How do I tweak Windows XP For the beginner?
Windows XP is a wonderful product, definitely the best release of Windows to date especially in terms of stability. That said, it is also filled with unneeded animations and niceties that steal precious processor cycles. This tutorial will outline some of the basic tweaks you can perform and will also direct you to some good resources.
Structure of the Tutorial:
Turning off Unnecessary Graphics
Cleaning your Startup with Ashampoo
Turning off Unnecessary Graphics
1) Go to Control Panel
Go to the Control Panel
Double Click System
Note: If you can?t see the system icon try clicking ?Switch to Classic View? which is on the left side of the window.
2)
Click the Advanced Tab at the Top
Click on Performance Settings
3) Adjust for Best Performance
Click Adjust for Best Performance
Note that you have now turned off many of the nice little effects that come with Windows, but this will increase your computer's performance.
Cleaning your Startup using Ashampoo
This section will explain how to review which programs automatically open when you start your computer. Programs that begin at startup, such as Windows Messenger, RealPlayer, Quicktime, etc. will sit in the background and will use precious clock cycles. Also, they will increase the amount of time it takes your computer to start up.
We will use Ashampoo WinOptimizer to clean your system?s registry and eliminate unnecessary programs.
1) Install Ashampoo WinOptimizer Suite
Ashampoo is a shareware program, meaning that some features are disabled unless you pay a fee (but we won?t be using those features). You can download this product HERE
2) Run the Startup Module
Go to Ashampoo from your Start Menu
Select 5 ? Startup Tuner from the Module Menu
3) Look through Entries
Select entries on the Left-Hand navigation bar
Expand Each of the General Heading (hit the + symbol)
Select Entries to Delete
WARNING: Make sure you know what you are deleting. You can mess up your computer by deleting the wrong thing.
At this point you can decide which of the entries to delete. As the warning stated this can be hazardous to your computer. A good rule of thumb is if you don?t know what it does, leave it alone. However, if you see that it?s an entry whose directory is ?C:Program FilesWeatherBug? you can be pretty sure it?s not going to harm your computer to delete the entry. Here are some things that are pretty safe to delete.
AOL Instant Messenger
RealPlayer
Windows Messenger
QuickTime
WeatherBug
Microsoft Office Toolbar
Note that instead of deleting the entries, you can also just disable them by clicking on the check mark next to the entry. If you find that you want to undo the change, just re-enable by checking the box again.
4)
Download this program and defrag your computer with it once. It only has a thirty day trial but all you need it for is a one time defragment. O and O defrag
Once that is done download DISKEEPER LITE and defragment with that program, yiur files will be all in one contigous file.
Conclusion* Once open click continue with thirty day trial. then you will want to do a complete/by name defrag.
Cleaning your startup and turning off some of the visual effects in Windows, and defragmenting* should result in a noticeable speedup.
Linear Mode
