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Wednesday, 24 January 2007 |
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If you have been running Windows XP for awhile and it is starting to become slow and unresponsive this is how I typical speed up my machine or machines I work on. These are the top five things I focus on. I follow the order five to number one, one being the biggest problem.
If you feel unconfortable with any of these tasks just skip them. They are pretty straight forward and easy to do. The whole registry fear is usually without warrant. I have been hacking the registry for years without issue, but it can be broken so if you're unformilliar you should be a little cautious. You must log in as Administrator to accomplish most of these tasks.
5. Profile Directory.
As you use Windows, install software, and write personal files to C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName the profile section gets full with configuration and user files. This all loads when you log in so the more you have there the slower it takes to log in. You can clean this by removing unused program configurations and user files. For files that anyone can view place them elsewhere on your drive.
The best way to clean up non-user files in your profile is to create a new profile. In Control Panel in User Accounts just create a new profile for yourself, you must be logged on as an Administrator. Remember, never give your main account Administrator privileges! Administrator account should be used for administrative tasks only just like root in Linux and if your machine is compromised not being an admin reduces the damage that can be inflicted on your computer.
Once the new account is created you can copy a couple important directories to your new profile to keep your start menu, desktop, and your application configs and data. Under C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\ copy the following directories Application, Desktop, Start Menu, and My Documents and paste the your newly created profile; C:\Documents and Settings\YourNewUserName\. Also copy any directories you created under your username. Now go back to Control panel, User Accounts and delete your old profile, DO NOT DELETE THE ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT and DO NOT DELETE THE OLD PROFILE FROM THE FILE SYSTEM.
4. Unused Software.
Uninstall any software you do not use. This will clean some registry entries, configuration files, and free up hard drive space. After you uninstall the application you can check C:\Program Files to see if the directory has been removed. Some applications leave this behind. Go into the registry Start, Run, type in regedit. Go to HKEY_Local_Machine/Software and find the old entry for the software you uninstalled and delete it, these are often left behind when a product is uninstalled.
3. Fragmentation of your drive.
Yes, this can slow you down, but typically defragging will only be a slight speed increase. It will help though. Go into Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance. Before defragging run "Free Up Space On Your Harddrive" then run "Rearrange Items On Your Harddrive To Make Programs Run Faster" to defrag the drive.
To help keep fragmentation to a minimum we will tweak the PageFile setting. You should read this so you have a better understanding of what you're doing if you're new to setting the pagefile. Click into System then click the Advanced tab while still in Performance and Maintenance. Select Settings under Performance then click Advanced tab. The last option is Virtual memory settings. Change the second value Maximum to match the first value and click Set. If Windows is set to automatically manage this, change it by using the value they suggest for the first and second entry and click Set.
While you're there you can tweak Performance also by telling Windows to Adjust for better performance in the Visual Settings. This is helpful for older video cards and CPUs. You can also turn the XP theme off and use the old Windows look. To do that right click your Desktop, select the Appearance tab and select "Windows Classic Style" from the drop down. I typically use the old Windows look, as performance is more important to me, but I use Blackbox to give me more power and a pretty look at the same time more often than not.
2. The registry.
1. Running applications.
I am combining these last two as they can be tackled in one free program called Crap Cleaner. Go ahead and download/install Crap Cleaner from this link now .
The registry is very messy and over time will fill up with garbage. Everything you install on Windows adds entries to it and 99% do not clean out their entries when removed. The registry also loads when you start Windows and log into your profile. This can greatly degrade performance over time, especially when starting up and logging in.
To clean this up in Crap Cleaner select Issues. Now you will see a list of bad or unused entries. Look through these in case there is something you're not sure about. Unchecked items will be left in the registry. Crap Cleaner will ask if you want to make a backup when you fix these issue, answer yes and save where you can easily find it. If your machine acts up double click the .reg backup file to restore your old registry and reboot.
The number one cause of system degradation are those little applications that start when you log in and stay running regardless of their use, like printer, scanner, fax, chat clients, quicktime, etc. I have never noticed any real speed increase starting Mozilla or Printer software with these stupid resource hogs running. I totally find them a waste. The only software I want starting when I boot Windows is my anti-virus and things I actually use from the time I boot until the time I shutdown. If you have things starting that you really do not need take them out with Crap Cleaner by choosing Tools, Start up. If you're unsure whether it's something important leave it.
Your machine is now clean, but one more file clean to make sure we are thourough. In Crap Cleaner go back to Cleaner and do Analyze. This will list temp internet and system files, cookies, logs, etc. In the Windows tab I enable Advanced unchecking all but Hotfix Uninstallers. If you check this it will remove all Windows Update uninstallers so you will not be able to uninstall any that it removes. These uninstallers take up a lot of space, but should be left if you're not sure. I remove them all without issue.
Now reboot.
For another tool that I find useful in the cleanup process is Ad Aware SE . Ad-Aware will find and clean off Spyware, which is unavoidable if you use Internet Explorer and do a lot of web surfing and program installations. Between Crap Cleaner and Adaware you will have a happy Windows XP machine. I also run into a lot of viruses so if you're not running an anti-virus or up to date anti-virus program what I generally use is AntiVir .
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