Speed up / Optimize Windows XP Quick and easy
 

The following is a list of easy tweaks you can do to speed up the overall performance of your PC with Windows XP. Most deal with extra Graphic applications and running programs so feel free to opt of of any you don't particularly like. These settings are perfect for older slower computers or even a newer system without much memory.

This indexing service gets info from files on the hard drive and creates a "searchable keyword index." The whole process takes up quite a few processor cycles and is not really necessary.

If you don't use the XP search feature often to look for documents, you can turn this feature off, and the difference you'll notice is a slight increase in the time it takes for your computer to find a file, but an overall increase in general speed for everything else.  

How to : From My Computer > right-click on the C: Drive > select Properties.
Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching." Apply changes to "C: sub folders and files," and click OK.
 

Windows stores a lot of temporary files that can be safely cleaned out. A schedule of a weekly cleanout will help your system greatly.  This is also good to do before running virus or spyware scans, as it clears many things out of your system that would need to be scanned.

How to : Download CleanUp!
How to use CleanUp! : Download, Install, and Run.

Although Microsoft says that the minimum memory  for XP is 64 mb, your system will  be sluggish if under 512 mb. 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.

Having old games or other software you no longer use can take up a lot of space on your hard drive, which can lead to an overall decrease in your PC's performance.

How to : Removing old programs is easy. From the Control Panel click on the "Add or Remove Programs" Icon. You can safely remove programs like games, demos, and other software you no longer use. If you are not sure what a program is... don't delete it just yet. You can do an internet search to find out more about any mystery programs installed on your PC to decide to delete them or not.

Remember: Mp3 music files and videos you download can take up a lot of space. Go through your media files once a month or so and delete the ones you no longer use or burn them to cd if your system is equipped with a burner. 

Windows XP has a ton of little fancy settings for optimal style. However, many of these are taxing to computer performance. Fancy sliding, fading and animated effects that windows uses by default are easily turned off, and will make the reaction time of simple tasks like opening and moving windows, taskbars, etc... much quicker.

How to : From the Control Panel, click on the "System" icon. Click on the Advanced tab. Click the "Settings" button underneath "Performance". Uncheck the options related to animations, and other unneeded visual effects.

Having too many fonts can realllllllly slow down how fast programs start up. Specifically, office, photoshop and other developmental programs that require fonts. The less you have the faster your programs that use them because there are less to process..

How to : From the Control Panel, click on the "Fonts" icon. You can delete the fonts you don't use here.

Remember: to keep the basics: Verdana, Arial, Times, Trebuchet, Courier, serif, sans-serif, Georgia, etc... Along with any fonts related to your business.

Chances are you have some sort of virus, spyware or malware on your computer as most users do. It is one of the largest resource thief's that a computer user will come to know. Infact they can render a system completely useless and crash it depending on the infection.

How to : There are many steps but first run an online scan here. Then download, install, update and scan with Adware and Spybot S&D in addition to a Firewall and Antivirus program. Also see here for assistance:  Cyberanswers removal forums 

Note: It is imperative to keep all software up to date so check before scanning as well as Windows Updates for your operating system.

You know all those glittery silver, blue and other cloored themes running on your xp system ? Well so happens that those really do affect performanceand there is a way to shut em down and make XP look like its predecessor operating systems and "Speed it up".

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose Display.
    
2. Choose the "Desktop tab and set the Background to "None."
    
3. Select the "Appearance" tab.
    
4. Under "Windows and buttons," choose "Windows Classic Sytle" from the drop-down menu.
    
5. Click the "Effects" button.
    
6. Unselect all options and click OK.
    
7. Click OK to close the Display Properties and apply the changes.
    
8. Now click start / run / and type services.msc - Scroll down in the window, double click themes and select disable in the dropdown menu then apply.
    

A small but difference may be gained here as well but combines with the many others, there is a definite gain.

1. Open My Computer
    
2. Open the C: Drive or any other drive
    
3. Choose "Folder Options" from the Tools menu
    
4. Select "Use Windows classic folders"
    
5. Select the "View" tab.
    
6. Unselect the "Automatically search for network folders and printers" option.
    
7. Click "Apply"
    
8. Click the "Apply to All Folders" button
    
9. Click OK.

I don't really know why Microsoft chose to have it delayed but the start menu is set to open on delay. We can remove the delay and have it open considerably faster.

The default speed of the Start Menu is slow, but you can fix that by editing a Registry Key. Start->Run regedt32 and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay

By default, the value is 400. Change this to a smaller value, such as 0, to speed it up.

If the speed of the Start Menu is slow, even after using the FAQ above, then you might try the following: Navigate to Display Properties> then Appearance then Effects and turn off the option titled Show menu shadow. You will get much better overall performance on your system.

Built-in Windows defragmenter, a lite version of Diskeeper. File system performance is maximized when files are contiguous on the disk. This means that all of the data in each file would be located consecutively on the Hard Drive. Instead of fragmented into separate parts all over the disk surface, causing the Hard Drive to work harder (slower) to read and write your files.

How To - Double-click "My Computer", right-click the local disk volume that you want to defragment, Example: Local Disk (C:), and then left-click "Properties". On the "Tools" tab, select "Defragment Now", then "Defragment". The following service needs to be enabled:
 

Remember: Keep your anti-virus programs up-to-date. And always research any software you plan on downloading to "help" your PC. Some anti-virus / anti-spyware software actually have spyware.

Built-in Windows file system repair utility.
Run this utility once in a while to check your hard drive for errors.

How to :

How to - Go to "Start", "My Computer", right-click on the "C:" drive, left-click "Properties", select the "Tools" tab, click "Check Now...", check "Automatically Fix File System Errors", then click "Start", "Yes" and Reboot. Repeat this for any other hard drive partitions in your system. Only the drive partition with Windows installed will require a reboot.

 

Opening a folder containing a large number of AVI file can open quite slowly because the OS has to open each AVI file and extract info from AVIs. If you have a large collection, you can speedup XP's folder access to blocking it from automatically extracting this info. This can also fix problems when trying to rename or move AVI files and you get an error message: "it is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again."

How To - Instructions - Download and run the Registry Fix.

By default Windows sets the Mouse Pointer Speed to an average speed, which can slow down the time it takes to move the cursor around the screen. Increasing this will allow you use your computer quicker and more efficient with less mouse movement.
 

How To - Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "Mouse", "Pointer Options" tab, under "Motion" adjust the slider 1 to 5 steps closer to "Fast". Only 1 to 3 steps is recommended. Then check "Enhance pointer precision" and select "OK".
 

Constantly running in the background of XP are services--processes that help the operating system run or that provide support to applications. Many of these services launch automatically at start-up. While you need many of them, some are not required, and they can slow down your system when they run in the background.

You can disable services at start-up by using the system configuration utility, similar to the way that you halt programs from running at start-up, except that you use the Services tab instead of the Startup tab. But the system configuration utility doesn't necessarily list every service that launches on start-up. A bigger problem is that disabling services is more of shot in the dark than disabling programs. When you disable a program, you can get a sense of what the program does. But when you disable a service through the system configuration utility, there's often no way to know what it does.

• A better way of disabling services at start-up is via the Services computer-management console. Run it by typing services.msc at the command prompt. The Services computer-management console includes a description of all services so that you can know ahead of time whether a particular service is one you want to turn off. It also lets you pause the service so that you can test your machine and see whether that service is needed.
  
   
• After you run the console, click the Extended tab. This view will show you a description of each service in the left pane when you highlight the service. The Startup Type column shows you which services launch on start-up--any with Automatic in that field. Click that column to sort together all the services that automatically launch on start-up. Then highlight each of those services and read the descriptions.
  
   
• When you find a service you want to disable, right-click it and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box that appears, choose Manual from the Startup Type drop-down list. The service won't start automatically from now on, but you can start it manually via the console. If you want the service disabled so that it can't be run, choose Disabled. To test the results, turn off any services that you don't want to run by clicking Stop The Service in the left pane, or by right-clicking the service and choosing Stop.

For a complete Services list as well as their functions please see here

It's not only start-up that you'd like to speed up; you can also make sure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown process:

• Don't have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn't a high priority, you might not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing your paging file, run the Registry Editor (click Start > Run, then type regedit in the Run box) and go to:
  
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
  
   
• Change the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry, and restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, the paging file won't be cleared, and you should be able to shut down more quickly.
  
  Note: Please be careful when editing the Registry; you can do a lot of damage here. Don't change or delete anything unless you know exactly what it is.

Stopping programs from running at start-up is especially daunting because there is no single place you can go to halt them all. Some run because they're in the Startup folder, others because they're part of logon scripts, others because of Registry settings, and so on. But with a little bit of perseverance, you should be able to keep them from running..

* Start by cleaning out your Startup folder. Find it in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, where username is your Windows logon name. Delete the shortcuts of any programs you don't want to run on start-up. As with any shortcuts, when you delete them, you're deleting only the shortcut, not the program itself. (You can also clear out the start-up items by going to Start > Programs > Startup, then right-clicking items you want to remove.)

* Next, clean out your Scheduled Tasks folder. Go to C:\Windows\Tasks, and delete the shortcuts of any programs that you don't want to run automatically on a schedule.

• To stop a program from running at start-up, go to the Startup tab in this utility, and uncheck the box next to the program. It can sometimes be difficult to understand what programs are listed on the Startup tab. Some, such as America Online, are clearly labeled. But often, you'll see a phrase or collection of letters, such as fs20. That's the name of the running file--such as fs20.exe, which is Free Surfer mk II, an excellent free pop-up killer.
  
   
• To get more information about a listing, expand the width of the Command column near the top of the Startup tab. Expand it enough and you'll see the start-up command that the program issues, including its location, such as C:\Program Files\Free Surfer\fs20.exe. The directory location should be another hint to help you know the name of the program.
  
   
• When stopping programs from running at start-up, it's best to stop them one at a time rather than in groups. You want to make sure that you're not causing any system problems by stopping them. So stop one, then restart your PC. If it runs fine, then stop another and restart. Continue doing this until you've cleared all the programs you don't want to run automatically.