Originally Posted by rickair7777

It is actually, because a seriously fragged disc (especially one that's too full) will slow performamnce.





Windows desktop OS's (and almost certainly other OS perhaps to a lesser degree) do experience performance degradation over time under "normal: use. This is less likely yo be a Blue Screen and more likely to just result in slower performance

Code does NOT wear out in any way. The kernel (central OS program) is typically not affected. But these types of OSs are designed to do a lot of things automatically, including loading, installing, running, and upgrading a variety of applications and imbedded features. It's all this other stuff which goons things up.

Every time it starts (where this problem is often most noticeable) the OS loads and "checks" a large number of apps. This number gets larger over time as new applications are added and upgraded. The installation and upgrade process is not perfect and often malfunctions occur. Operating systems use a very large file called a Registry to keep track of parameters associated with various apps and features, and sometimes outside processes. The registry can get very large and/or corrupted with bad data when poorly design processes access it. This can degrade performance or even break the OS.

On windows XP for example, the OS can hang up while starting for 5-10 minutes because it is looking for old printers which were installed once but are now no longer connected. Stupid.

Also new installed apps tend to load services which run in the background and slow the system. These services may occasionally help the performance of the app in question (sometimes almost never, like once a month) but they are ALWAYS active and degrading performance a bit. The more stuff you install, the more of these vampire services you get running in the background.

A computer OS which is never modified by any outside process (like an industrial machine or weapons system) should never experience any degradation unless the hardware fails. Such a system should in theory only be modified by updates from the factory which are hopefully well thought out and designed.

Windows is poorly and hopelessly designed in this respect, but outside apps are what really do the damage. Windows is just stupid enough to let them run amok. HP and Apple software is about the worst thing you can do to windows IMO. Windows would have to be completely scrapped and re-written from scratch to fix this...and they would have to enforce strict standards on outside apps too.

It was well known that XP had to be re-installed every few years to regain lost performance.