10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows XP
Update: If you are using Windows Vista then check out 10 Simple Ways To SpeedUp Windows Vista. If are feeling more adventurous I have also posted 10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows and also More Ways to Speed Up Windows XP
I’ve just finished setting up a new PC for a friend and I think some of you will be interested in some of the tweaks I make to all of my PCs to make them quicker. I’ve focused here on the ones which are simple to do and won’t cause problems if you get it wrong, rather than listing registry tweaks etc.
1. 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
- Click Next
2. 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
3. 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:
- 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
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Comment by christmas gifts on 8 November 2007:
This looks seriously brilliant. I’m definitely going to try these out. I run a very clean shop with my windows, but notice that it seems to slow down because of the bulk of its own applications. In fact, the only time my XP software started corrupting is when I un-installed Windows Live OneCare (the free version) and left the computer for a week without touching it (went away.) When I got back, the software had corrupted. Windows XP must be the only software that corrupts when you DON’T do anything and leave it for a while. I’ve had similar experiences with it on other computers. Looking forward to looking at your VISTA write-up as well.
Comment by Johan De Silva on 25 October 2007:
Windows XP is very fast anyway but it does need 756MB to 1GB of ram to start flying and any of these tweeks can go out the window. If you browse the internet Firefox is a must becuase multiple Tabs in IE start to make the PC crawl. If you play some computer games like BF2 and want increase load times more 2GB really speed the loading times up. Sorted.
Comment by Parabala on 24 October 2007:
I’ve been using a program called TuneupUtilities and it seems to do a pretty good job at finding bad registry entries. Not sure how much performance it has given me but my pc seems to boot a bit quicker.
Comment by viscido on 20 October 2007:
Great tips, thank you!
Comment by Suman on 19 October 2007:
Awesome !!!! this is great. My PC was very slow and i thought that it was because of 128MB ram which i have but it was wrong. After fillowing these 10 steps my computer worked as if it was new. I thank whoever have written this stuff. Man you are awesome. Thank you
Comment by perscription drugs online on 8 October 2007:
Do not disable virtual memory, ever! It’s a good thing to keep most of VM on a different HDD than the sistem one, but you also should keep at least 50MB VM on this too. The size of VM is largely debated elsewere, but even if you have 1GB RAM keep at least 256MB.
Comment by Sofna on 7 October 2007:
very nice tips. i am waiting for my new chip and mb in the mail righ tnow, the old one burned out. i will implement these tips and see what it does when i get my new hardware. thanks for the tips.
Pingback by Speed up Windows XP » article » smart computer use? on 4 October 2007:
[...] a quick example of a tip from an article at Connected Internet about speeding up Windows XP: 1. Disable Indexing [...]
Comment by km on 30 September 2007:
Nice Tips, However, i always goto startups services and uncheck some services to make the windows load faster
Comment by angie on 25 September 2007:
similar to tweakxp….. LOL