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I am wondering if, other than the space applications can take on disk, I can incur into any performance problems if I install many applications on Windows.

Maybe the Windows registry becomes bigger and slower to parse, and affects the overall speed of Windows.

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To those casting closing votes. Would you mind elaborating why you think the question should be closed? or how can I improve it? – roseck Jan 6 at 22:07
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This is either a hypothetical question or a poorly worded duplicate of "does my system slow down the more apps I load onto it?" – random♦ Jan 7 at 3:39
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closed as not constructive by Tom Wijsman, Mehper C. Palavuzlar, random♦ Jan 7 at 3:39

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4 Answers

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If you install infinity applications on your computer, it will take the enumeration of several folders and registry keys infinity time which will make you wait in infinity till the enumeration is done. So, basically your computer will get into a deadlock waiting for all these enumerations to be finished.

Not to forget that your disk and registry get to an infinite size.

Or in other words, taking too much of anything hurts...

But as a serious answer, we really can't tell you.

This really depends on how powerful your computer is and how much you are planning to install; and even when you specify these we can't give a definitive answer. It's best that you try for yourself.

You can always start uninstalling when you reach too much applications...

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Plus a lot of programs run in the background... it'll eat up all your RAM. – Jay Jan 6 at 21:43
But the average user won't run into much problems, will he? – Simon Verbeke Jan 6 at 21:43
@Jay: Forgot to mention that, but well, he only mentioned installing on the other hand. – Tom Wijsman Jan 6 at 21:44
@SimonVerbeke: Depends on whether he installs infinite applications. – Tom Wijsman Jan 6 at 21:45
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@Tom: Hehe, you'd be surprised. I had a friend come to me saying his computer just freezes up. I eventually figured out that he had 3 separate anti-virus software on his computer all freaking out at each other. Somehow he thought the more anti-virus software, the safer his computer will be. I don't even know how he got all 3 since most anti-virus software will either warn you about having only one or it just won't install at all if there is already an antivirus in place. – Jay Jan 6 at 21:54
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up vote 2 down vote

Yeah!!

Installing many application can downgrade the performance of windows for several reasons:

  1. Many application add one or more registry key, then your registry is going bigger and bigger and when the os need to find a value on it, it will take longer.
  2. The number of files and folder increase, and then access time to them will increase
  3. If some application add some background program, it will take some ram, and then there is less ram available for other applications.
  4. Also when every program add an entry into the start menu, the loading time of the start menu increase (i suppose that windows load the menu during startup), and also your menu cold became unussable.
  5. Another issue are the icons on desktop, if you have too many of them, they downgradre a little your performance especially on old computers.

But everything depend also about your configuration if you have a powerful cpu a huge quantity of ram, etc. probably it took a while before your performance begin to downgrade.

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background program + or driver + or service + or filter (moab). – Psycogeek Jan 7 at 1:31
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up vote 2 down vote

Too many, sure, to many of the same/similar kind, also yes.

I just had a day on my PC, evidently I like to try new software, had 2 Paragon hard drive utilities, Easus Todo backup and Acronis TI installed, they all install filter drivers and can stomp on each other causing system instability as I found out the hard way.

My real problems started when I uninstalled Acronis, Acronis is well known for leaving filter drivers behind and running after uninstalling and reboot, so I manually cleaned them up in the registry as I have done before, well it 7B blue screened on restart this time, crap, system restore, figure out what went wrong.

Uninstalled both Paragon software's and Easeus Todo, restart between each removal, Acronis crap still hanging around, edited the registry again to remove Acronis entries, restart, no blue screen this time, a long process to clean up my over zealousness to install too many of similar software's.

That's my recent experience with too much of a good thing.

.

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up vote 0 down vote

As the number of apps installed approaches infinity, the odds of none of them doing anything stupid approaches zero.

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