Okay Terry,
here is my troubleshooting list for internet issues on systems running Windows 7. On Windows 10 systems, the tips below for the most part will work but the system settings at the bottom of my list will be much harder to locate and implement. M$ in it's infinite wisdom has made each iteration of Windows harder and harder for the end user to manage.
1) Unplug your gateway by removing the power cord from wall or from the back of the gateway. Count to 30 then restore power.
--- This will clear the gateways routing tables. When the tables fill up, it can slow down your WAN connection.
2) Boot your computer into Safe Mode.
--- Booting into Safe Mode will clear/reset the Windows Prefetch cache file.
3) While still in Safe Mode run utilities like disk defrag (
Auslogics offers a nice defragger) and
CCleaner.
*Note: If you have never used CCleaner before and/or are daunted by all the options within it, I can PM you pre-configured ccleaner.ini and winapp2.ini files that CCleaner uses to store it's settings.
---Within CCleaner, run the registry utility first. After that run the disk cleaner utility.
The 3 steps listed above will take care of the majority of issues that usually effect Windows internet connections.
Other things within Windows that can adversely effect Windows:
A) Temp folders.
---Windows has always been notoriously bad at housekeeping and it's overly full temp folders are prime examples of this.
User Temp Folder (One for each user account): C:\Users\%%user%%\AppData\Local\Temp
Windows System Temp Folder: C:\Windows\Temp
--- I use a batch file, launched via Task Scheduler, to clean my temp folder at user login.
*Note: I edited my environment variables to point my user & system temp folders to use the same folder I created at C:\Temp. This makes it easier to manage temp files and to troubleshoot issues related to those same files. I will include it at the end of this post.
To edit environment variables, launch
Control Panel, click
System, then click
Advanced System Settings and finally click the
Environment Variables button.
B) Windows pagefile.sys file.
--- By default this file is managed by Windows. As such it will vary in size based on system demands. The problem with such a scheme is that the pagefile can become quite fragmented, which can impede system performance. Also, because Windows keeps varying the size of the pagefile with writes, erasures and rewrites constantly, it will eventually do so at a critically bad moment. That wrong instant will reward you with a Windows BSOD (Blue/Black Screen of Death), aka a system crash.
*The best way to mitigate the chance of a BSOD is to disable Windows ability to dynamically manage the size of the pagefile.
To edit pagefile size, launch
Control Panel, click
System, then click
Advanced System Settings, click the
Settings button in the performance section. In the new popup window click the
Advanced tab
, and finally in the
Virtual Memory section click the
Change button
. A new popup window will appear.
Now within the
Virtual Memory window, click the radio button for
Custom Size, note the
Recommended size (In MBs) for the pagefile at the bottom of the window, and input that number in the both the
Initial Size box and the
Maximum Size box. Then click the
Set button. Finally click
OK button for each popup window to close it in secession until all are closed. Windows will give you a popup warning you that your computer needs to reboot, click the
Reboot button to finalize your changes.
My Temp folder cleaner batch file
Code:
Title Temp Folder Cleaner
@ECHO OFF
CLS
:CLEAN
C:
CD C:\TEMP
IF EXIST acro_rd_dir RD /Q acro_rd_dir
ATTRIB -R /S /D
DEL /A -S -H /Q /S C:\TEMP\*.*
MD C:\1234
CHOICE /N /D N /T 1
CALL ROBOCOPY "C:\1234" "C:\TEMP" /MIR
RD C:\1234
:End
Exit