Please help me clean up my computer. Which of these programs can I delete?

Question

Okay, so I know nothing about adobe except that it helps to see videos and gaming better. I only play flash games and need to know whether or not to keep these programs installed.

Here is a list of my programs from Adobe.
Adobe Flash Player 11 plugin
Adobe Flash Player ActiveX
Adobe Shockwave Player 11.6

Are these programs I should keep? Are they old and need to be updated? My computer is very slow as it is, could having these be slowing my computer down further?

Other things I have installed that I don't know whether to keep or not:
what is conexant d850 pci v.92 modem --- Have no idea what this is?

Do I need to keep dell support, dell system customazation wizard, and documentation and support launcher? I am unsure. I'm assuming I should keep these though, don't wanna mess anything up.

I also have JAVA 6 update 30. It's using up a lot of memory and would like to uninstall. I think I use Java though. Is there a better version to download?

I also have 3 Microsoft programs titled -
Microsoft Visual 3+ 2008, 2008, and 2010. What are these for?

Lastly, I have 4 MSXML 4.0 Sp2 installed. All ending in different numbers.

Ugh, this is so confusing and whoever took the time to help would be greatly appreciated. Even if you don't know all the answers. Thank you! I am running on Windows Vista, if that helps.

Answer 1

The Adobe programs:

You probably need all of these as you mentioned that you play flash games a lot.



The Modem:

It's a driver for a 56k dial up modem. You should keep it installed unless you can find the option in your BIOS to disable it (should be under integrated peripherals)



Dell Software:

You don't need to keep any of this.



Java:

Java is currently on version 7 7. Download and install. The Java updater does not need to run on startup though. Disable it by going to msconfig (start button > msconfig) and then to the startup tab, and taking a check out of it.



The MS visual and XML should all be left on. You can remove them though, if you want. Some programs require these utilities to run and you will probably end up installing them again anyway.

Answer 2

Remove Java and Flash and a lot of web sites will not display properly. MSXML is also required. you do not need Visual C in any form apart from the run time routines. But programs do NOT use much storage or memory unless they are running. Java should only use memory when you are on the Internet. Unless it is actually installing the update. LEAVE the modem alone, these are the driver for the inbuilt analogue modem. More important is to ensure you do not have spyware. This can practically stop the machine. Download the free scanner from http//malwarebytes.org and run the full scan. Then look at the programs running from Startup in msconfig. Carefully check what each does (Internet search it) and turn off any you do not need, one at a time then restart the machine. Any that give you a problem, turn back on.

Answer 3

Don´t delete any of the adobe programs, besides being used by flash games it is also used to watch videos (youtube).



I recommend you download ccleaner, which is a program that removes unnecessary files in your computer and fixes errors on it.

Answer 4

I would recommend you don't delete any of the programs that you

mentioned. They are all needed for the computer to run correctly.