DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ!!!!
Some of the Facts shown in this guide are easy to apply to your XP but some need you to do more advanced configurations....So before carrying out some of these steps
ESPECIALLY Registry editing, please back-up your registry and make sure that you feel confident enough to apply some of these Configurations displayed. ***Myself nor
PC101.com are not responsible for any damage done by not backing up your registry before hand!***
So you have had your PC for a while and its been running good, but lately you notice a little lag, slow down in your day to day taska... try some of these to see if they help....
1. SYSTEM SETTINGS:
Open ''System properties'' in the "control panel", then select the ''Advanced tab'' and click on ''settings'' under performance. Choose the ''visual effects'' tab then select the option ''adjust for best performance'' and do away with all the needless affects which use up system resources and ram.
2. FASTER REBOOT:
Click on ''Start'' ''Run'' and type ''msconfig'' and press ''Enter'' to launch the System Configuration Utility. Selct the ''Services'' tab and check ''Hide all microsoft services''.
Select the ''startup'' tab then clear the checkboxes of those applications that don't need or want to start with Windows XP. You will notice an improvement almost immediatley.
3. STOP RUNNING THOSE NEEDLESS PROGRAMS:
Double-check the ''startup folder'' on the ''all programs'' menu as this may also contain shortcuts for launching applications. Simply right-click on the application you no longer want to start up with Windows and select ''delete'' to prevent this program from running again at windows startup.
4. UNGROUP ITEMS:
Finding information faster by ungrouping taskbar items so you will be able to know exacty which applications are open. Right-click on the taskbar, choose ''properties'' and remove the tick from the option '' Group similar taskbar buttons''.
5. CLEAR THE CLUTTER:
Windows XP will load faster without the massive array of icons on your desktop. You can hide them in an instant and improve screen redraw times by right clicking and choosing ''arrange icons by '' and then select ''show desktop items''. Or you can delete the icons you dont want manually leaving the ones you wish to keep. Also never install applications to your desktop, this is a very bad idea!
6. DEFRAGGING:
Now everyone nowadays knows that to keep an operating system in good working order you have to defrag once in a while. To use the built in one, open my computer, right-click the local disk volume that you want to defragment, and then click Properties, then on the tools tab, click Defragment Now then click Defragment.
7. CLEAN AND COMPRESS: Warning: Compressing your harddrive will slow down access times but only by a bit, but compressing does give you more storage space especially if you have a small harddrive.
Now to give your Windows XP more room to work in. Right-click your drive in ''My computer'' choose ''Properties'' then click on ''disk cleanup''. Here you will be able to get rid of all the unnecesary files that are cluttering up your Harddrive. Now to compress find the tab ''General'' Then look at the bottom of the window and you will see an Unckecked box, Tick the box named '' Compress drive to save disk space''.
8. CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE:
To ensure that Windows XP performs at its best all the time you can use the System file checker to locate any missing or damaged system files and replace them. Click on ''Start'' ''Run'' and type exactly WITHOUT quotation marks ''sfc /scannow'' and press ''Enter''. The windows file protection monitor will now scan your entire system for missing or damaged files. Keep your original Windows XP CD at hand as you may be asked for it to replace any missing or damaged files. Other commands that can be used for this step are:
System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately) sfc /scannow
System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot) sfc /scanonce
System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot) sfc /scanboot
System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting) sfc /revert
System File Checker Utility (Purge File Cache) sfc /purgecache
System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x) sfc /cachesize=x
9. CACHE:
You can cache the thumbnail images that are displayed in ''My computer'' and Windows Explorer and speed up display time. Click on ''Control panel'' ''Folder options'' then ''View'' and uncheck ''Do not cache thumbnails''. Also to keep things Speedy still while under ''View'' locate ''Automatically search for network folders and printers'' and uncheck this.
10. SYSTEM RESTORE:
You can speed up Windows XP by freeing up the diskspace that System Restore uses. Go into ''Control panel'' then select ''System'' then click on the tab ''System Restore'' and from here you can adjust how much of your harddrive is reserverd by System restore.
11A. REGISTRY BACK-UP:
Before performing any ''Registry'' changes it is always good to make a Back-up of your registry's default values just incase you make a mistake. To do this go into ''regedit'' under ''Run'' and then once you have the registry editing window open click on ''File'' then click on ''Export'' and save the file in the location that suits you best.
11B. ENDING TASKS: Warning: Please back up Registry before Performing this step.
It is possible to edit the Registry and speed up the time it takes to automatically end tasks that are not responding. Go to ''Start'' ''Run'' and type ''regedit'' then find
''HKEY_CURRENT_USER\controlpanel\Desktop\AutoEndTa sk s'' and Set the value to be 1. Then under ''WaitToKillAppTimeout'' Set the number of milliseconds to be used as a delay.
12. START MENU: Warning: Please back up Registry before Performing this step.
Edit the Registry and make the ''Start'' and ''All programs'' menu appear on the screen more quickly. Go along to ''Start'' ''Run'' and type ''regedit''. Then find ''HKEY_CURRENT_USER\controlpanel\Desktop. Right-click ''MenuShowDelay'' and set the value to 400 to speed the time in which the menu appears.
13. STREAMLINE YOUR SYSTEM:
Open the ''Add or Remove'' programs then click on ''Add/Remove Windows components'' And remove all the System components that you do not need or do not use to free up system resources.
14. VIRUSES, SPYWARE AND ADWARE:
There are many to choose from, pick the ones you want (you can find many topics on these on this board, just search for them) and set them to run regular scans everyday!!
15. TRANSFER MODE:
To Speed up the way in which files are transfered between Windows XP and your DVD or CD drive, Go to Device Manager and right-click on ''Secondary IDE Channel''. This controls your installed DVD/CD drives. If a DVD drive is installed then make sure its transfer mode is set to DMA if possible. If it is not then you need to enter your bios and enable this feature if your bios supports it.
16. AVI FILES: Warning: Please back up Registry before Performing this step.
Windows XP loads the entire AVI file before playing it which can cause delays. To prevent this from happening by making a change to a ''Registry Key''. To do this go to ''Start'' ''Run'' and type ''regedit''. Then locate ''HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4B9A-9489-5FE6850DC73E}''.
Rename the Key by adding a minus sign to it, For example -{87d62d94-71b3-4b9a-9489-5fe6850dc73e}.
17. BOOT-UP SOUNDS:
You can improve boot times by preventing the Startup.wav from being played when Windows XP launches. To do this open up the ''Control panel'' and select '' Sounds and audio devices'', Click on the ''Sounds'' tab and select '' No sounds'' in the ''Sound Scheme'' box.
18. NEEDLESS DATE STAMPS: Warning: Please back-up your Registry before performing this step.
Whenever a directory is accessed on an NTFS drive a time stamp is added which in alot of cases is just needless, To disable this click ''Start'' then ''Run'' and type ''regedit'' Then locate ''HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\system\currentcontrolset\con trol\filesystem''. Then create a new ''DWORD'' value ''NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate'' and set the value to 1.
19. THE PAGING FILE: Only applies if you have two harddrives!
There are two types of memory which helps XP fuction correctly.One is physical memory ( RAM ) and the other is Virtual Memory, referred to as the paging file. This is an area of your hard disk used as a buffer when RAM is low on resources. If you have another harddisk installed in your p.c you can move the paging file there and reduce the stress of two activities on your main harddisk.
Step 1: Reducing the work on your main harddisk can speed up application response times ( This will only benefit you if you have another harddisk ). Open ''System properties'' in the ''Control panel'' and select ''advanced''.
Step 2: Under ''Performance'' click on ''Settings'' then select ''Advanced''. Go to ''Virtual Memory'' and click on ''Change'' to see your current settings. At the moment ''C:'' will be selected so click to highlight your other drive instead.
Step 3: Having selected a different drive you can choose the ''custom size'' option and set an ''Initial Size'' and ''Maximum size'' for the paging file. Or opt for the ''System managed'' size and XP will decide whats best for you.
20. TONING DOWN WINDOWS VISUALS:
Well to start off go into ''YOUR COMPUTER'' then under ''CONTROL PANEL'' go into ''SYSTEM'' then click on the tab named ''ADVANCED''. Once you have done that click on ''PERFORMANCE SETTINGS'' then you will be taken to the ''VISUAL SETTINGS TAB''. In the visual setting window you will see boxes that have been ticked and i will now go through the one you can untick.
- Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
- Fade or slide menu's into view
- Fade or slide tooltips into view
- Fade out menu items after clicking
- Show shadows under menu's
- Show shadow under mouse pointer
- Show translucent selection rectangle
- Show window contents while dragging
- Slide open combo boxes
- Slide taskbar buttons
- Use drop shadows for icons labels on desktop
- Smooth-scroll list boxes
21. WINDOWS XP INTERNET TWEAK:
Now this step will enable you to change the Internet Bandwidth limit in windows to make surfing the web just that little faster. First of all go to ''Run'' and then type ''gpedit.msc''. Once you have done that locate the ''LOCAL COMPUTER POLICY'' branch and expand it, Then under that locate the ''ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES'' branch and expand that also. Then under that locate the ''NETWORK'' branch and expand that also. Then under that locate ''QOS PACKET SCHEDULER'' and highlight it in the left window, Then in the right window locate ''LIMIT RESERVABLE BANDWITH SETTING'' and double click on it and then on the settings box check the ''Enable Item'' and where it says ''Bandwidth limit %'' change it to 0.
22. UNLOADING DLL'S: Warning: Please back up Registry before Performing this step.
Every piece of software has DLL's that it uses. when the program closes windows keeps these cached after the program closes wasting memory space.To make it so that windows doesn't cache them do the following. Go to ''Start'' then ''Run'' and type ''Regedit''. Once you have done that locate
''HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer '',
and then under that create a new key and name it ''AlwaysUnloadDLL'' and give it a value of 1.
23. COULD ONE OF MY ''SVCHOST'' BE A VIRUS?:
Now sometimes when you open up your ''TASK MANAGER'' by pressing Ctrl,alt,delete you will notice on the ''PROCESSES'' tab you may have up to 5 ''SVCHOST'' processes listed now these processes are used for loading up hardware drivers and other things that the operating system need but sometimes one of them can be a sneeky nasty virus, Now other than using an ''ANTI-SPYWARE'' or ''ANTIVIRUS'' program of some sort you may want to check exactly what each of these ''SVCHOST'' processes do. To do this go into your ''RUN'' command taskbar and type ''CMD'' once you have done that a Dos box will appear, in this box type ''tasklist /svc'' and this will give you a list of what each of your system processes do so just take a look at what your ''SVCHOST'' processes are doing.
*I will add to this as I find more*
**if you have anything to add, let me know**
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