The $folders are usually from windows update, but they are also used for hiding folders for non-admin accounts. In Windows XP/Vista/7 you will see $folders in the C:\Windows. The ones for Windows Update can be deleted, and this will free up hard drive space and remove them from your Add/remove programs, but not from windows. Basically once you delete the folder, you will not be able to remove them through add/remove programs. One of the Windows update $folder you want to keep, I think it's $cat or something like that. It basically is a catalog of all the updates and speeds up finding updates you need the next time you run Windows Update.

The Windows.Old is there because you ran Windows 8 Upgrade. It's your old operating system, and is just there if Windows 8 borked something you have a backup of your windows folder. Once you have upgraded, have no problems, and do not plan on reverting back to your previous operating system just delete that folder.

I would suggest not deleting any $folders unless you know they are not needed. Some may be needed.

That's what should be done, if you are not using the onboard, disable in the BIOS. Same with an addin sound card, disable the onboard crap. I also like to disable LPT and COM ports, which for most people are not needed anymore. I also disable any IDE ports or SATA ports that it will let me without disabling the ones I need. All of that frees up computer resources and should be done by whoever setup your PC, but most OEMs do not.

Yeah, onboard is disabled now and there was a slight pick up in card performance.

I realized today (now that the BIOs adjustment allows me to access BIOs while plugged into AMD) is that since I'm running 32 bit Win 8 on only a dual core, my PC cannot handle running heftier games like Remember Me and Skyrim at the same time Steam does it's ritual Piracy Scan and therefor, although I'm still hating this AMD card - AMD is still coming out clean in the wash.

I was experiencing two types of crashes. The legitimate one, due to settings set too high, would politely drop me to desktop. The other crash, while I was undergoing a scope (Temp 'scope' folders began acculating at exact same time as lock ups), was freezing the PC so that I would have to give up and hard reset.

Steam's scanning has only recently become an issue - I'm not sure if it's just that Skyrim and Remember Me are the meatiest games to date or if Steam has become more aggressive with their scope events.

Liberating Skyrim from Steam and using the Skyrim Tweaker Mod in place of the orthodox launcher has fixed my Skyrim issue.

You may find that it isn't the CPU speed that is bottlenecking you, it might be IO (to the disk), especially if these are on platter drives (HDD).

Thanks for the suggestion....mabe instead of purchasing a portable drive, with my tax return, I'll look for a new internal.
This drive is actually and IDE fed through a SATA converter.

aaaaand there's your problem!

Also, look into purchasing a USB hard drive enclosure for your old drive. It would make a good backup drive and the enclosures are cheap.

Not the only one.

1. Forcing support of an unsupported and obsolete hard drive.
2. Windows 8 still working out bugs.
3. Hardware manufactures not quite sure yet how to develop decent drivers for Windows 8.
4. Griefers and Cons quicker to find out how to take advantage of Windows 8 (Hello World!)
5. Copies of Windows 7 pulled from NZ. Scalped on auction sites for close to $400.
6. XP can no longer handle anything but GOG games.
7. Windows 8 still better than Vista.
8. Steam forcing hard drive scans while I'm playing my games (maybe playing offline would correct this?)
9. Steam cloud rapes Skyrim (have turned it off)
10. Have 2 gigs card RAM, 4 gigs PC Ram but running the 32 bit version of Win 8.

Hmm...I've had this IDE for three years now. Instinct tells me that it's still haunted by past viruses contnuously rising up again from their DoD grave.