Computers slow ever since Windows XP was downgraded.

[jeffclark1070-p40]

Ever since our stake clerk came in and loaded an "Upgrade" to windows XP our computer is really slow in loading MLS and any other program. Was there any particular reason that the Church decided to do this?

[russellhltn]

Security. The instructions acknowledge that the computer may be slower but indicated that the added security is "worth it".

[Mikerowaved]

I think most of us felt the slowdown. If your MLS computer only has 256MB of RAM, you can get a small boost by increasing it to 512MB.

[codyntn-p40]

We also found the slow down. After much study, we found that we needed to increase memory fron 256mb to 512mb and immediatly recognized a large improvement. The systems in clerks offices have 2 banks of memory and should have identical memory on BOTH banks for a small additional speed improvement. Our Stake Clerk was of a mind to double memory again, but I was able to show him that memory was far from being over used.

The loss of speed was because security in that the anti-virus was grabbing a bunch of memory and leaving only a very small amount. The result was that practically anything done by the clerk would cause swapping between memory and virtual memory (hard drive). Now that is stopped and virtual memory is almost or perhaps never used.

The place where clerks found the greatest speed problems was in doing a send/receive in MLS. Sometimes communications would time out and they would have to retry the send/receive. Some clerks even reported that they had seen a send/receive take 3 hours! They weren't real happy with that.

[aebrown]

The place where clerks found the greatest speed problems was in doing a send/receive in MLS. Sometimes communications would time out and they would have to retry the send/receive. Some clerks even reported that they had seen a send/receive take 3 hours! They weren't real happy with that.

I really doubt that send/receive performance has much to do with memory. Rather it seems much more related to the load on the servers the Church uses for communication. The major slowdowns in send/receive always happen at peak times on Sundays. If you transmit during the week it will be much faster (but that's not much help, considering we are required to transmit on Sundays).

[russellhltn]

I really doubt that send/receive performance has much to do with memory.

I've seen reports that processing the send/receive improves with memory. I'm in agreement that it seems unlikely that the actual phone call time would change much.

One fast way to tell is to look at the hard drive activity light. If it's only flickering now and then, memory swap isn't an issue. If it's on more then it's off, then memory might come into play.

One big issue in send/receive time is the Symantec Anti-Virus update files. By default Symantec will try to update itself during the phone call and chokes the bandwidth. The Desktop 5.5 Instructions state that the AV Updates should be manually updated every quarter if the system is unable to automatically update.

Updates can be downloaded from:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/downlo ... SAVCE.html
Scroll down until you find a file name in the following format:
yyyymmdd-???-x86.exe

Download it, put it on a flash drive or CD, and run it on the church computer. There are no passwords involved.