this is a very good article with suggestions by Miekie MVP, as she and most MVP's agree do not try using a registry cleaner they are not for novice users. The outline she presents is a very good one. Help! My computer is slow! You did not mention how much memory you have on that pc, can you tell us that please. If you do not know much about your pc and would like a good tool that will tell you everything about your pc get the free belarc tool. Belarc' and to make sure you do not have a malware infection you can get the free malwarebytes antimalware, install it update it then run full scan and allow it to remove all infections it finds. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

I'm not sure how you set up your backup drive, but mine only backs up files periodically according to a schedule. The schedule I chose was to backup at 3am when I'm not using it. In my experience, when the backup drive is copying files from the main hard drive, the main drive might respond a tad slower. However, being on the Internet and surfing to things like Facebook shouldn't really be affected unless you are trying to upload pictures, etc., while the backup is running, especially since it sounds like you have a newer computer with probably adequate RAM. You may coincidentally have something else going on.

Mikie...You're a genius! And...beyond that...never let it be said that any of us supposed techie geeks know everything about everything all of the time. :-) I'm living proof...it t'ain't true. Case in point. Recently, I had to have a new modem installed by my cable ISP. The young man that did it was charming and very helpful but I fear he tried to clean up a couple of apps that he thought might be slowing my system. After he left....I checked to make sure everything was running and then shut my system down. 24 hours later...I was tearing my hair out wondering why the loading speed of my system hadn't improved. To the contrary...it had gotten worse. Well...I did all the usual checks...checking wiring/plugs [theirs and mine]...checked apps...defrag...invasive programs, yada...yada...yada...and still couldn't find the problem....UNTIL I happened by here this morning and read this thread. HALLELUJAH !!! As soon as I read your post...I went looking and apparently my young ISP serviceman wasn't aware that Java was a system requirement...and he uninstalled it. Thanks to your incite...I reloaded it and my system is now delightedly skipping along at its original fast pace. THANK YOU...THANK YOU...THANK YOU !!! Anne

linux is great for kids to use! if you have an old pc that you could not get to work well with windows anymore because it is just old and not powerful then it will probably run linux just fine since linux uses much less space and memory. Just use one of the live cd's and run it right off the cd rom drive if you want, they can still use the browser to surf all they want and pretty much anything else they want to do but nothing gets installed and nothing gets infected! Once you have the browser up it is just like using firefox on windows, I had company recently that asked if they could use my pc to check email and play some online games etc, I said sure and I pulled up firefox for them and after about 10 mins I walked over and said everything ok? Yes fine. I said so have you used linux before, NO , well you are now! they could not believe it, I had to prove it to them. They left my house with the instructions on getting a copy! Those grandkids just do the darnedest things LOL