Get up and running with the WIMPS Performance Rescue Tool

Head on over to the Download Page to get a copy of the Performance Rescue Tool:

• https://www.whyismypcslow.com/Home/Downloads

Choose your download

• Fix-it Free

  • This is the free version of the Performance Rescue Tool.
  • This version contains most of the features found in the paid version, but the results are only saved for 15 minutes on the server because of server load.
  • Great for getting started quickly

• Tech Genius

  • This is the paid version of the Program
  • Contains all available features and you can keep the results of your scans indefinitely. This has the advantage of being able to do a before and after comparison so you can see the benefit of your changes.
  • No annoying advertising

• Enterprise

  • Business users only

If you chose one of the Fix-it Free options then your download will start when you click the button. You will then be redirected to a download confirmation page. If the download failed for any reason you can click the "Manually Download button" to try again 

Wait for the download to complete.

If you chose Fix-it Free skip ahead to the next section Part 2 - Installation

Otherwise, if you chose Tech Genius, the next sections are for you!

If you chose one of the Tech Genius options then your download will start automatically. You will then be redirected to either login or create an account while the program is still downloading. The system needs to know who you are so your data remains private and secure.

• Create a new account if this is your first time here 

  • The password is minimum 6 character with one special character (!@#$%^&*), one number (1234567890) and one uppercase character (A-Z).
  • 1Love@rt would work fine as an example!

• Login if you have already created an account before

Confirm the summary screen by clicking the "GO TO PAYMENT" button.

At the time of writing only Stripe Secure Card Payment is supported, but PayPal will be added as a valid method of payment in the immediate future.

Enter the form details and click the SUBMIT PAYMENT button.

When the payment completes you will be directed to the Payment Success screen.

Congratulations, you now have the Full Analytics Power of the Performance Rescue tool. 

For further billing and membership options go to your Profile Page and clicking on "My Billing"

When the download completes, start the installation process by clicking "Open" to start the installation

Several users have reported issues with Windows Smart Screen and Avast Anti-Virus. If you experience any of these please read below.

• If Smart Screen fails to recognize the application, read here

• If you have problems with Avast tampering with the installer, read here

The Setup Wizard starts

• Click Next 
• Accept the license agreement if prompted in the subsequent step and Click Next

The Installer offers you a choice for folder installation 

• For 99% of users the default folder presented by the installer is just fine
• Click Next

Click the Install Button when prompted to start the installation

If prompted by UAC Click Yes

Wait for the Installation to finish

When the Installation is complete click the Finish Button

Click on Start and find the newly installed Why is my PC Slow shortcut. Click on the entry to run.

If prompted by UAC click yes to run the program.

• Because the scanning component of the Performance Rescue Tool is extremely complex and needs to interface with many low level system components it is necessary to run it in an elevated process

The Performance Rescue Tool will now start

When the Home Screen loads click the login/new account link in the top right of the screen

Log in.

If you already created an account by joining the Tech Genius

• Log in with the username and password/facebook login you created for this account

If you chose the Fixit-Free download and you don't already have an account

• Create a new account with your Facebook Login by clicking the Facebook Button. 
  • This is the quickest way to get logged in and means you don't need to remember passwords

or

• Create a new Standard Account
  •  The password is minimum 6 character with one special character (!@#$%^&*), one number (1234567890) and one uppercase character (A-Z).
  • 1Love@rt would work fine as an example!

On successful login you will be returned to the home screen

• If you downloaded the free version of the tool, click "Get Started FIX-IT FREE"

• If you joined the Tech Genius Group then click "Get Started TECH GENIUS"

In the above screenshot the account user is a Tech Genius member, so the Get Started Fixit-Free panel is greyed out. 

Starting a new scan can be triggered in any of the three ways from the Home Screen

• Clicking the Get Started FIX-IT FREE panel (disabled for Tech Genius Members)

• Clicking the Get Started TECH-GENIUS panel

• Clicking the New Scan button on the Left Toolbar 

When the New Scan Screen loads click the START button to start a new scan

The scan will take 1-2 minutes depending on your software and hardware configuration. 

This is the most comprehensive analysis tool currently available and covers the following areas:

• Windows Error Logs

  • When Windows has problems it writes those errors to this log. There's also a lot of junk in this area, so it makes it hard to find the important errors. The scanner does this job for you, finding the worst and most important areas, reporting them back to you.

• Network Performance

  • Programs and Processes that are using your internet. This is useful when you want to know exactly which programs are using all your bandwidth and generally making your internet experience slow.

• Disk Usage

  • Places like My Document, My Videos, My Pictures and Temporary Files get filled up. The program scans those common areas for you so you can see where your disk space is being eaten up.

• Disk Stress Test 

  • The scanner reads and writes as fast as it can to your Hard Disk - this is the stress test. From this speed test it's possible to determine how performant your disk is and give it a score

• Ram Stress Test

  • The scanner reads and writes a large file to your RAM and then forces your RAM to move the data around as quickly as possible. The time it takes to do this makes up the score the program gives to your RAM Hardware

• Hardware Devices

  • Next the program looks through the hardware installed on your PC to check for devices with malfunctioning drivers

• Undesirable Installed Programs

  • The scanner gets a list of all installed programs on your computer to check them against a database of known malware, bloatware, adware and other undesirable programs. From this information it's easy to know what to uninstall from your computer

• Operating System

  • General Operating System information such as version and processor bitness

• Windows Services

  • Which Services are running in the background. This is important because a lot of undesirable programs often hide themselves inside services

• Logical Disk

  • The size and type of hard disks available

• CPU Stress Test

  • The program asks your CPU to perform a set of instructions as fast as it can using all cores of your processor. The time is takes is used to calculate your CPU rating score.

• Download Speed

  • Next the program tries to download as many small files as it can from the download server in a given time frame. This is the score given to your download speed.

• Upload Speed

  • After that your upload connection speed is tested in the same manner. A small test file that is included in the program is sent to the server as fast as possible. This is the score given to your upload speed.

• Running Processes

  • The program checks the processes that are running on the computer for their performance. From this it's possible to see any resources that are overused (RAM full, CPU over-usage etc)

• Disk Performance

  • How heavily your disk is being used. This is a known bottleneck for computer with older rotary style disk

Analysis of your scan results is run at 99%

At the end of the scan process the program performs analysis on the data it scanned. Expect a pause for a few seconds as it works.

At the top of the screen are the Notification Display panels

If there are any serious items this is the first place you should look

Clicking on any of the Notification Panels opens the Notification Details Screen

Here we can see there are 3 Serious Items and 4 Warnings.

• In the above image we can see that program has flagged that the user has more than one anti-virus program running at the same time. This is a known cause of performance degradation. 
• We can also see that the user had various Scumware/Bloatware programs installed

Clicking on the Back Arrow or the Breadcrumb to go back to the Scan Results Screen

• You can use the back and forwards arrows to just like a regular browser
• Clicking on the Scan Results Name in the Breadcrumbs will take you to the current Scan Results Screen

At the bottom left of the Scan Results Screen are the Resource Utilization Charts

• CPU
  • Which processes are consuming your CPU resources
• RAM
  • Which processes are consuming your RAM resources
• DISK
  • Which folders are taking up the most of your disk space
• NET
  • Which processes are consuming your bandwidth

Clicking on any of the Resource Utilization Charts opens the corresponding details view

Clicking on the CPU Chart shows us the CPU Details Screen

From here we can see at the top the process ByteFence us using a steady 12% CPU. If we hover the (i) information icon we can see that the process ByteFence belongs to the Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware program ByteFence. We already received warnings about this in the Serious Notifications section earlier.

The side panel shows us the CPU score and at the bottom a comparison with the "average" cpu - bad news it's 10% here! No wonder this computer is struggling.

In this scenario the best thing to do would be to Uninstall ByteFence completely from the computer (sorry ByteFence)

Clicking on the RAM Chart shows us the RAM Details Screen

Although the RAM usage isn't that high, we can still see that it's the Anti-Virus programs at the top of the list

Clicking on the DISK Chart shows us the Disk Usage Details Screen

This disk is relatively unused, so there's no performance issues here

Clicking on any of the entries in the left hand usage list

This will display the folder usage tree in the right hand side window. From here you can drill down to three levels deep to find out accurately where your disk space is being used up.

Clicking on the NET chart shows us the details of which processes are using bandwidth and and how much

Clicking on the (i) shows the process details. Malware programs often "phone home" so it's a useful place to see which who's been sending and receiving data

Clicking any one of the five Performance Gauges brings up the Performance Details Screens

1. Overall Performance
2. Hardware Performance
3. Startup Performance
4. Events Performance
5. Programs Performance

Clicking on the Overall Performance Gauge bring up the Overall Performance Details Screen

This page is particularly useful because it list your systems components from weakest to strongest. If you want to know where to start improving your PC performance, generally work from the top down

In the sidebar in the right your hardware scores are measured against mean scores generated from system averages. From this you can get a good idea of how up to date your hardware really is.

Clicking on the Hardware Performance Gauge bring up the Hardware Performance Details Screen

These are the results of the hardware stress tests combined with benchmarks results. Together these give an overall score.

In the above picture it easy to see on this system that the CPU is the restrictive hardware bottleneck

Clicking on the Start Performance Gauge bring up the Startup Performance Details Screen

• These are the programs that start automatically every time your computer starts.
• If you have a large number of programs starting up then it's better to disable the ones you don't want from task manager or MSConfig on older computers

Clicking on the Events Performance Gauge bring up the Windows Error Event Details Screen

This screen shows the errors that have been generated and logged by Windows. It's a great place to start when you want to view details of what Windows Components have been misbehaving.

• The bar chart view lets you easily see days when unusual amounts of errors have been generated.
• Clicking on the any of the bars in the chart scrolls to the selected date

Clicking on the Programs Performance Gauge bring up the Programs Performance Details Screen

This screen shows all the programs installed on your computer (and some that are hidden by default). 

The programs are matched up against a health rating database. This gives you the following vital information.

• Programs Rating - is this a good program to have running on your computer
• Uninstall Impact - what will happen if you remove this program from your computer

From this information it's easy to see which programs are top candidates for uninstalling. We've already ascertained that the program ByteFence was causing this computer serious performance impact and it's been marked as undesirable (sorry again ByteFence)

Start with Notification Details

• Look at the serious notification first. Alerts listed here are often the low hanging fruit that will provide the most benefit with applied action.
• The warning notifications should be looked at next. These are often alerts about Bloatware and Scumare programs that only have a negative impact on your computer. Having said this, the process of removing them is still subjective, so use your common sense, and if you love a program the tool hates, keep it!

Check the Installed Programs

Clicking in the Health column header will order your Installed Programs by rating

Ordering by Program Health enables you to see the worst rated programs first and decide which to uninstall

Order CPU Details by Process Health Rating

This allows you to see worst to best. Hovering over the info icon shows us details about the process and generally which program or program group it belongs to. When you know the program.

In the above screenshot you can determine that the undesirable processes belong to

• ByteFence 
• Skype
• An illegal Windows 10 activator installed by the user of this computer
• Cyberlink DVD
• Mcaffee Web Advisor (yes another Antivirus product the user has installed on this computer)
• Asus Bloatware - probably installed by the manufacturer
• Power DVD

Let's uninstall all the previously mentioned programs

We can do this form the Add/Remove Programs App under the Control Panel. In the above image you can see that there are sometimes more than one component to a program. Here, ByteFence consists of two parts (module, anti-virus). Remove all components to completely remove the program.

We want to do a before and after comparison, so let's check the previous overall score

Click on the My Scans button on the left toolbar. Here the last scan score was 50% which isn't amazing. Now that we've removed the programs that we suspected of having a negative impact on the computer let's run another scan.

Running a second scan after removing the offending programs will show how much benefit is gained

It's always good practice to run another scan after changing your computer setup. Without doing this there's no easy way to see if your changes have caused any benefit.

Returning back to My Scans once the second scan has completed show us the improvements

This is definitely a huge improvement on the score. The computer itself loads the desktop after waking from sleep in a few seconds. Previously there was a frustrating 30 second delay while the Anti-Virus engines loaded and competed for resources.