There are several tips and tricks to speed up Windows XP. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a hacker. The processes are actually quite simple.
Just follow these directions and you’ll find that you’ll be running Windows faster in no time.
Speed Up Your Startup Time
If your Windows is booting up inordinately slow, then you’ll want to read up on these tips to really speed up the process.
1) Disable Startup Services
There are certain services and processes that are running in the background that can slow down your performance. Using these methods, disable the unnecessary processes and you can speed up your speed significantly.
- Go to Start > Run
- Type “services.msc” in the box
- You’ll see a list and description of services running
- Here is a list of services that you might want to disable:
Portable Media Serial Number
Task Scheduler Schedules
Uninterruptible Power
Automatic Updates
Telnet
Wireless Zero Configuration Service
Alerter
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
ClipBook
Computer Browser
Error Reporting Service
Help and Support
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Performance Logs and Alerts
Portable Media Serial Number
QOS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Server
Smart Card
Smart Card Helper
SSDP Discovery Service
System restore Service
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
WebClient
Windows time
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adapter
2) Clean out Scheduled Tasks folder.
- Go to C:\Windows\Tasks
- If you don’t want to run any of these programs on a schedule, delete the shortcuts.
Speed Up Your Shutdown Times
When you’re tweaking your computer, adding or updating programs, or installing updates, you’ll be restarting your PC frequently. Sometimes Windows can seem to take forever to shut down.
Avoiding clearing your paging file can speed up your shutdown times. A paging file stores temporary files and data. Unless you’re absolutely worried about extreme security (sometimes passwords can be stored in the paging file) every time you shut down, then go ahead and disable this process.
Follow these steps to reduce your shutdown times:
- Go to Start > Run and type “regedit” in the box
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
- Change ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0
- Restart your computer
Scan Your System with an Antivirus and Registry Cleaner
Viruses and registry errors can really slow a system down. I recommend a deep antivirus scan weekly, especially if you like to download files off the internet.
A registry cleaner will clear up a lot of system errors and clean out useless program fragments (which are stored in your registry). For more information on how to speed up windows XP, check here to see how you can keep your PC running as quickly as possible.
