Speed Secrets of Windows XP & Vista

XP Speed Secret #1: Disable Extra Startup Programs
There are certain programs that Windows will start every time you boot up your system, and during the startup phase, they’re all competing for a slice of your CPU speed. Extra or unwanted items in the startup list will definitely increase your startup time, perhaps by several minutes. Some common examples are things related to AOL, RealPlayer, Napster, instant messengers, and video managers. If you’re not sure about an item, no big deal. You can turn it off, restart your PC, and see if everything seems to work. If not, you can always go back and re-enable an item in the Startup list. This tip alone should speed up your start-up by 250%. Here are is what you have to do:

1. Go to Start button Run
2. Type “msconfig”, without quotations
3. Hit enter key or click the OK button
4. A System Configuration Utility window will show up
5. Click the Startup tab
6. In the Startup tab you will see several boxes and some of them will selected (checked). All you have to do is to uncheck extra items that are of no use. If you run an antivirus program it is not recommended to uncheck it.
7. After making you choices press the OK button, you will be prompted to restart computer to apply changes.
8. After restarting your computer a dialogue will be displayed. You can check the option for not showing this dialogue every time your PC reboots.

XP Speed Secret #3: Optimize Display Settings

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

1. Click the Start button
2. Select Control Panel
3. Double-click the System icon
4. Click the Advanced tab
5. In the Performance box click Settings
6. Leave only the following ticked:
a. Show shadows under menus
b. Show shadows under mouse pointer
c. Show translucent selection rectangle
d. Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
7. e. Use visual styles on windows and buttons
8. Finally, click Apply and OK

XP Speed Secret #4: Speed-Up File 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 speed significantly:

1. Double-click on My Computer
2. Click the Tools menu
3. Select Folder Options
4. Click on the View tab.
5. Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
6. Click Apply
7. Click OK
8. Reboot your computer

XP Speed Secret #5: Reduce Page File Size

Page file size is not constant by default. Due to this, the operating system has to resize the file each time more space is required. This is a performance overhead. All you have to do is to set the file size to a reasonable limit. Follow the steps:

1. Right-click My Computer, Select Properties
2. Click the Advanced tab
3. Click the Settings button under the Performance section
4. Click the Advanced tab
5. Under the Virtual Memory section click the Change button
6. “Virtual Memory” dialogue box will appear (also shown in the figure below)
7. Highlight the C: drive containing page file
8. Select the Custom Size radio button and give same values in Initial size and Maximum size fields: If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.
9. Click Set, then OK buttons to apply the changes

XP Speed Secret #7: Run Disk Clean-Up

Both Windows and application programs tend to leave temporary files lying around on your hard drive, taking up space. A hard drive that is close to being “full” can cause Windows to slow down or interfere with efficient disk access and virtual memory operations. If you surf the web a lot, your temporary internet files folder can become quite large, causing Internet Explorer to slow down or malfunction. Cleaning up unneeded files, scanning for disk errors and defragmenting the hard drive can help to restore some zip to your system. Try to run once a month for peak performance.

1. Double-click the My Computer icon.
2. Right-click on the C: drive
3. Select Properties
4. Click the Disk Cleanup button (to the bottomright of the Capacity pie graph)
5. Select / check Temporary Internet Files and Recycle Bin
6. Click OK

XP Speed Secret #8: Enable Direct Memory Access (DMA)

1. Right-click on My Computer, select Properties
2. Select the Hardware tab
3. Click the Device Manager button
4. Double-click IDE/ATAPI controllers
5. Double-click on the Primary IDE Channel
6. Click on the Advanced Settings tab (as shown in figure) The tab may or may not be available for each option. It is only available in Primary and Secondary Channels.
7. Set the Transfer Mode to “DMA if Available” both for Device 1 and 0
8. Click OK
9. Perform the same operation for other items in the list, if applicable.

XP Speed Secret #9: Disable File Indexing

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of memory 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, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

1. Click Start button

2. Select the Control Panel

3. Double-click Add/Remove Programs

4. Click the Add/Remove Window Components icon on the left side of the window

5. This may take a few seconds to load. Be patient.

6. Look for the “Indexing Services” component in the list

7. Uncheck the Indexing Services

8. Click Next

9. Click Finish

XP Speed Secret #10: Remove Un-Used Programs & Files

You may have a bunch of software packages on your hard drive that are no longer needed, or they were gratuitously installed when you downloaded some other package. Toolbars, file-sharing programs, free email enhancers, online shopping “companions” and download managers are notorious for this practice. These uninvited guests can put a big drag on your startup time, cause web pages to load slowly, and generally bog down your computer.

1. Click Start button

2. Select Control Panel

3. Double-click Add/Remove Programs icon

4. See what programs are installed that you don’t typically use

5. Select the Remove button for the ones you know you don’t
WINDOWS VISTA

Vista Speed Secret #1: Turn-Off User Account Control (UAC)

Now, there’s a lot of talk about the new User Account Control policy in Vista, and all I can say is that it annoys the heck out of 99% of users and slows down normal computer usage. To turn it off, the easiest way is to:

1. Click the Start (Windows) button

2. Select the Control Panel

3. Type in ‘UAC‘ into the search bar

4. It’ll bring up a search result of ‘Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off’

5. Just follow the prompts from there Much better, eh? You might say ‘but what’s that got to do with speed?’ It prompts you at least a couple times an hour and then takes several seconds to figure itself out. Without these annoying prompts, your productivity goes up, so therefore it’s a speed enhancer.

Vista Speed Secret #2: Disable Unnecessary Graphical Effects

Vista is “sexy” because of its new aero glass transparency effects. Here is how to enable and disable this new eye candy.

1. Click Start (Windows) button
2. Select the Control Panel
3. Double-click Click Appearance and Personalization
4. Under Personalization, click Change the color scheme
5. In the Appearance Settings dialog box, click Windows Vista Basic, and then click OK. Or, if you prefer a Windows 2000-style interface, click Windows Standard, and then click OK.

Vista Speed Secret #4: Shutdown Search Indexing

Windows Vista Search Indexing is constantly checking the files on your system to make their information available for quick searching. This is helpful, but can severely slow system performance as the average user doesn’t use the search function frequently. To shut down constant indexing:

1. Click the Start button
2. Select Computer
3. Right-click on the C: Drive icon
4. Select Properties
5. Select the General Tab
6. Uncheck Index this drive for faster searching
7. On the next dialog box, select Apply Changes to Drive C:, subfolders and files
8. Click OK

Vista Speed Secret #5: Disable Automatic Disk Defragment

Windows Vista uses an always-on defragment set up that isn’t that necessary and will cause your system to slow down. Remember to run a defragment manually once a month. To shut down this feature:

1. Click the Start button

2. Select Computer

3. Right-click on C: Drive icon

4. Select Properties

5. Click the Tools tab

6. Uncheck Run on a schedule

7. Click OK

Vista Speed Secret #7: Disable Automatic Windows Defender Operation

Windows Defender real-time protection against malware continues to run despite having Automatic operation disabled. In actuality, this built-in malware protector from Microsoft is very poor at protecting your computer from external threats. You are much better off using a 3rd-party software program like XoftSpy for total protection (see Vista Speed Secret #9 for more information). To disable:

1. Click the Start button

2. Type “services” into the Start Search box

3. Find Windows Defender in the list of programs

4. Double-click on Windows Defender

5. Choose Tools from the top menu

6. Select Options

7. Uncheck Auto Start at the bottom of the window

Vista Speed Secret #8: Turn-Off Un-Needed Features

There are many new features in Windows Vista that are installed by default that you may not need. These extra and un-needed features can slow down your computer and take up more storage space. Windows Features can be un-installed using the Windows Features utility. Follow these steps to uninstall applications such as the Windows Fax and Scan and many more. To Turn-Off Some Un-Needed Features:

1. Click on the Start Button

2. Select Control Panel

3. Under Programs click Uninstall a program

4. On the left side menu, click on Turn Windows features on or off

5. Scroll through the list as shown below and uncheck from any feature you do not want installed.

6. Click OK when you are finished making your changes. The features will now be uninstalled.

Vista Speed Secret #10: Shutdown Remote Differential Compression

Remote Differential Compression checks the changes of your files over a network to move them with as little bandwidth as possible instead of transferring an entire file that has previously been moved. Obiviously, the average home PC user has NO need for this service. With it constantly checking for file changes, this service will greatly slow system performance. To shut down this service:

1. Click the Start button

2. Select Control Panel

3. Click Classic View on the left side of the window

4. Double-click on Programs and Features

5. Click Turn Windows Features On And Off on the left side of the window

6. Uncheck Remote Differential Compression

7. Click OK

Vista Speed Secret #11: Shut-Off Windows Hibernation

Windows hibernation background services use a very large amount of system resources. If you are like most people you don’t use the Hibernate feature very much so you may want to disable it to give Vista a performance boost. To shut down Hibernation:

1. Click the Start button

2. Select Control Panel

3. Click the Classic View on the left hand side

4. Double-click on Power Options

5. Select Change Plan Settings

6. Choose Change Advanced Power Settings

7. Click the Sleep “plus” icon

8. Click the Hibernate After “plus” icon

9. Adjust your selector down to zero minutes

10. Click Apply

11. Click OK