The current version is a bit outdated. This version stores the entire blockchain in RAM/swap, that's why you felt your laptop (almost) grind to a halt.

You have three options:
- try the new beta for windows (i'm guessing you use windows) - URL
- compile and run from the current master - https://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/
- wait for the new release to finish your comparison (you might lose the valuation caused by that release, or not)

Very seldom it is more than a few secs. (It really depends on the inputs you have in your wallet).

There is no mixing network for monero, ie you are not dependent of external services to ensure privacy for your transactions. The wallet simple chooses the outputs to mix with from the blockchain you have on your computer and sends the transaction.

First of all, the privacy features of monero are the default. You don't have to make a special kind of transaction to make it private. You just have to choose the level of obfuscation (the minimum is 0 for the time being but that is going to change). Regarding the fees it depends on the size of the transaction (more inputs, bigger size). Currently it is defined as 0.01 XMR per KB.

^^^ 

Monero, ask 1 get 2 for free.



Cool, I'll check it out.

Just curious, what laptop are you running your wallet and everything else on?

Thanks for all the help and information!
Will try to install the beta version tomorrow

Blockchain is stored in %ALLUSERSPROFILE%. You definitely aren't syncing from scratch if it started from 376206.

Yes to your last two questions (unless there's some compatibility issue that I don't know about, but why not just use the matching 0.9 simplewallet?).

Thank you luigi,

I let it run while sleeping and now I'm on block 307986  and it's syncing almost as slowly as 0.8.8.6 
I'm no longer getting all the white words including "blob" speeding by but instead it's mostly the yellow lettering I'm used to when syncing with the white lettering being NOTIFY_REQUEST_GET_OBJECTS................
Hope you are enjoying the technical description

As far as simplewallet I meant using simplewallet in 0.9 and using the name and password that was set up in 0.8.8.6

Try to exit safely and start again. I think it could have something to do with the database file resizing, but i'm not sure.
I'm not aware of any compatibility issues with simplewallet and the previous version generated wallets.

~ ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SAFE COPY OF YOUR .keys FILE ~

Someone reported that he typed 'exit' again after the first one and it worked.

My windows 0.9 beta has synced and it is using less memory than google chrome 

After I started I shut down my miner which uses both cores of my dual core pentium and therefore maxes it out.  I then noticed while syncing that every 200 blocks there is an operation that maxes out my cpu for a couple of seconds.

I just now opened simple wallet and entered the wallet file name of a wallet that is currently empty.  The message I received was.....

"The Wallet doesn't exist, generating a new one
password:"

When I first open simplewallet it notes the version # as v0.8.8.7-7792255
 



When I typed "exit" in the daemon I received more info than the times I tried to exit when the daemon hadn't fully synced but still it didn't exit.  I retyped "exit" and it very quickly shut down.  I started the daemon up again which only took a few seconds. 

i've mentioned this before but i've got old deprecated wallets that crash 0.8.8.6 when i load them. it asks for my language of choice for the words then crashes. i tried the new 0.9 version and got it sync'd from scratch. but it still crashes at the same step, after asking what language i would like for my words. just letting you devs know. is there an old version of the software that still works that i could use to load this wallets and move the funds? and if so, where could i get that from?

- much appreciated