The Microsoft Software Forum Network is a website which hosts community forums consisting of expert Windows users. One user called speedemon86 complained about periods of slowness, and random reboots with a Windows XP machine (1.2Ghz 512Mb RAM) used primarily for web browsing, e-mail and word processing. He wanted to trim down the automatic services and startup services. Poolsharkzz offered to help for a fee, boasting of a startup time of 42 seconds. He also suggested upgrading the hardware. Th3_Un1qu3 boasted of a startup in under 40 seconds. Maggotspawn recommended 1Gb RAM for XP. Both Poolsharkzz and Th3_Un1qu3 suggested tweaking the hosts file. Speedemon86 returned pondering a fresh install (of XP+SP3) as XP had grown to 4.8Gb. JedMeister concurred that a fresh install might be quicker than tweaks. Speedemon86 then found 5 trojans. Poolsharkzz suggested a long list of programs to install.

An argument about disabling services ensued with Poolsharkzz and JedMeister in favour and Zxian and Mr Snrub against.

Poolsharkzz admitted he usually spends a day and a half with a client's computer - 12-14 hours - all this for $450.00.

I suggested Puppy Linux, maggotspawn agreed.

The thread can be found here.