The Complete Guide To Optimising Windows XP

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)
• 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)

To disable these services:

• 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\BootOptimizeFunction’
• 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

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