[Adama]

Hi everyone. I've noticed for the past few days that my Gadgets are taking a long time to load at start up.
Today I timed it, and they took almost a full 2 minutes to load. That's and extraordinarily long time. Can you help me figure out what's going on?

I have Windows Vista Home Premium on my laptop, and I like my Gadgets to always show up on top of my desktop.

Your assistance is appreciated.

[lilxkid24]

Most likely you have too much stuff on your startup and its just taking time for each thing to load since you have antispyware,antivirus, other stuff and gadget. As in gadgets loading you mean the whole strip itself or each individual gadget you have on there?

[techie4fun]

Your hard drive is defragged constantly so my only concern would be what's starting during startup as Lilx mentioned.

[Adama]

lilxkid24 said:

Most likely you have too much stuff on your startup and its just taking time for each thing to load since you have antispyware,antivirus, other stuff and gadget. As in gadgets loading you mean the whole strip itself or each individual gadget you have on there?

Hi Lil,

No, I don't have as much stuff loading at startup time, since I pruned everything down sometime last month.

And yes, I mean the whole strip with my five gadgets on it, on top of everything.

[Adama]

Hi TFF,

Hmmm... no, my HD is not defragged constantly, only once a week.

[Adama]

Hi guys, I think I may have an idea what's causing the Gadgets to load up so slowly. About a week ago, when I was checking out a website posted by one of our members, a Java thingy tried to install itself on my computer.


It's still trying to install itself and I don't know how to delete it. It shows me a balloon asking me to install it, at least 3 or 4 times a day.

The Java icon showed up in my Notification area, and when I right-clicked, there's NO Delete option available.

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
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[techie4fun]

I doubt it's Java, but I am usually wrong.

When was the last time you installed the latest Vista patches? Your situation may be the sluggish performance of a patched system .

[Adama]

I install the patches when they're downloaded to my computer. Doesn't everybody download the appropriate patches when they come out?

The problems didn't start until after that Java thing tried to install itself, that's why I think that's the main reason for the Gadgets slowing down.

[lilxkid24]

java is not the problem i believe. Maybe its your internet slow since those gadgets require an internet connection to show like weather and stuff. I never use gadgets on vista so im not too sure.

[Flashorn]

Hey sweetie!!


I don't install any up-dates from MS until the dust settles. I mean that, not

all off the patches work as intended the first time around. Most of the time

the patches are OK, to install but, you get the odd one that will disrupt more

than anything else. This is why I wait and see or rather read about their effect

on others (like you) who installs everything that MS downloads. You should have the

auto up-date set to "Notify Me When There Are New Up-Dates". Ask Woody.com .



Adama, PLZ read ALL of my post before doing anything. It's just that you will have to follow

my suggestions in order that they appear.Thankx



Now, for your Java Problem , What you see is the Java Auto-Update mechanism.

To get rid of this unsightly icon go to"

Start , Control Panel , Now in the Control Panel you should see the Java Icon:

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
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Double Click on the Java Icon. You should see a Java Control Panel appear:





Now Click on the Update Tab. At the top of this update tab there will be a :"Check For Updates Automatically"



You should "Un-Check" this check box. You will get this Warning:



You can click on the Check Monthly or Never Check, it's up to you. If you decide to click

on the Never Check then you would have to verify the up-dates every now and then.



OK, after you have unchecked the box and chosen which way you want Java to check

for Updates. YOU WILL now click on the APPLY, NOT the OK just Yet.



While you have the Java Control Panel opened , you should also clean out the Temp Files in Java.

To do this. On the first page called "General" you will see at the bottom a "Settings"tab. Click on that.

Next , will appear this box:



Click on the "Delete Files" button. The next box to appear will be this one:

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Simply Click on the OK button and all is don.

NOW you should Click on the OK button of all the remaining

Open Tabs.

You will probably have to reboot or just Log Off and then Log back ON.

This usually does the trick. Post back to tell me if you have removed the Icon.





FLASHORN. !http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
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[Adama]

Hi Flash!

I was wondering where you were... LOL ;)

I remember reading one of your posts a couple of weeks ago where you talked about some of the problems with Java, and how to get rid of Java, but I couldn't remember where the thread was.

So, thanks for all the great info. :x You're always so helpful with all the right words and the Snips to help guide everybody. I printed your comment (of course) and I will be following all the steps you suggested when I have the chance - it'll probably be tomorrow, though.

As far as the updates are concerned... I don't always install them right away, sometimes I wait until I hear if you guys have received a bunch of updates, and if it's ok to download them. < Hmmmm..... I guess I'm not as gullible as you think, ey? >

Right now I have 7, count them, seven, updates waiting to be installed. I took a Snip to show you:



!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
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And 3 of them that have been there for almost a year, and will not ever be installed by me. :p

[piyushsingh]

Follow Flashorn's post to remove autocheck for java runtime updates OR just install the updates once. The notification wont come up again till the next update is released.

Regarding gadgets -
* How many gadgets in all in your sidebar ?
* Any 3rd party gadget apart from those pre-installed in vista that you have downloaded and installed ? If yes, mention it.
* Open task manager . CtrlShiftEsc keys. Go to processes tab and check for the process(s) named sidebar.exe and post the memory usage for this process listed there.

[Adama]

Hi Piyush, I'm glad to see you back.
To answer your questions:


* Only 5 gadgets on my sidebar.

* No 3rd party gadgets, only the MSFT ones that came with my computer.

* I took this Snip for you this morning:
!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
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The sidebar.exe was fluctuating from 14,864K to 15,128K. Right now it's at 12,216K.

[lilxkid24]

Holy crap 82 processes running. Your memory usage is very high which causes lags and slowdowns. You should disable some of the things you don't need.

[piyushsingh]

Memory usage of sidebar.exe looks normal to me. What is not is the 48% cpu usage. Did you take this snip while doing some heavy work on the laptop or does the cpu usage stays high all the time ?
Also did you remove the java update check as mentioned by Flashorn. First do it plz , it will only take a minute.

[Adama]

piyushsingh said:

Memory usage of sidebar.exe looks normal to me. What is not is the 48% cpu usage. Did you take this snip while doing some heavy work on the laptop or does the cpu usage stays high all the time ?
Also did you remove the java update check as mentioned by Flashorn. First do it plz , it will only take a minute.

Hi Piyush,

I have no idea why the cpu usage is at 48%, and I wasn't doing anything else when I took the Snip. Yesterday I installed Ad Muncher and I know that's been running in the background, getting rid of Yahoo's ads and stuff. I had never checked the cpu usage before so I don't know if it stays that high.

I didn't remove the Java update yet. I've had a busy morning, I had to go with my BFF to BestBuy, because she was buying a laptop, and we just came back a little while ago.

[piyushsingh]

In the task manager only , you can monitor your CPU usage in the performance tab. In idle conditions , the cpu usage should not go more than 5% . Some spikes can be present. So after startup , check the usage for about a minute and if it stays high , go to the processes tab again and see what process in taking most usage .

Why i m stressing on first removing java update check is because if that it the culprit , then there is no need to do all other stuff.

[lilxkid24]

Hey Adama can you show a whole snip of your process so we know what is consuming the most memory and how much it is consuming.

[Adama]

piyushsingh said:

In the task manager only , you can monitor your CPU usage in the performance tab. In idle conditions , the cpu usage should not go more than 5% . Some spikes can be present. So after startup , check the usage for about a minute and if it stays high , go to the processes tab again and see what process in taking most usage .

Why i m stressing on first removing java update check is because if that it the culprit , then there is no need to do all other stuff.You must already know that I had never done this before, so I'm just as puzzled as you guys are.

I logged out and did the Java thing as Flashorn suggested. I followed all the steps and the Java icon is no longer on my notification area! YAY. However, the Gadgets are still taking a long time to load, I clocked them from 3:57:00 pm to 3:58:56 pm.

Also, I checked the task manager again, and I took another Snip to show you:

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
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The Processes kept changing, first it was 76, then it changed to other numbers. Also, the CPU usage kept changing too - it started with 8 which made me happy, but then changed to 10, 18, 20, 33, then jump up to 64, 70, 80, 29 percent. Then back down to 8, 11, and so on. It seems to jump from one number to the other, so there was no way to pin it down to one low number like you suggested.

How can I tell which process is taking the most usage? And, why is that important?

[Adama]

lilxkid24 said:

Hey Adama can you show a whole snip of your process so we know what is consuming the most memory and how much it is consuming.

Hi Lil, how do you want me to show a Snip of my processes? Do you want me to go page by page?