Can Windows Live Messenger Slow A Computer Down?

Windows, Windows and Windows is what is slowing your computer down. Having Windows as your operating system means that you have way too many things on your computer that you will never use. You also need security software that slows your computer down. I used to use Windows as most of the world do and always had problems with it slowing down, freezing and fighting off viruses. I now use Kubuntu as my operating system which is Linux freeware and can be downloaded for free. You need to have a little more experience with computers to use it though. It is a very basic package that has nothing on it that you do not really need. You then add only what you need for free as you require it. I installed a program that allows me to run Microsoft Windows programs on it, a video editor and a few other programs all for free. I now have no more need for security software, no more internet freezing problems and my old computer loads a lot faster than it did when it was overloaded with Windows stuff!

Are you using MSN Messenger or Live Messenger ? I found that MSN Messenger was slowing my browsing on my desktop computer, and solved it installing Live Messenger. I'm surprised. It's not a greedy software eating a lot of resources. Live Messenger is probably not the culprit here.

The newer version of anything is going to take up more memory, cpu, etc. than the older version, so the older your computer is, the more likely that a new version of something is going to cause a slow down.

To put it simply you have a piece of software running permanently, checking across the internet to see if any of your friends come online and then updating you to their current status. It’s doing this 100’s of times every minute. As such it is a drain on your PC’s memory (RAM) and will constantly be a drain until either you use it, which will make it a bigger drain, or shut it down. What also happens is because you have basically opened up a channel of communication across the net your anti virus software will also be working harder to monitor it in case of problems. Add that it also links to other software such as Outlook & IE it does become quite a drain on a PC especially if the PC has limited memory or several pieces of software already running.

you can see how much memory its taking to run it but if your not using it and its down at the bottom then it shouldn't slow your computer down any. you also can change the priory of it.

Computers do tend to slow as they get older for sure ...The protective layers on heatsink goes off and processor heats up more nd more affecting the overall performance of the system ...Anyways newer versions of softwares do require higher processing power as they are using newer flash players, macromedia players , java scripts etc whic tend to use more nd more processing power. U mite want to upgrade ur pc to a new one and things wud be fine ..or get older version of windows messenger which may or may not work ..or use web based windows messenger... :)

I stopped using live messengers because I was getting spammed by people I did not know trying to talk to me. I noticed that the computer did slow down when I was on-line and it was very irritating at having some strange sending a sometimes "suggestible" messages. I also read in a magazine that viruses could also be sent via instant messengers, so that persuaded me to diable them. I don't mind the on-line ones at certain social sites, because it is only other users that can contact me. And whilst I have a messenger ap in my Yahoo Mail account, I set it to "invisible" so nobody can see that I am on-line. My friends though know to try sending me a message to see if I am around because they know I set it to invisible. _Derek

Yes but not the computer it slows down the internet connection I don't know why but that what I experienced it always slows it down.

It must have to keep checking all the time to see if there are any connections trying to be made with you, so maybe that is the whirring. I haven't ever used it myself. I am using Linux Puppy on this computer which is very fast and secure. Linux is very good on older computers but you do need to be prepared to learn new things. Mine has Skype for when I want to chat with my daughter. We just go on facebook,message that we want to chat on skype and decide a time. You can instant chat on facebook but it does have a lag sometimes.