"Norton" in the corner...

[drliquid]

Can running Norton Anti-virus cause trouble with the PC while working on Audio projects? I've got Norton and a couple of his friends hanging around at the bottom right. I've disabled a few of them already.

[Justin]

You should probably try to run your windows install as "pure" as possible. Meaning disable anything (hardware or software) you don't need. Every item in your system tray is using ram and cpu cycles that you may need.

If you're not accepting files from outside sources or connected to the internet, I wouldn't worry too much about having a virus scanner running in the background.

If you use this machine for any 'net activity or office applications, you probably will want to have the scanner running all the time except when you're doing audio work.

Just remember any time it's off, your system is vunerable...and if a virus infects the system while the anti-virus software is off, some viruses are able to then disable the anti-virus software or hide themselves from it.

[drliquid]

:cool: Cool...Arbiter, System Tray meaning active programs (right bottom corner of screen?_ Disabling hardware, Like,printers, faxes etc?
I am but a newborn computer user-type-guy...

[Justin]

Exactly,

You might want to look in our tech support knowledge base. Do a search by "Optimize XP" or whichever OS you're using, there are a few different guides as to how to disable unecessary features to boost performance.

Keep in mind, you may not want to go disabling things if this machine doubles for any other usage than audio.

[TimOBrien]

There's a great free program out on the web (I think its on PCMagazine's website but do a Google search and you'll find it) called "EndItAll" that can close all running processes EXCEPT those that you designate.

I keep a shortcut to it on my desktop and before I start DAWing I hit it so that all tasks except Explorer and Systray are killed on my PC. Works really well.....

[drliquid]

Thanks guys,appreciate it... This forum is really great. Once I gain some experience , hopefully I can help out people too.
Cheers
Rick