Stripping bloat ware and getting Windows 8.1 to run clean and efficient.

[Melvang]

So, I have this laptop that was inherited from my father in law.  It is a 3 ish year old HP budget model. 

Specs are as follows.

AMD E2-1800 with integrated Radeon HD Graphics all running at 1.7 GHz
4GB RAM
500ish GB HDD

Some of the issues.  This was my father in laws laptop before he passed, and I still need to try and get into his login accounts to see if there are any pictures that my wife might want me to save.  Because of the age and lack of hardware, I am very paranoid about reformatting/reinstalling for fear of losing everything. 

Also, being an HP laptop and my father in laws previous girlfriend, there is a ton of preinstalled bloat ware and games that I want to get rid of.

All I am planning on doing with this laptop is web browsing, KiCad, and possibly netflix/hulu and or skype.

Any help here with tools to speed this up would be amazing.

[tp4tissue]

Mmmmmmm.......

IMHO   Mel,   I wouldn't bother fixing this up,  EVEN for browsing,  firefox / ie / chrome  have become pretty CPU heavy,   and you're going to see this thing choke up quite a bit on our java and image heavy internet these days..


It should work for everything else,   But without an SSD,  more slowness..



Ideally, with these specs you want to run the leanest system possible,  so either Windoz XP  or Linux...


Win 7 is very sluggish on cpus with less than 1500 single thread benchmark score,  for example sandybridge 2520m is the minimum you want to go for a smooth running win 7 with 1490score  vs  the E2-1800 @ ~448 single thread performance

[Melvang]

TP,

This machine is really only going to be used when I am traveling and staying in a hotel for work.  I can't swap hardware for multiple reasons. I have already tried installing Linux Lubuntu and it wouldn't install.  Couldn't get past the screen that allows either install or run without install.  So, last option is to trim the fat on this install.

[tp4tissue]

Ok, you're gonna need an   ARrrgh-matey copy of Win 7..


Then you're going to put it in high-performance mode in power options,   Leave CPU at 100% always

Disable anything that says power saving in Bios.

Run the app called Timer Resolution all the time, just keep it in the background.

Run UnparkCPU app..


Keep your windows 7 partition in a 50GB section, and so when you need to defragment, you don't have to defragment the whole 500GB



Disable tablet component,  Disable windows gadget platform, Disable Windows firewall,    You can run Avast, but only if you're going to Naughty websites..  otherwise it's not necessary..



For media players to play movies that are from arrrghmatey publications,  make sure to use one that supports DXVA, because otherwise the cpu won't playback 1080p//



kicad and stuff,  all that will work fine..



I'd still go with WinXP,   buhhh lots of people don't want to deal with the manual updating, so there's that..

[fohat.digs]

Download *gparted* (aka Gnome Partition Editor) and shrink the back end of the Windows partition by 20G or more to give you room to create a new Linux partition and install some flavor of Linux in that tail end of the hard drive.

From within the Linux partition, after you boot into the new Linux OS, you should be able to find the photos or whatever on the NTFS partition and and download them onto a flash drive or whatever.

After that, "nuke and pave" and start over however you like.

[SpAmRaY]

If the laptop can boot from a linux distro on a flash drive that would be much safer for back up activities.

[Melvang]

Well, some good news.  I am currently typing this from Mint Cinnamon.  Part of the reason to get Linux on here was to attempt to get to pictures on other locked windows accounts, or at least look for pics. 

When I am digging through the Windows user accounts from Linux, I keep finding desktop.ini files.  What are those?

[vivalarevolución]

I did want to add in your other thread that the frustrations you had with installing Linux are exactly the reasons that most people are turned off of Linux.

[xtrafrood]

Loading up task manager and unchecking startup programs might help. Currently typing this from Mint Cinnamon

You can access local Windows accounts with this:
https://www.amazon.com/Recovery-Password-Better-Windows-Versions-7/dp/B01BO6604S

Obligatory Linus Tech Tips video showing how it's done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_JIhn3vJVI

[chuckdee]

When I am digging through the Windows user accounts from Linux, I keep finding desktop.ini files.  What are those?

http://www.howtogeek.com/96410/what-are-these-desktop.ini-files-i-keep-seeing/

Excerpt:

Have you ever seen those weird desktop.ini files that seem to pop-up everywhere? The truth is that they do serve a purpose and Windows uses them to identify how a folder should be displayed, much like the .DS_Store files used in OS X.

When you create a new folder in Windows it is created with the standard folder icon, one common use of the desktop.ini file is to use to it set a custom icon for a folder, however this is not the only thing that it is used for. A typical desktop.ini will look like something like this:

[.ShellClassInfo]
ConfirmFileOp=0
IconFile=Folder.ico
IconIndex=0
InfoTip=Type Your InfoTip Here.

[Melvang]

Loading up task manager and unchecking startup programs might help. Currently typing this from Mint Cinnamon

You can access local Windows accounts with this:
https://www.amazon.com/Recovery-Password-Better-Windows-Versions-7/dp/B01BO6604S

Obligatory Linus Tech Tips video showing how it's done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_JIhn3vJVI

The accounts I needed into aren't just local. They were created with @outlook accounts.

Either way, I dug through the files and found nothing.

I will be sure to check that out once I get rebooted.  Thank you for the link.  Installed Mint Cinnamon.

[SpAmRaY]

not sure if this will help but it might

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Reset-Microsoft-Account-Password-in-Windows/?ALLSTEPS

[tp4tissue]

are you looking for photos ON the drive ?

if that's the case,  why not just pull it out and stick it in another computer