On 8/7/2011 5:07 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

This is a Microsoft insider's personal improvement on Task Manager:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896653

It shows the active processes and how much of the CPU and memory they tie
up. It puts a handy mini graph of CPU activity down by the clock. I still
use v.11 for its simpler display.

HijackThis is a powerful (and dangerous) tool for detecting and removing
unwanted parasite programs by their registry entries.
http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/

I wouldn't be as daring with it if I didn't make reloadable C: backups.

The dealer installed and recommended Advanced System Care on this
second-hand laptop:
http://www.iobit.com/advancedsystemcareper.html

I've slowly been enabling more and more of its mysterious automatic repair
functions and haven't lost anything valuable to it yet, but again I have
recent backups of C: and on desktops I have several copies of the system in
plug-in hard drive cartridges so I can experiment on a spare copy. Too bad
that isn't available for medical and dental procedures.

There are many other such utilities, some of which I've tried and liked
less. Those three have good provenance and are reasonably easy to learn for
occasional use.


Thanks Jim - I'll give them a try (running ASC now).

Laurie Forbes