There's a number of tweaks and optimizations one can do to make any machine running windows xp alot faster. These tweaks are very easy to implement, here's a list of things:
1. First thing is to make sure your pc is free of viruses/spyware/malware/junk and the like. There are a number of programs that you can use to achieve this.
Download these:
Run all of these apps one by one making sure you update them first before starting a scan. With CCleaner this app basically has several tools that allow you to clean internet cache, cookies, history, uninstall programs, edit startup programs and even has a cool registry cleaner which you should run also. Kaspersky AV isn't free unfortunately but it is well worth the investment as it is by far the best AV on the market. Programs such as mcafee/norton are just not worth the consideration tbh and free anti viruses just don't catch every thing.
2. Now that you have cleared windows of all that junk. Goto my computer then right click your hard drive, select properties and then switch to the tools tab. Click on Check now under "Error-Checking". Leave the boxes unticked and just hit the button that says 'start'. After that is done in the same tools window you should see "Defragmentation" which is right below error-checking. Click on defragment now. The defragmenter tool will appear after which just hit the defragment button. If you have several partitions/hard drives then run the tool on each drive.
3. In this step switch to the general tab which is right next to the tools tab. Look at the bottom where it says "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file searching" untick this box and click apply. This is really a feature of windows that is rarely used by anyone and uses up quite alot of resources. You can now close this window.
4. Next right click my computer and select properties. Then select the system restore tab and tick the box that says "Turn of system restore on all drives". System restore is really a waste and uses so much windows resources that any benefit in it is outweighed by this fact. It uses up alot of disk space and will make duplicates of any viruses/problems you get in the future. So it's best to turn it off.
5. Now select the Advanced tab in the same window and click on settings under performance. In the visual effects tab select "Adjust for best performance". This will basically make windows look a bit oldskool but it will help speed up your pc by freeing up further resources. However if you don't like the look after this tweak you can customize what visual features you want to disable and which ones you would like to keep. In the same window under advanced there is another tweak which i'll leave out as i think some people may mess things up if they don't understand it but it's basically to do with windows virtual memory.
6. After all that, you can start disabling unneeded windows services. Windows has a number of services that run everytime windows is started. There are services that windows needs in order run properly and there are a few that are a total waste of memory. Goto start/run and type "services.msc" without quotes. now just right click/properties and disable each of thse services:
Automatic updates (optional)
Error reporting service
Fast user switching compatability (only if you have one user account)
Help and support (switch this to manual)
Indexing service
Print spooler (if you don't have a printer)
Security center (useless and won't disable windows firewall so don't worry)
System restore service
That should be it for services, there are however more services that you can disable but the above should be sufficient.
7. Lastly there is a program you can use to really boost windows boot times. It's called bootvis and was developed by microsoft. It's really simple to use and really does speed up boot times. However microsoft state that they do not offer any support for this program so bare that in mind.
If you apply all these steps you should have yourself a pretty speedy windows pc! you might be susprised to know that you can tweak your pc even further that doing the above. Tweaking can get very deep and advanced so if your're a bit brave you can perhaps find such advanced tweaking guides elsewhere on the net.
Answered by
Alam
at
Apr 19, 2010 08:04 AM
