HowTo: Speed Up Your Windows XP

[Spock]

Original Poster: Antony
Originally Posted: 2003-07-29, 1:37 am

Okay, this document is for those people can't afford the hardware upgrading demanded by Microsoft Windows XP, and have enjoyed the new XP look and "feel" for quite a while. This is very useful for people who are doing serious work on their Windows XP, requiring lots of system resources.

System Properties
Visual Effects
Windows XP contains a huge list of special effects and visual enhancements such as nimated menus, fade effects, cursor shadows, menu shadows, ... etc. Disabling some of these settings can make Windows XP running faster and use less system resources.

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose "System."
2. Choose the "Advanced" tab.
3. Select the "Settings" button under the Performance section.
4. Check the "Adjust for best performance" box and click "Apply" to apply the settings.
5. Alternatively, you can choose the "Custom" open, you can then selectively enable or disable each specific effects.

The cursor shadowing effect can have a noticable impact on performance.

Remote Desktop
So you want to allow someone from another location to control your Windows? Disable it.

1. Choose the "Remote" tab.
2. Make sure both "Allow Remote Assistance ..." and "Allow users to connect ..." are not selected and click OK.

Automatic Updates
Having Microsoft automatically screwing up your computer is not a good idea. There are a number of reasons not to let your Windows updates itself. (I will add reasons if I have time to write those.)

1. Choose the "Automatic Updates" tab.
2. Uncheck the "Keep my computer up to date..." box
   OR
   tick the box that says "Turn off automatic updating..."

Display Properties
Well, it is sad to say goodbye to special effects, but we want to speed up the computer.

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose Display.
2. Choose the "Desktop tab and set the Background to "None."
3. Select the "Appearance" tab.
4. Under "Windows and buttons," choose "Windows Classic Sytle" from the drop-down menu.
5. Click the "Effects" button.
6. Unselect all options and click OK.
7. Click OK to close the Display Properties and apply the changes.

There's more ways to speed up your XP.
Start Menu and Folders
Start Menu and Taskbar

Context click (usually known as Right click) on the Windows XP Start button and choose "Properties" from the contextual menu.

1. Choose "Classic Start Menu"
2. Click the "Customise" button
3. Select the "Show Small Icons in Start Menu" option
4. Unselect any other items that you don't use often.

Folder Options

1. Open My Computer
2. Open the C: Drive or any other drive
3. Choose "Folder Options" from the Tools menu
4. Select "Use Windows classic folders"
5. Select the "View" tab.
6. Unselect the "Automatically search for network folders and printers" option.
7. Click "Apply"
8. Click the "Apply to All Folders" button
9. Click OK.

Now, you can enjoy your Windows XP faster.
(Based on Connectix's documentation for optimising Windows XP Professional and Home Edition)

[cmptch]

I have done all this on many systems, and it works great. I found a similiar article on tweak xp, and was going to post it here, but alas, the site is down right now. so I will be posting it later.

[Spock]

Feel free to add it. The more information we can find to help ourselves and others, the better.

Make sure you also post the links and attributes to the original site.

[cmptch]

[Information Removed]disabling Automatic Updates Service also stops the Windows Update Site from functioning. I didn't realise that, so I removed that information.

[Added]
On my site, I only put those little tweaks I have used or tested and have not caused funcionality issues on my machine. It is always advisable to back up your machine or create a restore point before making changes to the way Windows or applications operate(s). This includes but is not limited to editing the registry, editing files in Msconfig, editing system files, and editing Services.

For those not-so-power users:
Msconfig is a GUI used to edit certain system files.
GUI --> Short for Graphical User Interface. A GUI is used to display icons and pictures instead of using a text based system.
Instead of using DOS, we use Windows. Instead of telnet for a forum, we use phpBB. Once again, Spock is the teacher, and he could provide a better method of explanation.

[Spock]

If you are reading this, what you are looking at is a Graphical User Interface.

Graphical = Pictures

User Interface = how you (the user) can interface or interact with the computer to cause it to do what you want it to do ... well, most of the time anyway.

The problem is that a computer does exactly what it has been programmed to do. If you tell it to do something in a manner it doesn't know how to accept or tell it to do something it doesn't know how to do the final results cannot be determined easily. The pictures are supposed to make things easier but, in fact, sometimes make things harder which is why I like to teach so many keyboard shortcuts.

If anyone would like to try any of the options recommended on this website or any other, cmptch's advice of backing up your system first is the best to follow. Too many people make changes that don't turn out the way they wanted and then cannot remember how to undo them.