Make Windows XP Run Faster

How to XP faster:

I would like to share some practical tricks to boost up your system performance; most of these tricks are related to Windows XP. I hope these will work for you. Please give your comments on this post and if you know any other trick related to the topic or other please share it with me at my email address.

The following steps can make your Computer Experience greater.

Spend Some Money

First of all you must spend some money if your pc is working too slowly. Just equip your computer with ultra-133 or Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB cache buffer.

Add Memory

If you have less than 512 Mb of RAM capacity upgrade it. It can be easily upgraded and is relatively inexpensive to speed up the pc performance.

Use NTFS

NTFS File system provides security, performance, reliability and many advanced features that are not found in any version of FAT file system. NTFS is the recommended file system for Windows 2000 and Windows XP because it supports several features that the other file systems do not, such as file and folder permissions, encryption, large volume support, and sparse file management. To check whether your Windows is using NTFS file system or not just Open MY Computer -->Right Click on C drive and go to Properties than Examine the File system. If it is not NTFS, backup your important data, than go to START MENU and RUN and type CMD and click OK. In newly opened COMMAND LINE interface just type CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS and Press ENTER. This process may take a while and will convert your File system to NTFS without formatting or Re-installing windows operating system.

Disable Indexing Service

Indexing Service monitors hard drive to make search fast. It extracts keywords from documents and file and creates its catalog. Most people never need this feature of search. In order to disable indexing service open MY COMPUTER than Right click on C Drive, select PROPERTIES than uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching." Next apply changes to C subfolders and Files and click OK.

Empty Windows Prefetch Folder

Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every three months or so. Windows XP can "prefetch" portions of data and applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to load faster when called upon by the user. That's fine. But over time, the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete. Just go to 
-->START MENU  go to RUN and than write PREFETCH click ok and select all the file in newly opened window by CTRL+A and delete all files.

Cleanup Disk

Cleaning up disk space can also improve performance. It will also erase temporary data which is no longer in use. You can cleanup disk space by deleting temporary files, by deleting Unnecessary restore points or by uninstalling the programs that you don't want to use anymore. To do this Open My Computer , Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties. Click the Disk Cleanup button -- it's just to the right of the Capacity pie graph -- and delete all temporary files.

Enable Direct Memory Access

DMA transfers data between system memory and hardware devices without passing it through the CPU. DMA is frequently used for data transfer directly between memory and peripheral devices such as a disk drive. Right click on My Computer than go to Properties --> Hardware In Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to "DMA if available" for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.

Remove All Spy-ware

Spywares can also disturb the system performance at very large scale. In order to boost up your system performance you must need to remove all the spywares from the system. I recommend these free programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy. Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download any updates before starting your search.

Remove Unnecessary Startups 

In order to boost system startup process Remove unnecessary Windows startup Programs by using MSCONFIG. First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK. Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don't want to start when Windows starts.

Remove Unnecessary Programs

Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.

Turn Off Unnecessary Animations

Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations. Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here's how to do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click on the Advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer -- only its responsiveness.

Download Microsoft's Windows Updates

Visit the Microsoft's Windows update site regularly, and download all updates labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion. This will also improve the Performance and Security. Many bugs can be tackled with these updates.

Update Anti-virus Software

Update your antivirus software once in a week even daily basis. And try to use only well known antivirus soft wares like Avast (Free), Norton, Mcafee and Microsoft’s Security Essentials (Free) etc. Make sure to not to use more than one antivirus software at a time it will decrease system performance and unstable the reliability.

Make sure to use Less than 500 Fonts

Make sure that you have fewer than 500 fonts types installed on your computer. The more fonts you have, the slower the system will become. To check the fonts go to START click on RUN and type FONTS.

Check the System Ram

Frequently check the RAM if it is working properly. For this purpose use this free program MemTest86. Download it from www.memtest86.com. and read the instructions carefully given at the website

Update CD/DVD Driver

If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer's Web site for updated firmware. In some cases you'll be able to upgrade the recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it's free.

Disable Unnecessary Windows Services

Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that we do not need at all.

There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically. This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources. They are only suggestions so I suggest you read the description of each one when you run Services and that you turn them off one at a time. To do this Go to Start than RUN and type Services.msc. Some possible services that you can disable are: 

• Alerter
• Application Management
• Clipbook
• Fast User Switching
• Human Interface Devices
• Indexing Service
• Messenger
• Net Logon
• NetMeeting
• QOS RSVP
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
• Remote Registry
• Routing & Remote Access
• SSDP Discovery Service
• Universal Plug and Play Device Host
• Web Client

Blow Out the Dust

At least once a year, open the computer's cases and blow out all the dust and debris. While you're in there, check that all the fans are turning properly. Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks.

Clearing the Page-File on shutdown

System performance can also be enhaced by clearing Page File memory. For this purpose Click on the Start button.

Go to the Control Panel --> Administrative Tools -->Local Security Policy 
--> Local Policies Click on -->Security Options at Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile" 


Select "Enable" and than Reboot the computer.
For regedit usersIf you want to clear the page file on each shutdown: Go to Start than go to RUN and type Regedit


Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE  SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control  Session Manager Memory Management and at right hand menu double click on ClearPageFileAtShutdown


Set the value to 1

No Graphical User Interface

If you don't need to see the XP boot logo, than go to START than Run type MSCONFIG click ok and Click on the BOOT.INI tab Check the box for  
/NOGUIBOOT.

Speeding Up Menu

To do this Go to Start --> Run --> Regedt. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop Locate the key called "MenuShowDelay" and it is probably set to 400.Change that value to 150.Reboot your computer. You will notice a slight increase in the speed of your menus.

Additional Resources

Download my Prepared Registry including all kind of tweaks in one file, after downloading double click on it and press Yes button. It includes all type of registry entries. Click here to download.

Boost Registry

Thanks for visiting my Blog. If you know any trick or tip please share it with me. If you have any good material you can send it to me by uploading via FILEBOX given at right side. Than you.