you:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131105052937/http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml
I resisted upgrading to 64-Bit windows only becasue of that program until Windows 8 came out. Only WinPatrol pay-for program can do that today for 64-Bit Windows.

And What's In Startup equivalent:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131114070048/http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

 

[c627627]

What do you all think, IS MS purposely slowing the old OS to get you to buy the new?
And if so, how would we know?
I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions on this.

But to address your specific question. It's one thing to make blanket statements and another to offer concrete proof. I saved this note from 10-15 years ago, addressing your question:


Windows update installs KB891711.exe and KB918547.exe patches that are run *every time* Windows 98/Me boots.

They slow the system down significantly and result in frequent errors saying "There is not enough memory to run this porgram..." or "Insufficient memory to run this application; close one or more Windows applications and try again." or

Start Menu > Run... > msconfig
to disable them from running at startup.

KB891711.exe addresses a "Vulnerability in cursor and icon format handling could allow remote code execution" and KB918547.exe addresses a "Vulnerability in the Graphics Rendering Engine could allow remote code execution"

The protection may not be worth it if the system slows down significantly with frequent "Insufficient memory" errors that have nothing to do with the amount of available RAM or other resources but are a direct side effect of these patches. Using Windows search may also slow down the system to the point of being unusable if these two .exe files are run at startup.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;891711
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;918547




So that note I wrote does not really say those two exe files are inserted to slow down the old system and make you upgrade. They are there for legitimate security reasons. But what good is security on a completely crippled down old system which cannot handle running those mandatory critical update exe files at startup? They are old system killers. Medicine which killed the patient.

 

[Firas]

I did not read all posts but s SSD and more memory and updated drivers will go along way with speed ur looking for OS 7 64

 

[benbaked]

Have you checked the Event Viewer to see if you can pinpoint what is slowing down your system at startup?

 

[Realee]

My boys' computers' are running Windows 8 and still start in <10 seconds (To usable desktop)

It's not Windows XP but I haven't seen ANY slow down at all since I installed them (One of which is 10 months the other 8 months)

I'm sure there's a boatload of people out there that check each and every update before and after installation that check and it would be across the internet if this was standard M$ practice.