I don't know if you have it set to Auto, Ask or Manual VPS updates ?
Well I will let you in on a secret, the best policy as far as VPS updates are concerned, leave it set to the default value Auto.
Why, because a) they are incremental and only measured in KBs rather than MBs and most importantly b) the Auto update is CPU throttled so as not to take the CPU above 30% so you are able to continue with whatever it is that you are doing. However, I don't know if this trick of limiting the CPU use works with win98 or not.
For me also on dial-up and set to Auto I see no impact however, when set to Ask or Manual when I select Update I too get a small period of time when the Update takes the majority of the CPU activity. I know my system is more powerful than yours, but if I notice it you would more so.
There is no such CPU restriction for manual (or Ask) VPS updates as you are in control of when you permit it to update and wouldn't kick it off when you were busy
Looking at your signature for someone complaining of not having much RAM you have a lot of applications that could well be running in the background.
Good question and points... I should have mentioned... I have always had my VPS updates set to "Auto" for the biggest reason that I want to have them on my system as SOON AS THEIR AVAILABLE!.
Manual I would likely never have them as soon as available. The "ask" might not be an idea however. For the past few months I have just known when my system nearly stops and the hard drive is going crazy that I have a VPS update coming in and I basically just wait it out.
Since I have always used the "Auto" update setting in regards to what you mentioned about "Auto" setting: "Auto update is CPU throttled so as not to take the CPU above 30%".
That's a really cool feature.
Do you know how long that has been the case. As I said I've always used "Auto" but only noticed the huge "drag" on my system for only the past 3-4 months (before that I really didn't notice anything at all and haven't added anything to my system for a long time that I can remember anyway)? Now that I think about it I might have started using teatimer (spybot) about that time.
(I might try turning that off awhile and see if this helps but I really don't think that would be an issue really).
Regardless that's nice to know about the 30% CPU "throttle" on the "Auto" setting for updates (which as I say I have always used)
IF IT WORKS WITH WIN98SE (which as you said your not sure). It would seem to me to maybe solve my problem. It's almost as if this kind of thing was working all along until a few months ago because the VPS updates changed so much as far as how they caused no problems with "overhead" in the past.
Is there anyway to find this out as far as that 30% CPU throttle working with WIN98SE?It couldn't be due to a program version change since I was using the same Avast version when I started noticing the VPS updates slowing my system significantly the past few months more than it did before that time frame.
I kind of wondered if VPS updates are being downloaded as a "whole" and maybe the file sizes are just getting really big but it doesn't seem to make sense to me that the updates would be done this way but rather just add to the existent file on the bases of file name and what is new.
Btw, how do the VPS updates work in this regard? I have always wondered about that....
Thanks again David.