Performance Tweaks

Windows XP has a lot of new cool looking visual elements, however, those new elements take up more RAM and cause your computer to be less responsive. By tweaking your graphics settings, you can increase the performance of your computer.

To get started, Let's reduce the color quality. This setting determines how many colors are displayed on your screen.

Right click on your desktop and select properties.
Click on the settings tab and adjust the color quality drop down box to Medium (16 Bit).
Click OK.

Next, let's use the windows performance settings to optimize your computer for performance. This will revert back to the old Windows 2000 look as well as take away a lot of the fancy graphics effects. However, if you are really into performance, this is the price you have to pay.

Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop or in your start panel and select properties.
Next, Click on the Advanced tab and hit the setting button under performance.
On the visual effects tab, select Adjust for Best Performance and hit OK.
Hit OK once more to exit system properties.

Now your computer will run slightly faster!

2 Application Defrag

Application and Boot file Defrag

This type of defrag pushes all commonly used programs and boot files to the edge of the hard drive for faster access. Windows XP normally schedules this every three days when it is idle, however you can force it to do this by using the b switch anytime

i.e defrag c: -b

Partially correct. The "partial defrag" that the defrag -b performs takes the boot/system files indicated in \prefetch\layout.ini and moves them to the first largest piece of free space where they will fit - regardless of where on the partition the this piece of free space is. If the space is at the beginning of the partition, it will put them there. If the free space is at the end of the partition, it will move them there. Usually, the beginning of the partition does NOT have a large enough piece of contiguous free space - this process will NOT clear out free space in order to place the files.

3 ASPI Drivers

I have had some bad times trying to get CD/DVD programmers working with XP. This was do to the ASPI drivers which I have now downloaded and installed. PowerDVD, AudioCatalyst and a few others now work how they were meant to.

Click Here to download the ASPI drivers from Adaptec

4 Automate Disk Cleanup

Cleanmgr.exe is designed to clear unnecessary files from your computer's hard disk. You can use command-line options to specify that Cleanmgr.exe cleans up certain files. You can then schedule the task to run at a specific time by using the Scheduled Tasks tool.

To start the Disk Cleanup tool, either run the Cleanmgr.exe command, or click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.

Disk Cleanup supports the following command-line options:

/d driveletter: - This option specifies the drive that you want Disk Cleanup to clean.
/sageset: n - This option displays the Disk Cleanup Settings dialog box and also creates a registry key to store the settings that you select. The n value, which is stored in the registry, allows you to specify tasks for Disk Cleanup to run. The n value can be any integer value from 0 to 65535. To have all of the options available when you use the /sageset option, you might need to specify the drive where Windows is installed.
/sagerun: n - This option runs the specified tasks that are assigned to the n value if you use the \sageset option.

For example, in Scheduled Tasks, you could run the following command after you run the cleanmgr /sageset:11 command:

cleanmgr /sagerun:11

This command runs Disk Cleanup and includes the options that you specified with the cleanmgr /sageset:11 command.

5 Backup - The easy way

NT Backup utility is, by default, installed only with XP Pro

To install it in XP Home Editon double-click this file on your Windows XP install disk cd:\VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP\NTBACKUP.MSI

Start>run>NTBACKUP

6 CD ROM Stops AutoPlaying...

...and the AutoPlay Tab has disappeared in My Computer, Devices With Removable Storage, Right Click on CDROM, Properties.

Solution:
The service: "Shell Hardware Detection" has been set to Manual or Disabled. Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services. Return this service to "Automatic".

7 Changing CD Staging Area Folder Location

If you have a slave drive that you would rather be fragmented by multiple CD ripping, might I suggest moving your temporary CD staging folder to the slave drive? Please note that this is a WEE bit of a security concern, since you are moving your personal files into the open & out of the protection of your personal folders... BUT, if you are like me and you have only yourself on your system, and don’t care well then LETS do it!!

Go to this folder :

(your root folder)\Documents and Settings\(your username)\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\

Here you SHOULD have a folder called CD Burning - This is your temporary folder for CD burning.

In windows explorer - move this folder (Using cut & paste) to another local drive. I don’t recommend moving this folder to a removable or network drive unless you are VERY confident in its connection reliability.

You may also want to start up regedit and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\CD Burning

and change the value of CD Burning to your new folder location.

You can reboot if you want, I don’t think you need to....

Now, you SHOULD not notice any difference, other than that you are not scratching you your system drive to burn data CD's

Enjoy...

(P.S. Use this at your own risk!)

8 Classic Start Menu Mode (Browsing Boost)

WARNING: Keep in mind that this tweak is intended for people using the "Classic Start Menu" mode to browse trough the Start Menu.

If your Start Menu loads right away when you click on it, but goes slow while you browse trough it, this will certainly solve your problem. It's quite simple actually, just follow these steps:

1. Right Click on your taskbar and choose "Properties"
2. Choose the "Start Menu" Tab and then click on "Customize"(Classic Start Menu :) Obviously)
3. Scroll Down the "Advanced Start Menu Options" list and uncheck the "Use Personalized Menus" option, click "OK", then "Apply" and "OK" to finish.

There's no need to reboot, you'll see the difference right away. Another good advice to keep you start menu working smooth is to restrict the number of programs and icons listed as much as possible, keep in mind that it works just like any other regular folder, the less you index, the faster it gets.

9 Clean your prefetch to improve performance.

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodly. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch folder can get full of rarely used or obsolete links which can slow down your computer noticeably. My suggestion is: open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch, delete all files (or at least those more than 3 weeks old), reboot. I recommended that you do this every month.

Editor Note: Deleting prefetch files too often (Every reboot) can decrease system performance!

10 Clicking AVI Files on explorer causing 100% CPU Usage

Well windows seem to have a REALLY big problem when it comes to reading AVI files. It seems that when you click on an AVI file in explorer, it'll try to read the entire AVI file to determine the width,height, etc. of the AVI file (this is displayed in the Properties window). Now the problem with Windows is that if you have a broken/not fully downloaded AVI file that doesn’t contain this info, Windows will scan the entire AVI file trying to figure out all these properties which in the process will probably cause 100% CPU usage and heavy memory usage.

To solve this problem all you have to do is the following:

1. Open up regedit
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler
3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"

Voila! Please note that this will no longer provide you with the windows properties displaying the AVI file information such as width, height, bitrates etc. But it’s a small price to pay for saving you resources.

NOTE: Please use caution when using regedit. Improper usage may cause windows to behave incorrectly. Also, I cannot be held responsible. Backup your registry first.

11 Contiguous File Allocation size

This setting optimizes the contiguous file allocation size for the file system and can be especially useful for disk intensive applications. Open up your registry and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Create a DWORD value named 'ConfigFileAllocSize' and set the value to '200' (in hex) or 512 (decimal)

12 Convert FAT32 To NTFS

To change from FAT 32 to NTFS file system for more stability, security and less fragmentation, open the command prompt and type:

Convert C: /FS:NTFS

"C" being the drive you wish to convert. Make sure there is a space between the C: and the forward slash (/). Once you press enter it will ask you for confirmation and press Y. Then press Y and enter once more to reboot.. This also works for windows XP Home.

13 Correcting System Hang at Startup

If your system hangs about 2 or 3 minutes at startup, where you can't access the Start button or the Taskbar, it may be due to one specific service (Background Intelligent Transfer) running in the background. Microsoft put out a patch for this but it didn't work for me. Here's what you do:

1. Click on Start/Run, type 'msconfig', then click 'OK'.
2. Go to the 'Services' tab, find the 'Background Intelligent Transfer' service, disable it, apply the changes & reboot.

This problem with the Background Intelligent Transfer Service should have been corrected in Windows update Q 314862, part of Service Pack 1. (yoyo)

14 Decrease system loading time by changing network settings

When you start up your computer and you are connected to a LAN and your computer is set to DHCP and your computer has to search for the DHCP server and then request and IP address and all other configuration. This process takes up some time and slows down the time it takes to boot the computer up. Following the directions below will help your set a static IP address. Even if your ISP says to use DHCP this tweak may still work for you, but you are warned!

Click Start and click on Run.
Type command in the text box and click OK.
In DOS, type ipconfig and hit enter.
This will show you your current IPs that your NIC and PPPoE adapters have. Only pay attention to your Ethernet Card Adapter, not to the PPP adapter.
Next, right click My Network Places and select Properties from the drop down menu. This will open up the Network Connections window. In here, locate your Local Area Network connection and right click it, select Properties from the drop down menu.
When the next Window that opens up, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties at the bottom.
In the next window, click 'Use the following IP Address'. This is where that DOS window comes in handy. Copy the same exact IP Address from your Ethernet card (in the dos window) and place it where it says IP Address. Same goes for the Subnet Mask and Default Gateway. If your Default Gateway is blank, then just leave it blank. Click Ok, then Ok again.
In the DOS window type exit dos then enter. Reboot your machine.

Now there is absolutely NO loading. You can connect as soon as you see your desktop.

Quick Note: If you use DHCP (Dynamic IP Address) to connect to the net, you may find that your net connection does not work after this. So if some day your network connection stops working, just go back into the NIC card properties and select automatically get IP address and reboot.

15 Decrease your Applications startup time

By default, Microsoft includes the /prefetch:1 switch to speed up it's Windows Media Player application start time. This switch can be used for other Windows applications and also many third party programs.

Example #1

You have AOL 8.0 installed on the computer. Complete the steps outlined bewlo to add the /prefetch:1 switch to AOL's Target path.

1. Right click on the AOL shortcut and select properties from the menu.

2. In the Target: Field add the /prefetch:1 switch to the very end of the path, like this: "C:\Program Files\America Online 8.0\aol.exe" /prefetch:1 and then click ok.

Now start AOL. It would load at least 50 times faster than ever before.

Example #2

1, Go to the Start button/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools

2. Right click on System Restore and select properties from the menu that appears. Add the /prefetch:1 to the Target Path entry so it looks like this %ystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe /prefetch:1 and click ok.

Now System Restore will start immediately when executed.

Note: This switch will only work with some programs. Others will return a message saying the program in the target box is invalid. Just remove the switch (by Allan, forum admin).

16 Delete Prefetch Automatically

Here's an easy way to delete your prefetch -- Automatically!!

1. Go into My Computer and go into your hard drive.

2. Right-click anywhere that a file is not and select the 'New' submenu and click 'Text Document'

3. Name it "deleteprefetch"

4. Double-click on the text file you just created.

5. Type "del C:\Windows\Prefetch\*.* /Q" (without the quotes).

6. Go to File > Save As... and choose "All Files" from the "Save as Type" box and save it as "deleteprefetch.bat"

7. You just created a batch file that will automatically delete all the files in your Prefetch folder. Congrats.

Note: For more information on Prefetching see the following URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/performance/benchmark.mspx

17 Disable automatic updating

To save memory and CPU time turn off the automatic update system in windows. You can always check manually for updates and most users have no problem with that. For those of you lazy bums out there you can leave this feature on but I warned you.

1. Open control panel.

2. (if using XPstyle control panel, click on performance and maintenance.)

3. Click on System.

4. Then click on the automatic updates tab and select Turn off automatic updating. If Service Pack 1 is installed uncheck Keep my computer up to date.

5. Click Ok.

18 Disable auto-reboot

When Running windows and it crashes you will get a blue screen and it will automatically restart, ofter it will restart too fast for you to see the error message. You could check the error log in this case but that is too easy. We are going to disable auto restart on system failure.

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System (Windows+Pause works, too)
2. Go to Advanced
3. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings...
4. Under System Failure un-check "Automatically restart"

19 Disable Debug Scripting in Internet Explorer

Don't you hate it when you are browsing a page it asks you "Would you like to debug this page?" Well here's a nifty and easy way to turn it off.

Right Click on Internet Explorer and Click Properties
----- or -----
Open Internet Explorer. Click Tools | Internet Options

Click The "Advanced" Tab

The 4th Item in "Browsing" should say "Disable Script Debugging"

Check it and you are all set! Enjoy a Debug-Free Browsing experience.

20 Disable Indexing Services

Indexing services is a small program that hogs HUGE amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexing and updates lists of the files on your system, so you can search for them quickly, but it's completely unnecessary.

To disable it, go to the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs. Click the Add/Remove Window Components. Simply unclick the Indexing services and click next!

Indexing service creates a database index of all files on your system when the system is otherwise idle. Unless you do frequent searches, it is suggested you disable this service.

21 Disable Prefetch for low memory systems

If you're like me your system only has about 128megs of RAM. The Windows XP Prefetch can take a lot of this up by preloading programs at boot as well as preloading programs you often use thus sucking away your available RAM.

On my system, a Dell PIII 866 with 128 megs of RAM, I was able to greatly boast my system performance by disabling Prefetch all together. It used to take a half hour for the disk to stop thrashing after stopping Nortons SpeedDisk, Now it stops instantly.

Note: This tweak worked for this user and their system configuration but disabling prefetch on other systems may have a bad effect as it might free up ram but it also could increase program start up time.

Here's how to disable Prefetch.

1. run "regedit";
2. goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher];
3. Set the value to either 0-Disable.
4. reboot.

22 Disable Recent Documents History

Normally when you open or