The Complete Guide To Optimising Windows XP

Turn Off System Restore

System Restore can be a useful if your computer is having problems, however storing all the restore points can literally take up Gigabytes of space on your hard drive. To turn off System Restore:

Open Control Panel
Click on Performance and Maintenance
Click on System
Click on the System Restore tab
Tick "Turn off System Restore on All Drives"
Click "Ok"

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

Make Your Menus Load Faster

This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will "feel". What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.

Go to Start then Run
Type "Regedit" then click "Ok"
Find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop"
Select "MenuShowDelay"
Right click and select "Modify"
Reduce the number to around "100"

This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to "0" but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them - well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood

Make Programs Load Faster

This little tweak tends to work for most programs. If your program doesn't load properly just undo the change. For any program:

Right-click on the icon/shortcut you use to launch the program
Select properties
In the "target" box, add " /prefetch:1" at the end of the line.
Click "Ok"

Ensure XP Is Using DMA Mode

XP enables DMA for Hard-Drives and CD-Roms by default on most ATA or ATAPI (IDE) devices. However, sometimes computers switch to PIO mode which is slower for data transfer - a typical reason is because of a virus. To ensure that your machine is using DMA:

Open "Device Manager"
Double-click "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers"
Right-click "Primary Channel" and select "Properties" and then "Advanced Settings"
In the "Current Transfer Mode" drop-down box, select "DMA if Available" if the current setting is "PIO Only"

The Complete Guide To Optimising Windows XP - Intermediate

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