Top 10 Easy Tips To Speed Up Windows XP

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Computers base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-original="https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/4336174_100.jpg" class="lazy" alt="Edweirdo profile image" title="Edweirdo profile image"/>Edweirdo more How To Speed Up Your Computer Running Windows XP

I recently chose to see what I could do today to speed up my pathetically slow Windows XP laptop, and was impressed by how much faster it had been with just quicks tweaks. I scoured the Internet for straightforward tips about how to increase my computer that didn't require messing around with all the registry - even while an advanced computer user, I try to protect yourself from directly changing the registry whenever I can. The potential for screwing things up is just too big great, and I reserve that type of action just for major problems!

The laptop I wanted to quicken is a Sony Vaio which is about six yrs . old. It has 512 MB or RAM as well as a screen it doesn't work anymore, so I've install it with and external monitor, keyboard and mouse. I now use it as being my home-office computer, and I do every one of my online writing about it. I also have a very newer HP Pavilion laptop with Windows Vista that's remarkably faster compared to Sony, but after implementing the tips below the Sony's speed has become comparable towards the HP, which includes 4 times more RAM as well as a newer, faster CPU!

So here i will discuss 10 simple changes which will significantly raise the speed within your Windows XP computer...

Make Your Computer Faster !



1. Disable The Windows Indexing Service

The Indexing Service that are part of Windows XP enables you to search a nearby hard drive quicker. It relies on a lot of memory in the shadows and derives passion for space on your disk drive. If you hardly ever use the Search feature in Windows Explorer to discover files on your harddrive, disabling the indexing feature can greatly increase performance, along with free up some space on your hard disk. You will still have the capacity to search the files on the computer, and people occasional searches is going to be slower, however, your overall performance will likely be faster.

To Disable Indexing:



Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

Double-select the "Add or Remove Programs" icon



Along the left side, click "Add/Remove Windows Components"

Un-check the "Indexing Services" box



Click Next and stick to the instructions

You should reboot your pc for the changes to look at effect



If you previously had the Indexing Services box checked, you may also remove the indexing that already exists to get back a little hard disk drive space:

At the bottom with the Properties screen, un-check the "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching"

Depending regarding how many files are with your computer, this could take a while as Windows un-indexes most of your files...

2. Optimize Windows Display Settings



Windows XP has several display features that provide it an alternative look and feel from older versions of Windows. While these traits look nice, they could cost your laptop a good deal of speed. Since none of strikes affect the way your pc operates, do pick and choose those you want and you don't worry about. By default, each one of the choices selected, so just un-check each of them that you no more want.

To change display settings:



how to set up windows 10Right visit My Computer and select "Properties"

Under "Performance" click on the "Settings" button



Un-check to options you wish to disable

Alternately, you'll be able to select the "Adjust for the most powerful performance" option near the top of the screen to accelerate your computer.

3. Optimize Your Virtual Memory Pagefile Size



You Virtual Memory Pagefile can be a chunk of hard disk space that Windows XP uses to supplement your physical RAM. By default, this file is consistently being resized device, that may waste a wide range of resources. For most users, there's usually no need to possess a pagefile which is more than 1.5 to 2 times the quantity of physical RAM inside your PC.

To set the pagefile size with a fixed amount:



Right click My Computer and select "Properties" - in the bottoom of the screen, note the number of physical RAM in your computer

Select the "Advanced" tab at the summit right



Under "Performance", go through the "Settings" button

Choose the "Advanced" tab on the top



At the base, under "Virtual Memory", go through the "Change" button

Click with your main disk drive at the top



In the middle in the screen, pick the "Custom size" button and enter a number that's 1.5 to 2 times the volume of physical RAM in the "Initial size" and "Maximum Size" boxes

4. Run Disk Cleanup



Over time, Windows XP will collect a large amount of data in files that are not being used. By running the Disk Cleanup tool, it is possible to safely choose which these files to delete, freeing up resources on your own computer:

To run Disk Cleanup:



In Windows Explorer, click "My Computer"

Right go through the entry for your hard disk and select "Properties"



Next on the graphic showing your disk space usage, go through the "Disk Cleanup" button

After a couple of minutes, Windows XP can have a dialog box of files it is possible to safely delete, as well as an explanation of the items type of files they are

Read the explanations per suggestion and delete the methods you not need



5. Remove Your Desktop Wallpaper

A large image file used as desktop wallpaper may look pretty, so how often do you see it? After the initial few seconds of booting your personal computer, you almost certainly open up some application windows and completely mask that image! And desktop wallpaper, especially when it's a photograph, takes a wide range of memory to load at startup, plus extra resources to reload every time you show the desktop again.

To eliminate the desktop wallpaper:



Minimize all open windows and right click any empty space about the desktop

Select "Properties"



Click the "Desktop" tab at the pinnacle

Scroll right up to your top on the Background list and select "None"



Choose a color in the drop-down box within the right

6. Disable Automatic Network Search In Windows Explorer



Did you ever observe that when you open My Computer or Windows Explorer, there is usually a pause ahead of the window loads? That may be the consequence of default setting that tells Explorer to look for network files and printers each and every time it loads. If your home computers are certainly not networked together, then there is certainly no need for this feature.

To disable it:



Open "My Computer"

Go on the "Tools" menu near the top of the screen



Click "Folder Options..."

Under the "View" tab, un-check the therapy lamp that says "Automatically seek out network folders and printers"

You needs to reboot your pc for the change to consider effect



7. Enable DMA On All Drives

Windows XP has a harddrive feature call Direct Memory Access, or DMA. This allows data from the drives to transfer directly in the device into memory without passing first from the CPU, thereby decreasing the workload on the processor. To accelerate your computer, you may make sure DMA is enabled for every one of your drives (including CD/DVD drives).

To enable DMA:



Right click "My Computer"

Select the "Hardware" tab towards the top right



Click the "Device Manager" button at the very top

Double-go through the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" entry



Double click "Primary IDE Channel"

Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, select "DMA if available" under Transfer Mode



Repeat for every single Device listed

Double click "Secondary IDE Channel" and repeat the steps above



how to setup windows 108. Disable Performance Statistics Gathering

Windows XP features a built-in performance monitor that many users can never access, and which actually gobbles up some on the resources it is measuring! To disable the collection of those performance statistics and release some more resources, download this tool from Microsoft

and keep to the instructions to set up it. (FYI, the page says that this tool is good for Windows 2000, yet it is also that will work with XP)

Go the folder in places you installed the tool (automatically, C:/Program Files/Resource Kit) and doucle-click on the file "exctrlst.exe"

One by one, highlight each entry inside the list and un-check the "Performance Counters Enabled" box



Once every one of the entries are actually un-checked, click "Refresh" at the very top and make sure are all still un-checked

Close the tool



You may need to reboot with the changes to consider effect

9. Run Microsoft's Free Online OneCare Scan Tool



Microsoft comes with a free, all-in-one virus, spyware as well as checker at http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

Firefox users should remember that this tool was created as an ActiveX control for Internet Explorer and won't run in Firefox. You should open IE and run this tool from that point.

Scroll down and find the blue "Full Service Scan" button.

You will need to set up the ActiveX control - select the yellow bar on top of the screen and keep to the prompts.

Once the tool is installed and running, you are able to do a Complete Scan or Quick Scan.

If you already use a virus and/or spyware software with your computer, you may choose the "Customize..." option within the Complete Scan and un-check genital herpes and/or spyware scan, each of that may take time to run if you possess a lot of files on the computer.

The tool will run for some time, determined by which options you decide on. When it's done, you will definately get a report associated with a problems it found and options to repair them. The tool checks for viruses, spyware, disk fragmentation, unneeded files, registry entries that are no more in use and open network ports that will make your personal computer vulnerable to hackers and viruses.

10. Install Service Pack 3 to Optimize Windows XP



If you have not already, you'll be able to install Service Pack 3 to accelerate your computer. Many users report up to your 10% boost in performance by doing this a stride! You can find the many details around the Service Pack at Microsoft's website.

I Made My PC Faster!

I've implemented each one of these steps alone Window XP computer and was shocked at the amount of faster it can be!

The Service Pack took quite a long time and some rebooting install, as well as the Microsoft OneCare tool took a long time to complete, but was definitely worth it! It found some spyware on my small machine and indicated that I needed to defragment my harddrive. Many Windows advice sites online consider defragging unnecessary with modern computer drives, but there seemed to be a definite boost in performance after I made it happen...

The other tips were simple to implement and a lot showed immediate results!



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Comments

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pranil



good tips for speeding pc! let me try it.

To have a speed individuals computer is important. This can be done by Removing temporary Internet files, Remove downloaded program file, Empty the Recycle Bin., Remove Windows temporary files., Remove optional Windows components which you don't use, Remove installed programs that you just no longer use, cheers.

computer repairs melbourne



apersonalmoney

7 years back from Malaysia



Good you just read about this. I am possessing this speed problem for quit some time. Try to perform disk clean and deframent not helping much. Good suggestions to try.Thanks.

7 years back from United States



@Julie Lussier base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" data-original="https://usercontent2.hubstatic.com/7008367_100.jpg" class="lazy" alt="ComfortB profile image" title="ComfortB profile image"/>Comfort Babatola

7 a long time ago from Bonaire, GA, USA



Do these steps work exactly the same for Windows 7?

michifus



Congratulations about the Hubbie award - wouldn't discovered this otherwise. I shall apply said techniques, thanks one million.

Julie Lussier



7 years back from Canada

Congratulations with your Hubbie Award! Great hub.



I am additionally a big fan of defrags. I did not know regarding the DMA setting, I'll test it!

Xavier Nathan



7 years back from Isle of Man

This is often a great hub and I will likely be following anyone with a advice any further. Thank you.



myi4u

7 in years past from United Kingdom



Nice hub.

Something to incorporate. Check the Microsoft Configuration and take away any unnecessary begin programs. To access Microsoft Configuration: Click Start --> Run --> Type msconfig and check out Startup tab.

Abid REhman



very good

klb



Wow, this really is a nice page. I know only few things listed here. I have to try creative options provided by you, I am sure, I can improve my performance in the PC. Thanks

WebTechEngineer



8 years back from Houston, TX USA

good tips. WinXpSP3 is going to be around for one more 4 years if I recall correctly. I am not likely to migrate to Win Vista or Win 7 in the near future....

Edweirdo, Thanks for giving details about windows basic simple manner. Those are incredibly simple instruction and plus you give the screen shot at intervals of steps which simplified more.

Windows XP Tips



Wow, this is a nice page. I know only few things listed here. I have to try additional options provided by you, I am sure, I can improve my performance on the PC. Thanks.

Alejandra



I just loved this post, it taught me to be a lot with my users.

Thank you much =)



It will likely be great if you something like this except for Windows Vista

SteveoMc



8 in years past from Pacific NorthWest

Edweirdo, this really is great information. Having a listing of 10 things you can actually do, that of a relief. I suggest operating a good reliable anti-malware app when you are at it.

I thought it was under "administrative Tools" within the control Panel. Mine said "manual", so I guess it won't have to be disabled.

@vrajavala - it has to be just as I explained it inside hub...



jiberish

8 in the past from florida



Great tips...many thanks sharing!

vrajavala



8 years back from Port St. Lucie

thanks Edweirdo!!! May I ask where can I obtain the Indexing on the Dell Windows XP?



5tranger

nice tips...these products really help to stop bottlenecks...



Joy

Thanks for that tips on what to accelerate my PC.carry on the good work sir



@Granny's House - I agree, ActiveX can be a pain! But the tool does eventually perform well, so I think it is worth the effort (and also the time) to allow that one run ;)

Thanks for stopping by !



Granny's House

8 a long time ago from Older and Hopefully Wiser Time



It is weird, thay must use ActiveX and they also say never to. ActiveX isn't good. I would never allow this running. it offers slowed my computer down before

Good luck johnee - make me aware how it ends up :)



8 in years past from San Jose, CA

great tips, I'm by using a sony vaio at the moment and am thinking of doing everything you suggested! Thanks with the tips.

johneee



How 2 Defrag

Great Article,



I find which the best way to improve a computer is as simple as defragmenting it.

You can make use of the Windows Defrag Tool that can accelerate your computer by miles, I recently ran it on my own five year old Windows XP Machine and after this it flys!

Saves you cash as you need not buy a brand new computer.



@muftdagyan - after you run disk cleanup, you weigh up which files will probably be deleted, so that it will not delete anything that you just do not tell it to...

Hope which helps :)



muftdagyan

great information but tend to you please inform me if i do disk cleanup could it also erase any useful files

sushiltl



8 a long time ago from MANCHESTER

hi gud post



nadp

8 in years past from WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA



Thanks Edweirdo! I will definitely try most of these. Great hub!

Bibleseo



Nice tips. This seems even more of technical tips. I often use ccleaner to accomplish some of basic speeding.

Vivian Daisy



Very nice post! In my opinion, though every computer can become slow, you will still find some ways that people can do in order to fix a pokey computer. See more additional information here... Good luck all!

@ddalgleish - I agree, but every touch helps ;)



ddalgleish

8 years back from Canada



Thanks with the tips -- these computers can't ever go fast enough! ;-)

Great news, Eddy! Thanks for that update :D



Eddy2106

8 in years past from Chicago Suburb, IL



Great hubpage, we have followed each of the steps and yes it seems to own faster now, thanks.

AUTHOREdweirdo



8 in the past from United States

Pamela, Good luck while using new PC! And FYI, none in the steps I listed here can hurt your personal machine in any way, so use them :)

8 in the past from Sunny Florida



Sounds like some really good suggestions but I just adopted a new computer with Windows XP within my request and I do not want to mess up anything. I will use a few of the suggestions however. Thanks.
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