That’s because everytime Acrobat Reader starts up, it automatically checks for updates – regardless of what your computer is doing. Unfortunately, the updater can’t be terminated via Task Manager.

Here is a video tutorial on how to resolve this problem quickly and simply.

Ad:Learn How To Remove Spyware From Your Computer! 10 Part Video Tutorial to keep your computer clean. See Remove Spyware Videos for more information.

These techniques require you to “tinker” with your computer settings or review settings / programs to determine if they should be running or not…..

1. What Taps Your PCs resources?

Although you can check which programs you are running (and kill them if necessary) on your PC using CTRL ALT DEL and clicking on Task Manager, this often has no effect.  If there is something that is sapping your PCs RAM, you want as much detail as possible.  FileMon provides detailed reporting and recording of what each application is doing.  This may help when trying to determine what causes a PC to lock up.
2. CleanUp after yourself

One of the big things that slow down your PC is software that your downloaded and installed, but don’t use.  Be ruthless and go to Add/Remove Programs to get rid of any programs you don’t use.
3.Learn to Prioritise

You can tweak some settings for your PC by going to Control Panel and opening the System icon.  Under the Advanced tab, click Settings to display the options for appearance and virtual memory.

Visual Effects can be changed to prioritise performance over appearance, while the Advanced Tab allows Windows to be modified os that it prioritises programs, as well as to set a higher limit for virtual memory.  This can be useful for programs that need to swap a lot of data in and out of RAM.

Here are some of the tasks and tools you can use:

1. Internet Accelerator

Many windows settings work in harmony in order to get the best out of an available internet connection. Unfortunately, the factory design of these settings means that they are often not optimised for a particular connection type, or they are adjusted by a newly installed software product unasked. As a result, the computer can’t get the best out of your internet connection. As a user, this means you have to wait longer until web pages have loaded in your browser or until internet downloads are finished. A slow internet connection costs time and gets on your nerves. For this reason, taking the time to optimise the settings can have some major benefits.

I have been testing the Ashampoo Internet Accelerator 2 on my ADSL Broadband connection and it have noticed an improvement. The program allows a fully automatic setting of the most important parameters. To use the program, you will need to know your connection type:

• Analogue modem
• ISDN
• DSL via LAN cable or cable modem
• DSL via wireless LAN
• Other LAN connections (no DSL)

This system means that the program gets the very last drop of performance out of the internet connection. When using a modem and an ISDL connection, the improvements in performance are particularly noticeable – a reason for celebration. With a DSL connection, the tuning result isn’t quite as impressive, as there are fewer things which need adjusting in order to provide an optimisation. Nonetheless, it is still the case here that every percentage of extra performance means better internet surfing.

AShampoo Internet Accelerator is available free. You can download it and use it for 10 days, after that you will need to register for free and receive an activation code to convert the licence to a full version.

Download Internet Accelerator here.

2. Startup Tuner

Lots of programs saved in your computer do exactly as they please. Many applications consider themselves to be so important that they trigger an auto-start command in the system without being requested. That means that every time the computer is booted up, they are started together with Windows, which isn’t always the user’s intention. As a result of this, the start sequence becomes considerably longer – and manually shutting down most of the unwanted windows immediately afterwards because they simply aren’t needed, certainly isn’t fun.

AShampoo StartUp Tuner 2 lists all auto-start entries and allows them to be individually deleted or to be deactivated. Exercise caution and at least deactivates all of the unnecessary entries, then they will be able to enjoy a clearly faster start to Windows.

Ashampoo StartUp Tuner 2 also designates all Windows services by name – to allow their subsequent activation or deactivation with the click of the mouse. The Ashampoo StartUp Tuner 2 displays all installed Windows programs but builds its lists clearly and more quickly than the control panel software module. Here, it is possible to uninstall programs that are no longer required so that they can be removed from the computer without ‘leaving behind tracks’ as it were.

IT specialists know that the acronym BHO stands for ‘Browser Helper Object’. BHOs concern plugins for the internet explorer. These plugins rapidly cluster in alarmingly large numbers on the user’s computer. Some of them are useful, but others are superfluous to requirements – or downright dangerous. The Ashampoo StartUp Tuner 2 lists all of them, and allows them to be individually deleted or deactivated if they are no longer needed.

Ashampoo StartUp Tuner 2 also automatically installs a backup of the changes that have been carried out, which means it is possible to reverse the changes that have been made at any time. This is extremely important!

AShampoo Internet Accelerator is available free. You can download it and use it for 10 days, after that you will need to register for free and receive an activation code to convert the licence to a full version.

Download Startup Tuner 2 here.

3. Clean Up Your Hard Drive

The performance of your PC is affected by files being scattered over your hard drive, caused by installing, moving or deleting files. It helps to defragment your hard drive. To do this, on your Start Menu go to:

Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter.

To fix location errors, right click on your hard drive icon, select Properties and, select the Tools menu. From the Tools menu, click Check Now, make sure ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ is checked, then click Start.

4. Use a Download Manager

With the distribution of software online become more and more prevalent, use of a download manager is becoming a must.

I personally use Free Download Manager, which as the name suggests, is FREE. In my experience, I can download files that are 300 MBytes in about 25% of the time a normal download would take.

You can get Free Download Manager here.

Other download managers are:
Download Acclerator Plus
SoftAtlas Download Accelerator
GetRight

I’m interested in your experiences with these techniques and tools, I have tested most of them and had great success.