Sunday, February 11, 2007

Make your XP work fast


IN windows XP there are many services which we do not want but they consistently consume memory we can disable these services by using following commands but remember do this only when you are having sound knowledge of your PC .


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:
1. Go to Start2. Click Settings3. Click Control Panel4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components6. Uncheck the Indexing services7. Click Next

OPTIMISE DISPLAY SETTINGS

Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can
waste system resources. To optimise:
1.Go to Start

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Click System

5. Click Advanced tab

6. In the Performance tab click Settings

7. 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

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:
1. download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List2.Then select each counter in turn in the 'Extensible performance
counters' window and clear the 'performance counters enabled'
checkbox at the bottom.button below.


SPEEDUP FOLDER BROWSING

You may have noticed that everytime 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 everytime you
open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing
significantly:
1. Open My Computer2. Click on Tools menu3. Click on Folder Options4. Click on the View tab.5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and
printers check box6. Click Apply7. Click Ok8. Reboot your computer


IMPROVE MEMORY USAGE

Cacheman Improves the performance of your computer by optimizing
the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.
Once Installed:
1.Go to Show Wizard and select All2.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.3.Exit and Save Cacheman4.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.
1. Download and install2. Click the General Settings tab and select your Connection Speed
(Kbps)3. Click Network Adapter and choose the interface you use to
connect to the Internet4. Check Optimal Settings then Apply5. Reboot.


OPTIMISE YOUR PAGEFILE

If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating
system from needing to resize the page file.
1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties

2. Select the Advanced tab

3. Under Performance choose the Settings button

4. Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change.

5. Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the
initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the 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.

RUN BOOTVIS - IMPROVE BOOT TIMES

BootVis will significantly improve boot times
1. Download and Run
2. Select Trace

3. Select Next Boot and Driver Trace

4. A Trace Repetitions screen will appear, select Ok and Reboot

5. 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

6. Reboot.

7. When your machine has rebooted wait until you see the Optimizing
System box appear. Be patient and wait for the process to complete.


REMOVE THE DESKTOP PICTURE
Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can
slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve
performance.
1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties

2. Select the Desktop tab

3. In the Background window select None

4. Click Ok

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.
1. Open Control Panel2. Open Fonts folder3. 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.


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:
Alerter

Clipbook

Computer Browser

Distributed Link Tracking Client

Fast User Switching

Help and Support - (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)

Human Interface Access Devices

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)

ServerSSDP 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)

Workstation

To disable these services:
Go to Start and then Run and type "services.msc"

Doubleclick on the service you want to changeChange 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\C ontr ol\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 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 RunType 'Regedit' and click okFind '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\Contr ol\'Select 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout'Right click and select 'Modify'Change the value to '1000'Click 'OK'
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:
1. 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" 2. Save the new as anything you like but it has to be a '.bat' file e.g. fastboot.bat or deltemp.bat 3. Click 'Start' then 'Run' 4. Type in 'gpedit.msc' and hit 'ok' 5. Click on 'Computer Configuration' then 'Windows Settings' 6. Double-click on 'Scripts' and then on 'Shutdown' 7. Click 'Add' and find the batch file that you created and then press 'Ok'


I will be providing more info in the next blog

**Data Taken from various Websites **

**To apply these changes you need Administrator power on ur PC **

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