Increase XP Speed

There are various ways to increase Win XP speed.In this article, we list a few of them.

1> Disable Extra Startup

There are certain programs that Windows will start every time you boot up your system, and during the startup phase, they're all competing for a slice of your CPU speed. Extra or unwanted items in the startup list will definitely increase your startup time, perhaps by several minutes. Some common examples are things related to AOL, RealPlayer, Napster, instant messengers, and video managers.

1. Go to Start button then Run

2. Type "msconfig"

3. Hit enter key or click the OK button

4. A System Configuration Utility window will show up

5. Click the Startup tab

6. In the Startup tab you will see several boxes and some of them will selected (checked). All you have to do is to uncheck

extra items that are of no use. If you run an antivirus program it is not recommended to uncheck it.

7. After making you choices press the OK button, you will be prompted to restart computer to apply changes.

8. After restarting your computer a dialogue will be displayed.You can check the option for not showing this dialogue every

time your PC reboots.

9.In the same way you can also disable the unwanted services during the startup by clicking on services tab.

2> Remove Spyware, Viruses,Adware,and Malware

Regularly scan your system for spyware, adware and other unwanted pests.They slow down your computer because they use resources and interfere with the operation of good programs. To remove spyware there is a program ie. Spybot which is free. There are several free antiviruses available too.Avast being one of them.Many of the antiviruses come with all the facilities like Spyware removal,adware removal,virus removal tool etc.

3> Optimize Display Settings

Windows XP can look good but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimize:

1. Click the Start button

2. Select Control Panel

3. Double-click the System icon

4. Click the Advanced tab

5. In the Performance box click Settings

6. Only these should be ticked

a. Show shadows under menus

b. Show shadows under mouse pointer

c. Show translucent selection rectangle

d. Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop

e. Use visual styles on windows and buttons

7. Finally, click Apply and OK

4>Speed-Up File Browsing

You may have noticed that every time you open “My Computer” to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows

XP automatically searches for network files and printers every time you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing

speed significantly:

1. Double-click on My Computer

2. Click the Tools menu

3. Select Folder Options

4. Click on the View tab.

5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and

printers check box

6. Click Apply, then OK

5> Reduce Page File Size

Page file size is not constant by default. Due to this, the operating system has to resize the file each time more space is required. This

is a performance overhead. All you have to do is to set the file size to a reasonable limit.

Follow the steps:

1. Right-click My Computer, Select Properties

2. Click the Advanced tab

3. Click the Settings button under the Performance section

4. Click the Advanced tab

5. Under the Virtual Memory section click the Change button

6. "Virtual Memory" dialogue box will appear.

7. Highlight the C: drive containing page file.

8. Select the Custom Size radio button and give same values in Initial size and Maximum size

fields: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.

9. Click Set, then OK buttons to apply the changes

6> Clean Your System Registry

Installing and un-installing programs, surfing the Internet, emailing, and other everyday activities create a sort of “sludge” that builds up in your computer over time. After a while, it starts sluggishly.Any third party tool could be used to scan registry for errors and fix it.Caution: Please make a registry back up before doing a registry scan or do create a restore point.

7> Run Disk Clean-Up

Both Windows and application programs tend to leave temporary files lying around on your hard drive, taking up space. A hard drive that is close to being “full” can cause Windows to slow down or interfere with efficient disk access and virtual memory operations. If you surf the web a lot, your temporary internet files folder can become quite large, causing Internet Explorer to slow down or malfunction. Cleaning up unneeded files, scanning for disk errors and defragmenting the hard drive can help to restore some zip to your system. Try to run once a month for peak performance.

You can also schedule the disk clean up to run after a stipulated time.

1. Double-click the My Computer icon.

2. Right-click on the C: drive

3. Select Properties

4. Click the Disk Cleanup button

5. Select / check Temporary Internet Files and Recycle Bin

6. Click OK

8> Enable Direct Memory Access (DMA)

1. Right-click on My Computer, select Properties

2. Select the Hardware tab

3. Click the Device Manager button

4. Double-click IDE/ATAPI controllers

5. Double-click on the Primary IDE Channel

6. Click on the Advanced Settings tab (as shown in figure) The tab may or may not be available for each option. It is only available in Primary and Secondary Channels.

7. Set the Transfer Mode to "DMA if Available" both for Device 1 and 0.

8. Click OK

9. Perform the same operation for other items in the list, if applicable.

9> Disable File Indexing(Use in extreme cases as file indexing is an essential feature)

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of memory and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, this system service is completely unnecessary.

To disable do the following:

1. Click Start button

2. Select the Control Panel

3. Double-click Add/Remove Programs

4. Click the Add/Remove Window Components icon on the left

side of the window

5. This may take a few seconds to load. Be patient.

6. Look for the “Indexing Services” component in the list

7. Uncheck the Indexing Services

8. Click Next

9. Click Finish

10> Remove Un-Used Programs & Files

You may have a bunch of software packages on your hard drive that are no longer needed, or they were gratuitously installed when you downloaded some other package. Toolbars, file-sharing programs, free email enhancers, online shopping "companions" and download managers are notorious for this practice. These uninvited guests can put a big drag on your startup time, cause web pages to load slowly, and generally bog down your computer.

1. Click Start button

2. Select Control Panel

3. Double-click Add/Remove Programs icon

4. See what programs are installed that you don’t typically use

5. Select the Remove button for the ones you know you don't

need.If you’re unsure about some programs, do a web search to learn

about the ones that you need to keep.

11> Install some RAM

If you are running 128mb or 256mb of Ram, it's pretty cheap and easy to upgrade to 512mb. This is the only suggestion I will make that will actually cost money, but it's also the one that will best improve performance.

12>Defragment hard drives

The more you use your PC, the more some files become broken into disparate parts scattered around your hard drive. Defragmenting rearranges each file's pieces into a single continuous block for faster access.You'll need to be logged in as the Administrator to run XP's Disk Defragmenter. First select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. Highlight the drive that you want to check, and press the Analyze button. XP will tell you whether the drive needs to be defragmented. If XP does recommend defragging, click the Defragment button.