Extending the use of my computers.

[Lemur]

I must have swallowed an extra helping of slow'n'thick pills this morning, 'cause I'm still struggling to get it.

• You have two computers
• A laptop
• And a desktop
• The desktop is powerful, suitable for gaming
• The desktop is never connected to the internets
• Latop runs slowly when you try to game

That's as far as I can follow. How will going online allow you to compare the two machines?

-edit-

Oh, wait, is it because you want to take the gaming rig online for multiplayer? Ah, that must be it. Man, you had me confused.

Well, if you put it online, it's online, and that's that. The only safe computer is one that is disconnected from the network, powered down and buried in a lead safe. But so long as you don't go browsing to warez sites in Internet Explorer or go hog-wild downloading shareware of dubious provenance, you should be okay.

It isn't just being online that slows Windows boxen down over time. Even locked-down corporate machines start to run slower after a year of use. It's not you; it's Windows.