OPTIMISE YOUR PAGEFILE
If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.
1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties
2. Select the Advanced tab
3. Under Performance choose the Settings button
4. Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
5. Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.
Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.
REMOVE THE DESKTOP PICTURE
Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.
1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties
2. Select the Desktop tab
3. In the Background window select None
4. Click Ok
REMOVE FONTS FOR SPEED
Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.
1. Open Control Panel
2. Open Fonts folder
3. Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.
DISABLE UNNECESSARY SERVICES
Because Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many services running that take up system resources that you will never need. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines:
Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Fast User Switching
Help and Support – (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Remote Registry Service
Secondary Logon
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service – (Unplug n’ Pray will disable this)
Telnet
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Upload Manager
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)
Workstation
To disable these services:
Go to Start and then Run and type “services.msc”
Doubleclick on the service you want to change
Change the startup type to ‘Disable”
TURN OFF SYSTEM RESTORE
System Restore can be a useful if your computer is having problems, however storing all the restore points can literally take up Gigabytes of space on your hard drive. To turn off System Restore:
Open Control Panel
Click on Performance and Maintenance
Click on System
Click on the System Restore tab
Tick ‘Turn off System Restore on All Drives’
Click ‘Ok’
SPEEDUP FOLDER ACCESS – DISABLE LAST ACCESS UPDATE
If you have a lot of folders and subdirectories on your computer, when you access a directory XP wastes a lot of time updating the time stamp showing the last access time for that directory and for ALL sub directories. To stop XP doing this you need to edit the registry. If you are uncomfortable doing this then please do not attempt.
Go to Start and then Run and type “regedit”
Click through the file system until you get to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Cur rentControlSet\Control\FileSys tem”
Right-click in a blank area of the window on the right and select ‘DWORD Value’
Create a new DWORD Value called ‘NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate’
Then Right click on the new value and select ‘Modify’
Change the Value Data to ’1'
Click ‘OK’
DISABLE SYSTEM SOUNDS
Surprisingly, the beeps that your computer makes for various system sounds can slow it down, particularly at startup and shut-down. To fix this turn off the system sounds:
Open Control Panel
Click Sounds and Audio Devices
Check Place volume icon in taskbar
Click Sounds Tab
Choose “No Sounds” for the Sound Scheme
Click “No”
Click “Apply”
Click “OK”
IMPROVE BOOT TIMES
A great new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option in enables but on some builds it is not so below is how to turn it on.
Go to Start Menu and Click Run
Type in “Regedit” then click ok
Find “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\M icrosoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction”
Select “Enable” from the list on the right
Right on it and select “Modify”
Change the value to “Y to enable”
Reboot
IMPROVE SWAPFILE PERFORMANCE
If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.
Go to Start then Run
Type “msconfig.exe” then ok
Click on the System.ini tab
Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
Click on new then in the blank box type”ConservativeSwapfileUsage =1?
Click OK
Restart PC
MAKE YOUR MENUS LOAD FASTER
This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will ‘feel’. What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.
Go to Start then Run
Type ‘Regedit’ then click ‘Ok’
Find “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\”
Select “MenuShowDelay”
Right click and select “Modify’
Reduce the number to around “100?
This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to “0? but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them – well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood
IMPROVE XP SHUTDOWN SPEED
This tweak reduces the time XP waits before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown.
Go to Start then select Run
Type ‘Regedit’ and click ok
Find ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
Select ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
Now select ‘HungAppTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
Now find ‘HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop’
Select ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
Now find ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Cur rentControlSet\Control\’
Select ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.
1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties
2. Select the Advanced tab
3. Under Performance choose the Settings button
4. Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
5. Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.
Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.
REMOVE THE DESKTOP PICTURE
Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.
1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties
2. Select the Desktop tab
3. In the Background window select None
4. Click Ok
REMOVE FONTS FOR SPEED
Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.
1. Open Control Panel
2. Open Fonts folder
3. Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.
DISABLE UNNECESSARY SERVICES
Because Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many services running that take up system resources that you will never need. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines:
Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Fast User Switching
Help and Support – (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Remote Registry Service
Secondary Logon
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service – (Unplug n’ Pray will disable this)
Telnet
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Upload Manager
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)
Workstation
To disable these services:
Go to Start and then Run and type “services.msc”
Doubleclick on the service you want to change
Change the startup type to ‘Disable”
TURN OFF SYSTEM RESTORE
System Restore can be a useful if your computer is having problems, however storing all the restore points can literally take up Gigabytes of space on your hard drive. To turn off System Restore:
Open Control Panel
Click on Performance and Maintenance
Click on System
Click on the System Restore tab
Tick ‘Turn off System Restore on All Drives’
Click ‘Ok’
SPEEDUP FOLDER ACCESS – DISABLE LAST ACCESS UPDATE
If you have a lot of folders and subdirectories on your computer, when you access a directory XP wastes a lot of time updating the time stamp showing the last access time for that directory and for ALL sub directories. To stop XP doing this you need to edit the registry. If you are uncomfortable doing this then please do not attempt.
Go to Start and then Run and type “regedit”
Click through the file system until you get to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Cur rentControlSet\Control\FileSys tem”
Right-click in a blank area of the window on the right and select ‘DWORD Value’
Create a new DWORD Value called ‘NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate’
Then Right click on the new value and select ‘Modify’
Change the Value Data to ’1'
Click ‘OK’
DISABLE SYSTEM SOUNDS
Surprisingly, the beeps that your computer makes for various system sounds can slow it down, particularly at startup and shut-down. To fix this turn off the system sounds:
Open Control Panel
Click Sounds and Audio Devices
Check Place volume icon in taskbar
Click Sounds Tab
Choose “No Sounds” for the Sound Scheme
Click “No”
Click “Apply”
Click “OK”
IMPROVE BOOT TIMES
A great new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option in enables but on some builds it is not so below is how to turn it on.
Go to Start Menu and Click Run
Type in “Regedit” then click ok
Find “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\M icrosoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction”
Select “Enable” from the list on the right
Right on it and select “Modify”
Change the value to “Y to enable”
Reboot
IMPROVE SWAPFILE PERFORMANCE
If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.
Go to Start then Run
Type “msconfig.exe” then ok
Click on the System.ini tab
Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
Click on new then in the blank box type”ConservativeSwapfileUsage =1?
Click OK
Restart PC
MAKE YOUR MENUS LOAD FASTER
This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will ‘feel’. What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.
Go to Start then Run
Type ‘Regedit’ then click ‘Ok’
Find “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\”
Select “MenuShowDelay”
Right click and select “Modify’
Reduce the number to around “100?
This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to “0? but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them – well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood
IMPROVE XP SHUTDOWN SPEED
This tweak reduces the time XP waits before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown.
Go to Start then select Run
Type ‘Regedit’ and click ok
Find ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
Select ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
Now select ‘HungAppTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
Now find ‘HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop’
Select ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
Now find ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Cur rentControlSet\Control\’
Select ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Change the value to ’1000'
Click ‘OK’
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