The Complete Guide To Optimising Windows XP

Beginners

• Remove Annoying Delete Confirmation Messages
  Although not strictly
  a performance tweak I love this fix as it makes my machine ‘feel’ faster. I hate
  the annoying ‘are you sure?’ messages that XP displays, especially if I have to
  use a laptop touchpad to close them. To remove these messages:
  
  • Right-click on the ‘Recycle Bin’ on the desktop and then click ‘Properties’
    
  • Clear the ‘Display Delete Confirmation Dialog’ check box and click ‘Ok’. If
    you do accidentally delete a file don’t worry as all is not lost. Just go to
    your Recycle Bin and ‘Restore’ the file.
  
  
• Disable Indexing Services
  Indexing Services is a small little
  program that uses large amounts of RAM 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, or even if you do search often, this
  system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:
  
  • Go to Start
    
  • Click Settings
    
  • Click Control Panel
    
  • Double-click Add/Remove Programs
    
  • Click the Add/Remove Window Components
    
  • Uncheck the Indexing services box
    
  • Click ‘Next’
  
  
• Optimise Display Settings
  Windows XP can look sexy but displaying
  all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimise:
  
  • Go to Start
    
  • Click Settings
    
  • Click Control Panel
    
  • Click System
    
  • Click Advanced tab
    
  • In the Performance tab click Settings
    
  • Leave only the following ticked:
    
    • Show shadows under menus
      
    • Show shadows under mouse pointer
      
    • Show translucent selection rectangle
      
    • Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
      
    • Use visual styles on windows and buttons
  
  
• Speedup Folder 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 significantly:
  
  • Open My Computer
    
  • Click on Tools menu
    
  • Click on Folder Options
    
  • Click on the View tab.
    
  • Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
    
  • Click Apply
    
  • Click Ok
    
  • Reboot your computer
  
  
• Disable Performance Counters
  Windows XP has a performance monitor
  utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities
  take up system resources so disabling is a good idea. To disable:
  
  • download and install the Extensible
    Performance Counter List
    
  • Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’
    window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the
    bottom.button below
    

• Improve Memory Usage With Cacheman
  

Cacheman Improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk
cache, memory and a number of other settings. Once Installed:

• Go to Show Wizard and select All
  
• Run all the wizards by selecting Next or Finished until you are back to the
  main menu. Use the defaults unless you know exactly what you are doing
  
• Exit and Save Cacheman
  
• Restart Windows
• Optimise your internet connection
  

There are lots of ways to do this but by far the easiest is to run TCP/IP Optimizer

• Download and install
  
• Click the General Settings tab and select your Connection Speed (Kbps)
  
• Click Network Adapter and choose the interface you use to connect to the
  Internet
  
• Check Optimal Settings then Apply
  
• Reboot
• Optimise Your Pagefile
  

If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from
needing to resize the page 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.

• Right click on My Computer and select Properties
  
• Select the Advanced tab
  
• Under Performance choose the Settings button
  
• Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
  
• Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of
  the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.
• Run BootVis
  - Improve Boot Times
  

BootVis will significantly improve boot times:

• Download and Run
  
• Select Trace
  
• Select Next Boot and Driver Trace
  
• A Trace Repetitions screen will appear, select Ok and Reboot
  
• Upon reboot, BootVis will automatically start, analyze and log your system’s
  boot process. When it’s done, in the menu go to Trace and select Optimize System
  
  
• Reboot.
  
• When your machine has rebooted wait until you see the Optimizing System box
  appear. Be patient and wait for the process to complete
• 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.

• Open Control Panel
  
• Open Fonts folder
  
• 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.
  

Intermediate

• Turn Off System Restore

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’
• Defragment Your Pagefile
  

Keeping your pagefile defragmented can provide a major performance boost. One
of the best ways of doing this is to creat a separate partition on your hard
drive just for your page file, so that it doesn’t get impacted by normal disk
usage. Another way of keeping your pagefile defragmented is to run PageDefrag.
This cool little app can be used to defrag your pagefile, and can also be set to
defrag the pagefile everytime your PC starts. To install:

• Download and Run PageDefrag
  
• Tick “Defrag at next Reboot”,
  
• Click “Ok”
  
• Reboot

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.

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

• 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?
• Make Programs Load Faster
  

This little tweak tends to work for most programs. If your program doesn’t
load properly just undo the change. For any program:

• Right-click on the icon/shortcut you use to launch the program
  
• Select properties
  
• In the ‘target’ box, add ‘ /prefetch:1′ at the end of the line.
  
• Click “Ok”
• Ensure XP Is Using DMA Mode
  

XP enables DMA for Hard-Drives and CD-Roms by default on most ATA or ATAPI
(IDE) devices. However, sometimes computers switch to PIO mode which is slower
for data transfer - a typical reason is because of a virus. To ensure that your
machine is using DMA:

• Open ‘Device Manager’
  
• Double-click ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers’
  
• Right-click ‘Primary Channel’ and select ‘Properties’ and then ‘Advanced
  Settings’
  
• In the ‘Current Transfer Mode’ drop-down box, select ‘DMA if Available’ if
  the current setting is ‘PIO Only’
  

Advanced

• Speed Up Boot Times I
  

This tweak works by creating a batch file to clear the temp and history
folders everytime you shutdown so that your PC doesn’t waste time checking these
folders the next time it boots. It’s quite simple to implement:

• Open Notepad and create a new file with the following entries:
  
  • RD /S /q “C:\Documents and Settings”UserName without quotes”\Local
    Settings\History”
    
  • RD /S /q “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\History”
    
  • RD /S /q “D:\Temp” <–”Deletes temp folder, type in the location of your
    temp folder”
  
  
• Save the new as anything you like but it has to be a ‘.bat’ file e.g.
  fastboot.bat or deltemp.bat
  
• Click ‘Start’ then ‘Run’
  
• Type in ‘gpedit.msc’ and hit ‘ok’
  
• Click on ‘Computer Configuration’ then ‘Windows Settings’
  
• Double-click on ‘Scripts’ and then on ‘Shutdown’
  
• Click ‘Add’ and find the batch file that you created and then press ‘Ok’
  
• Speed Up Boot Times II
  

When your PC starts it usually looks for any bootable media in any floppy or
cd-rom drives you have installed before it gets around to loading the Operating
System from the HDD. This can waste valuable time. To fix this we need to make
some changes to the Bios.

Note: Once this change has been made, you won’t be able to boot from a
floppy disc or a CD-rom. If for some strange reason you need to do this in the
future, just go back into your bios, repeat the steps above and put your floppy
or CD-rom back as the ‘First Device’

• To enter the bios you usually press ‘F2′ or ‘delete’ when your PC starts
  
• Navigate to the ‘Boot’ menu
  
• Select ‘Boot Sequence’
  
• Then either move your Hard drive to the top position or set it as the ‘First
  Device’5. Press the ‘Escape’ key to leave the bios. Don’t forget to save your
  settings before exiting
• Speed Up Boot Times III
  

When your computer boots up it usually has to check with the network to see
what IP addresses are free and then it grabs one of these. By configuring a
manually assigned IP address your boot time will improve. To do this do the
following:

• Click on ‘Start’ and then ”Connect To/Show All Connections’
  
• Right-click your network adapter card and click ‘Properties’
  
• On the ‘General’ tab, select ‘TCP/IP’ in the list of services and click
  ‘Properties’
  
• In the TCP/IP properties, click ‘Use the following address’ and enter an IP
  address for your PC. If you are using a router this is usually 192.168.0.xx or
  192.168.1.xx. If you are not sure what address you could check with your ISP or
  go to ‘Start/run’ and type ‘cmd’ and then ‘ipconfig/all’. This will show your
  current IP settings which you will need to copy
  
• Enter the correct details for ‘Subnet mask’, ‘Default gateway’ and ‘DNS
  Server’. Again if you are not sure what figures to enter use ‘ipconfig/all’ as
  in stage 4
  

• 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:

To disable these services:

• Alerter
  
• Clipbook
  
• Computer Browser
  
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
  
• Fast User Switching
  
• Help and Support - (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
  
• 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)
  
• Go to Start and then Run and type “services.msc”
  
• Doubleclick on the service you want to change
  
• Change the startup type to ‘Disable”
• 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\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem”
  
• 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’
• 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\Microsoft\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
  

• 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\CurrentControlSet\Control’
  
• Select ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’
  
• Right click and select ‘Modify’
  
• Change the value to ‘1000′
  
• Click ‘OK’
  

I hope you found this guide useful and that implementing these tweaks will
give your XP installation a second lease of life!

Category: Tutorial