10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows
3. 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
4. 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’
5.Disable System Sounds
Surprisingly, the beeps that your computer makes for various system sounds can slow it down, particularly at startup and shut-down. To fix this turn off the system sounds:
1. Open Control Panel
2. Click Sounds and Audio Devices
3. Check Place volume icon in taskbar
4. Click Sounds Tab
5. Choose “No Sounds” for the Sound Scheme
6. Click “No”
7. Click “Apply”
8. Click “OK”
6. 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
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Comment by 3G iPhone on 13 August 2008:
Thanks for the tips.
Comment by Larry on 17 July 2008:
Turning off System Restore is not a wise move, I suggest reducing the size of disk space it holds in reserve from 12% to 6%.
Pingback by Ways to Speed Up Windows XP | Melikbilge on 22 June 2008:
[...] Computer Browser [...]
Comment by Billy bob on 7 June 2008:
Number nine (9) does not work it will say that itbis invalid
Comment by Brian Skidmore on 1 June 2008:
I have followed all Steps bar the Restore section.
Immediate improvement occurred with the “pageDefrag”
section.
No problems were experienced with your instructions.
I will give it another day and if all remains well I’ll
finish off with the Restore section
many thanks for a great article
Pingback by Four Simple Ways to Speed up Windows XP « Your Tech Today on 2 April 2008:
[...] Computer Browser [...]
Comment by tdh on 29 March 2008:
Only disable a service when you know exactly what its function is. Instead of listing all the services to disable, why don’t you tell some words about each service?
For example, if you disable Computer Browser, you cannot access to any shared folder in other computers in LAN, right? So what? IMHO, listing the unnecessary services without function description is fool!
Comment by Darrenb on 23 February 2008:
HELP…
I did these tweaks now when i click on my computer or my documents or any folder nothing happens!!!!