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which should eliminate any conflict issues with background processes.
A lot of people are also simply not aware how easy it is to manage your startup profile to eliminate RAM-eating unnecessary startup processes. They will have all sorts of garbage running in the background that isn't shown in the taskbar and they wonder why they have problems.
Norton(any Norton), various instant messaging programs, and all sorts of add-on search and utility bars really destroy the speed and efficiency of computers. While they will run in the background with most applications, an operating system upgrade changes and restarts way too many processes to survive them.
It is almost universal that when I get a computer dropped off in my office because it won't run right, the system tray has fifteen or more running processes. Gator is a major offender.
No matter how many times you tell them, users just can't keep themselves from clicking "yes" when a web site or email offers to give them something for free.
At our August faculty meeting, I got a whole lot of grief for refusing to open attachments sent by our Director (or anybody else for that matter). "They're safe. They went through the exchange server."
Last month, I had the distinct pleasure of reformatting the Director's hard disk and reinstalling the operating system. We found 3 worms, 2 trojans and a bunch of virus, plus over a thousand adware/malware/spyware programs. One of the trojans was bad enough that we couldn't remove it.
Nobody is laughing anymore.
Having a clue about security and operating system installation is something that should be kept to onesself. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who has a problem thinks he can drop his computer in your lap and get help. I actually put a sign on my door that says "Steve does not fix computers." It didn't help.
In any case, every computer in my building has had the service pack 2 installed without any problems.