How to Speed up Windows XP dramastically

Views: 4307 | Print Tweak | 9/30/2002 2:16:59 AM

I am an avid gamer and I am sure that many of you out there want to speed up you
r computer for a myrad of reasons, well it seems the good folks at Computer Gami
ng World know how to tweak their systems. Here are FIVE tweaks to help speed up
the performance of Windows XP. #1: Murder the Maintainance Apps Start by choosin
g the System icon in the Control Panel. There are three things here to eliminate
: System Restore, Automatic Updating, and Remote Assistance. Navigate each tab a
nd check or uncheck the appropriate boxes and select the appropriate radio butto
ns to cleanse your system of these largely useless applications. #2: Toss out Wi
ndows Messaging Ready to kill that stupid little buddy icon that nobody uses? Ch
oose Start and Run, and type C:\Windows\INF\SYSOC.INF. Substitute your Windows d
irectory if necessary. This will open up a text file that maliciously hides some
programs from the Add/Remove Programs folder. Find the line that starts with "m
smsgs=" and edit the word "hide" out of it. Save the file, open Control Panel's
Add/Remove Programs, and click on the Windows components button. Scroll down, an
d you'll find Windows Messaging just waiting to be unchecked. #3: Purge Unnecess
ary Services Open Control Panel, selct Administrative Tools, and then select Ser
vices. Here you'll see a list of things running in the background to enable cert
ain functions of Windows XP. Some start automatically, and you don't need all of
them. Turn them off by setting them to manual: right-click on the service, choo
se Properties, pull down the Startup box, and select Manual. Some functions you
will turn off include Automatic Updates, Error Reporting, Indexing, Internet Con
nection Firewall (unless you're using it, of course), Messenger, NVIDIA Driver H
elper, Portable Media Serial Number, System Restore, and Task Scheduler. #4: Rei
gn the Swap File XP is conservative when it first sets up the paging file and th
en uses precious resources to resize it. Take that control out of Windows' hands
by making your swap files huge and static. Open the Control Panel and choose Sy
stem, select the Advanced tab, click on Performance settings button, and go to t
he Advanced tab. There, you can set your own swap file size. If you have a large
drive and enough free space, make it 1000MB. Choose the Change button and make
both the Initial and Maximum sizes 1000MB. Otherwise, make it as large as possib
le. You'll have to reboot when you're done. #5: Get rid of stupid startup items.
Finally, you can purge your system tray of silly files by hitting them where th
ey live: in your Startup folder and "run" registry key. The easy way to do this
is to use the System Configuration Utility. Launch it by hitting the Start butto
n and then choosing Run. Type MSCONFIG. Choose the Startup tab. Uncheck anything
frivolous, like Creative Labs AudioHQ, quick launchers from RealPlayer, MusicMa
tch, WinAmp, Kazaa, Microsoft Office; and-unless you use their special functions
-hardware utilities like MouseWare and Microsoft SideWinder. The beauty of the S
ystem Configuration utility is that if you uncheck something and discover that p
art of your system doesn't work, all you have to do is go back and check it agai
n.
Tweak written by or based on information submitted by Robb Frye
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