Speed Up Windows XP in Seconds

Maintenance and cleaning up of your PC should be part of a regular routine to ensure that you don’t have any long-term problems with the computer. Unfortunately most basic computer users may not understand the mechanics of a computer or may feel intimidated with the maintenance. Just follow the step by step to make your windows Faster as never before..
Speed Up Browsing
When you connect to a web site your computer sends information
back and forth. Some of this information deals with resolving the
site name to an IP address, the stuff that TCP/IP really deals with,
not words. This is DNS information and is used so that you will not
need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site.Although Windows XP and Windows XP have a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size.You can do this with the registry entries below:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEM
CurrentControlSetServicesDnscacheParameters]
“CacheHashTableBucketSize”=dword:00000001
“CacheHashTableSize”=dword:00000180
“MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit”=dword:0000fa00
“MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit”=dword:0000012d


Make a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. Then copy and
paste the above into it and save it. Merge it into the registry.


Disable Indexing Services:

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

• Go to Start
• Click Settings
• Click Control Panel
• Double-click Add/Remove Programs
• Click the Add/Remove Window Components
• Uncheck the Indexing services
• Click Next

Optimise Display Settings:

Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources.

To optimize:

• Go to Start
• Click Settings
• Click Control Panel
• Click System
• Click Advanced tab
• In the Performance tab click SettingsLeave only the following ticked:

- Show shadows under menus

- Show shadows under mouse pointer

- Show translucent selection rectangle

- Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop

- Use visual styles on windows and buttons

Speed Up Folder Browsing:

You may have noticed that every time you open my computer to

browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers every time you open Windows Explorer.

To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

• Open My Computer
• Click on Tools menu
• Click on Folder Options
• Click on the View tab.
• Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and
• printers check box
• Click Apply
• Click Ok
• Reboot your computer

Remove The Desktop Picture:

Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory

and can slow the loading time of your system.Removing 

 it will improve performance.

• Right click on Desktop and select Properties
• Select the Desktop tab
• In theBackground windowselect None
• Click Ok

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)

Human Interface Access Devices

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)

Workstation

To disable these services:

• Go to Start and then Run and type “services.msc”
• Double click on the service you want to
• change Change the startup type to ‘Disable”

Remove Annoying Delete Confirmation Messages

Although not strictly a performance tweak I love this fix as it

makes my machine ‘feel’ faster. I hate the annoying

‘are you sure?’ messages that XP displays, especially

if I have to use a laptop touchpad to close them.

To remove these messages:

• Right-click on the ‘Recycle Bin’ on the desktop and then
• click ‘Properties’
• Clear the ‘Display Delete Confirmation Dialog’ check
• box and click ‘Ok’!!