The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide
The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization/Tweak Guide is a comprehensive guide that will give you performance increases all across the board, perfect for a slower machine, and amazing for a fast machine. These XP tweaks will speed up XP dramatically along with improving Windows XP start times, shutdown times, file copying performance, playing games, installing and using programs.
The guide is organized into 3 different sections, because it includes over 20 different tweaks and optimizations: Easy XP Tweaks include quick and easy XP optimizations that you can do in a matter of seconds and work your way through easily, Intermediate Tweaks includes performance enhancements that take a little more time and moving around in Windows XP to implement, while last but not least, Advanced Tweaks include things like modifying the registry and using 3rd party programs to optimize Windows XP. Don’t let the section names fool you, just because one is labeled advanced and the other is labeled intermediate does not mean that you’ll have a hard time performing the advanced tweaks, it’s just these take a little long to implement, and they are all fairly easy to do. The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide will take you through each tweak, step-by-step.
As with anytime you mess around with your OS, you should make backups of your important files and folders just as a precaution. I have been optimizing my Windows XP for a few years now, and have never had any problems with these tweaks as long as you follow the instructions.
Sections:
Easy Windows XP Tweaks
Intermediate Windows XP Tweaks
Advanced Windows XP Tweaks
Easy Windows XP Tweaks
- Turn off Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> System -> Remote -> Uncheck ‘Allow Remote Assistance invitations to be sent from this computer’, and ‘Allow users to connect remotely to this computer’ -> Click ‘OK’
This saves memory by disabling these services that you’re most likely never going to use, and it increases XP security by preventing unknown people from trying to remotely connect to your computer. - Turn off Windows Automatic Updates:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> System -> Automatic Updates -> Select ‘Turn off Automatic Updates.’ -> Click ‘OK’
This saves memory and increases performance because your computer doesn’t have to check Windows regularly for updates anymore, but since there won’t be anymore automatic updates you’ll need to make sure you check Windows Update Web site once a week so you don’t miss any important updates. - Disable System Restore:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> System -> System Restore -> Check ‘Turn off System Restore’ -> Click ‘OK’
System Restore is only good for if you end up breaking your computer a lot, having children that are on the computer, and love to download unknown files. However, if you somewhat know your way around the computer chances are you’ve probably never used it and probably never will. This will save you a ton of hard drive space (at least a couple gigs), and provide a decent performance boost. - Set Your Virtual Memory To 1.5-3.0 Times Your Computer’s Memory:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Tab -> Performance Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Change -> Select Custom Size -> Set the Initial size to 1.5 x amount of memory installed in your computer (I have 1024mb, 1GB of RAM installed so I’d set it to 1.5 x 1024 = 1536 MB) -> Set the Maximum Size to 3 x amount of memory installed in your computer (I have 1024mb, 1GB of RAM installed so I’d set it to 3.0 x 1024 = 3072 MB). -> Click ‘Set’ -> Click ‘OK
This makes sure the paging file stays put, by doing this it will perform better, and it is optimized for the amount of memory you have so Windows XP doesn’t have to keep adjusting the paging file automatically. It also helps prevent the paging file from becoming fragmented. - Disable Windows Error Reporting:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Tab -> Error Reporting -> Select ‘Disable error reporting’ -> Check ‘But notify me when critical errors occur’ -> Click ‘OK’
By disabling error reporting you will no longer get those annoying messages that your program has encountered an error, and asks to send information to Microsoft, this saves memory by getting rid of the feature. I think it’s a good trade-off to get rid of those critical error messages. You’ll still be notified when a bad error occurs. - Turn off Indexing Service:
Start Menu -> My Computer -> Right Click Local Disk (C:) (or available hard drives) -> Properties -> Uncheck ‘Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching’ -> Check ‘Apply To All Files And Folders’ -> Click ‘OK’
The indexing service hogs a huge amount of system resources. It keeps certain files in memory to allow your Windows File Folder Search to run faster, so unless you’re using the Windows Search multiple times per day you don’t need Indexing, the search will still work, but just not as fast as it would if indexing is enabled. - Change maximum size of the Recycle Bin to something more manageable, and get rid of the display delete confirmation dialog:
Desktop -> Right click Recycle Bin -> Properties -> Set ‘Maximum size of Recycle Bin’ to a smaller, more manageable percentage like 3-5% -> Uncheck ‘Display delete confirmation dialog’ -> Click ‘OK’
Lowering the maximum size of the recycle bin makes sure that it doesn’t use up more than a gig or few, because it’s normally set to 10% of each drive you have, and 10% of 250GB is 25GB, that’s a lot of space to be dedicated to your recycle bin. Unchecking the display delete confirmation dialog stops Windows from asking you every time if you’re sure you want to delete the file that you want to delete, which of course we always say yes. If you accidentally delete something it’ll still be in your recycle so you don’t have to worry. - Disable Hibernation:
Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Power Options -> Hibernate Tab -> Uncheck ‘Enable Hibernation’ -> Click ‘OK’
Hibernation is one of those things that you’re just never going to use, unless you have a laptop, it makes it so that when you put your computer into hibernation mode it saves everything that was in your memory onto your hard disk. It sounds handy, but they don’t make it to put it into hibernation and it just mostly wastes space and processing power. Just put your computer in stand by if you don’t want to use it for awhile. - Disable automatic search for network folders and printers:
Start Menu -> My Computer -> Tools Menu -> Click ‘Folder Options’ -> View Tab -> Uncheck ‘Automatically search for network folders and printers’
By disabling automatic search for network folders and printers when you open up Windows explorer your computer will not automatically search for network folders and printers that may or may not be there. Chances are you have no network printers or folders, and if you do Windows wouldn’t need to search for them every time you want to get into My Computer. This speeds up file browsing, access and Windows responsiveness. - Defragment your hard drive:
Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Click ‘Disk Defragmenter’ -> Click ‘Defragment’
Defragmenting your hard drive is very important to the performance health of your computer, it can speed up Windows XP significantly if you never have defragmented your computer before. It takes your folders and files and moves them around on the hard drive so Windows XP can have better and faster access to them, the more files you have the more they need to be organized on the hard drive. - Check your hard drive for errors with Disk Check:
Start Menu -> My Computer -> Right Click ‘Local Disk (C:)’ -> Click ‘Properties’ -> Tools Tab -> Click ‘Check Now’ -> Check ‘Automatically fix file system errors’, and ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’ -> Click ‘Start’
The Disk Check will require a reboot, and it certainly takes some time to check the disk (1-2 hours). Disk check allows Windows to scan your hard drive for any errors, and automatically fix any errors if they are found. If you hard drive contains errors it can slow down your computer and your overall Windows XP experience. - Turn off Windows Visual Effects:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Tab -> Performance Settings -> Click ‘Custom’Uncheck:
Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
Fade of slide menus into view
Fade or slide ToolTips into view
Fade out menu items after click
Show window contents while dragging
Slide open combo boxes
Slide taskbar buttons
Use a background image for each folder type
Use common tasks in folder
This gets rid of certain visual effects. You won’t hardly notice any of the visual effects that have disappeared, but this saves lots of memory and processing power by disabling these visual effects. The only one that you’ll most likely notice missing is the Common Tasks in folder, if you want to you can go back and enable that one, but you don’t need it for anything. - Delete unused fonts in the fonts folder:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> Fonts Folder
Delete any unnecessary or fonts that you will never ever use. As a precaution first move the unused fonts to a different folder so you make sure there are no side-effects, because you could move a system font that’s needed for Windows by accident. Feel free to delete Wingdings and Symbol and all those Eastern/Western fonts that you’re never going to use. Windows checks this folder each time it loads, and then it loads the fonts into Windows memory so they’re easily accessible with the click of a button, by deleting these fonts you save system memory and increase start up time. - Disable unused Windows sounds:
Start Menu -> Classic Control Panel -> Sound and Audio Devices -> Sounds Tab
Set all the unused Windows/Application sounds to ‘None’. I just go through each sound and listen to it, and if I don’t need it’s disabled, some sounds you hear all the time, those are the ones I don’t disable, but the ones that are for Net meetings or Windows startup I disable, the more you disable the greater the performance boost.Here’s a list of the sounds I didn’t disable:
Critical Stop
Default Beep
Exclamation - Uninstall unused Windows Components/Programs
Start Menu -> Add/Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components
Uncheck the Windows Components that you don’t use. I uncheck Fax Services, Indexing Service, Internet Information Services, Management and Monitoring Tools, Message Queuing, Other Network File and Printer Services, Windows Messenger, Outlook Express, and MSN Explorer. They’re probably handy tools and services for businesses, but I will never need Message Queuing and Fax services. Also while you’re in the Add/Remove Programs menu look for any programs that you don’t use and uninstall them as well, it’ll save disk space and increase performance. - Set all of your ATAPI drives to DMA:
Start Menu -> Right Click ‘My Computer’ -> Click ‘Manage’ -> Click ‘Device Manager’ -> Click ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers’ -> Right Click on each individual IDE Channel -> Click ‘Properties’ -> Advanced Settings Tab -> Select ‘DMA if available’ for ‘Transfer Mode’
This setting changes your IDE device’s transfer mode to DMA. Switching all of your IDE devices over to DMA provides a significant performance boost compared to PIO only transfer mode, DMA is much faster. - Disable unused devices in Device Manager:
Start Menu -> Right Click ‘My Computer -> Click ‘Manage’ -> Click ‘Device Manager’ -> Right Click unused devices -> Click ‘Disable’
Be careful when disabling unused devices that you don’t disable something that may be important to the necessary functions of your computer. Only disable something if you have an onboard sound card, or an onboard ethernet adapter that you’re not using because you have PCI slots filled with a sound card or network adapter. - Defragment your page file:
Download PageDefrag at Microsoft TechNet -> Open the .zip and run PageDefrag -> Click ‘Accept’ -> Select ‘Defragment at next boot’ -> Click ‘OK’
Just like the Microsoft TechNet website said one of the problems of Windows XP/2000/NT is that files that are in use cannot be defragged, and that includes the pagefile. This program will defrag your pagefile at the next boot to ensure it’s working to it’s maximum efficiency. - Use MSConfig to disable any unnecessary startup items:
Start Menu -> Run -> Type ‘MsConfig’ -> Startup Tab -> Uncheck unnecessary startup items
Extra startup items are one of the main things that slows down a computer. The startup items are the programs that are loaded into memory when a computer starts up, like AIM, Antivirus programs, all of the little programs sitting in your task bar, and some programs you can’t see. Go through the list and look for any familiar programs and disable those first, then go back and look at the unfamiliar programs and try to find out what application they belong to, google the process name like ctfmon.exe and it should come up with a detailed use for the program in the listings and if it’s harmful or just a system program. - Download TCP/IP Optimizer to enhance the internet connection:
Download TCP/IP Optimizer at SpeedGuide.net -> Open TCPOptimizer -> Click ‘Optimal Settings’ -> Click ‘Apply changes’ -> Check ‘Backup’ -> Click ‘OK’
TCP/IP Optimizer is a program that changes your Windows XP Network settings to optimize your network and internet performance, it change the amount of bytes it transfers among other things for your network by modifying some registry keys. It gives you a nice boost with your internet connection that Windows XP otherwise limits, and it makes backups that you can restore just in case something goes awry. - Download and Install Cacheman to maximize performance of the caches:
Download ‘Cacheman’, not CachemanXP -> Install Cacheman -> Run Cacheman -> Click ‘Show wizard’ Menu -> Click ‘All’ -> Go through the wizard and leave everything at the default settings, Cacheman will optimize everything -> Go to ‘Options’ -> Uncheck ‘Load Cacheman on Windows startup’
Cache man goes through your cache and optimizes them for maximum performance. It also changes a few other settings that help with memory throughput, performance, and lower the time it takes for Windows to shutdown an application, speeds up the start menu and speeds up Windows XP shutdown. - Disable unused Windows XP services:
Start Menu -> Run -> Type ‘Services.msc’
It’s important to always save the best for last. This last tweak is going to provide the most performance out of all other tweaks, and it takes the longest to implement. After you’ve opened up the Services windows you’re going to go down the list and look for services that you don’t need, then right click on them, go to ‘Properties’, pull down the ‘Startup type:’ menu and click ‘Disabled, then click ‘OK’. It’s not hard but you have to go through the list of services and figure out what’s needed and what’s not. Actually, someone else has already done that. Head over to Black Viper’s Windows XP Service Configurations. He has a table built that tells you what safe to disable and what you should leave alone, but if you don’t want to take time deciphering his table I’ll just tell you which ones you can go ahead and disable with no problems.Disable These Services:
Application Management
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Error Reporting Service
HID Input Service (Note: This service will disable the multimedia functions on many multimedia keyboards, so if you have a multimedia keyboard it is recommended that you do not disable this service)
Indexing Service
Net Logon
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Network Provisioning Service
Portable Media Serial Number Service
QoS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon (If you only have one user on your computer)
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service
Telnet
Uninterruptable Power Supply
WebClient
Windows Time
WMI Performance Adapter
Intermediate Windows XP Tweaks
Advanced Windows XP Tweaks
There you have it, the Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide has come to an end. These tweaks have been hand-tested, hand-proven, and took the contributions of many people over the years to discover all of these optimizations to Windows XP. I’d like to thank you all for making this OS faster than ever. If any reader has a major tweak that I may have missed somewhere that offers signicant performance boosts please be sure to drop me a comment or send me an email about it, and I’d be glad to add it to the guide if it is worth it.
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March 3rd, 2008 at 9:48 am
You should note, however, that disabling the Automatic Updates service will prevent you from downloading updates through the website as well.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Most modern computer today have an access of ram, but windows still sending info to the page file.
a tweak I did was first turn off the page file and load everything into ram, and then because my system had 4 gigs of ram which is alot I installed the ram drive, and created scripts to copy over my config files and programs that I use most often such as a browser and my email. I am pretty sure in testing this improved my performance by 2-3x, but it did add atleast a minute to boot time. But I do not shut my computer off often.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 am
@Andrew
Ah, yeah, that part seemed to have slipped my mind. I guess it wouldn’t do so good to cut out the ability to update from the Microsoft website. Thanks for reminding me about it.
@Matt
I didn’t include a tweak like this, because you need a ton of RAM for it to work well. There are still programs that rely on the page file to work correctly, so if you weren’t exactly sure what you’re doing it could cause several problems for your system.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:40 am
Reg. defragging - install an automatic defragmenter. It makes life much easier…no more scheduling defrags for midnight or wasting time running it manually; instead it runs in the background automatically as the system idles. Extremely convenient and intelligent solution that keeps the drives in good shape. Slow drive = slow computer since the HDD is always the performance bottleneck in a modern PC.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
Almost all of them are old. But nice collection for newbies anyway. Good job.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 am
I would swap tips 10 and 11. Check for errors before defragmentation… Learned from bitter experience!
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
@Mayur
The tips may be old, but they have been proven to work well without any side-effects, and Windows XP is starting to get old too.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 am
…yet, I hear anti-Linux people complaining that it requires too much tweaking. Heh.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
Andrew, disabling automatic updates service will NOT prevent you from getting updates from the website. I have NEVER used automatic updates. I just get them through the website by clicking Windows Update in the Start menu.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
@Jim
Disabling the automatic updates service via Services.msc will not allow you to get automatic updates, or get updates from the Windows Update website. I think you’re referring to disabling the automatic updates in the security center.
Here’s the service description: “Enables the download and installation of Windows updates. If this service is disabled, this computer will not be able to use the Automatic Updates feature or the Windows Update Web Site.”
And sure enough, I go to the Windows Update website and it says:
“The site cannot continue because one or more of these Windows services is not running:
Automatic Updates (allows the site to find, download and install high-priority updates for your computer)
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) (helps updates download more quickly and without problems if the download process is interrupted)
Event Log (keeps a record of updating activities to help with troubleshooting, if needed) “
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
This is one of the web’s most interesting stories on Mon 3rd Mar 2008…
These are the web’s most talked about URLs on Mon 3rd Mar 2008. The current winner is …..
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
What Steve says is correct only if you disable the update service will it make your updates ineffective, I wouldn’t mess with your services unless it was absolutely necessary to get the maximum performance out of your PC (i.e. for a 3Dmark bench) and even then, it’d be sort of shoddy and inconclusive as to what “real” benefit doing so would have on the computer in question. Good guide though for a lot of people these tips will help.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Yes, I know Windows XP has gotten old hence the tricks and tweaks. I never said they don’t work, they work great but I keep seeing the same tips all over the blogosphere.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I disagree that hibernation is never used. I hibernate my laptop several times per day. It’s like turning it off, but when I turn it back on, everything is still there. And because I carry my laptop around in a bag, I can’t have it on standby, otherwise it would eventually overheat.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I agree about hibernation. “Hibernation is one of those things that you’re just never going to use, unless you have a laptop,”
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
[…] 4, 2008 The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide is one of the most complete Windows XP Tweak guides on the net. This guide will show you how to do […]
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
[…] il software non necessario o di dubbia utilità e compiere qualche ottimizzazione. Adesso leggo questa guida e scopro che avevo fatto proprio tutto per bene. Tranne quanto consigliato nella parte […]
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Hibernation is great! It takes a couple of seconds more to shut the monster down, but it is a lot more faster on …
Btw … most computers consume in stand by almost as much power as on idle
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
My 2¢: Disabling autoupdate is OK. You want to update but how often? Do you reallu need to have a service running all the time?
You only need the autoupdate service to run for 10 minutes every other week or so: enable the service, update, re-disable.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Steve, thank you for the tweeks, they work great!
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
[…] 2 - The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide […]
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:36 pm
#12 - you can uncheck all except for the last 2 options (..icons in desktop and visual styling) for optimum performance yet still maintains that “look and feel” thingy…
quicker response to menus also..
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Your paging file initial and max size should be the same. This will keep the file from ever having to change size which is bad for multiple reasons
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Good stuff… Thanks for posting.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:11 am
It should be mentioned that the disk check (#11) not only requires a reboot but, more importantly, will take well over an hour. People thinking to do a quick scan before returning to what they were doing may be in for an unpleasant surprise. My scan just took over two hours. >:(
March 4th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Make a .reg file containing these two lines:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]
“NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate”=dword:00000001
Double-click it. This will prevent Windows from updating the “last accessed time” on every file in every folder that you browse in Explorer.
Phil.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
@Eric
I added in that the disk check requires a reboot and might possibly take 1-2 hours. Sorry about your surprise.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Instead of using MSConfig, download Autoruns from SysInternals from Microsoft. Allows you to tweak a lot more options then MSConfig does.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Rather than disabling unused built-in peripherals in Device Manager, why not just disable them in the BIOS? This is a good idea anyway if you don’t want hardware resource conflicts when installing new hardware, and Windows won’t even know the old device was ever there.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
@James
Well, you could do that, but all BIOS are different, some may have the options to disable them, some may not, or if they do it’d be in a different location and I wanted to make the guide applicable to everyone.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Hello Steve,
Enjoying your site !
Question: disabling windows XP services (some of them) will require that I need to reboot the windows XP CD disk after that?? I suppose not but like to be sure about that.
March 6th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
There area lot of good tweaks in here for non tech savvy to do easily. The sysinternals suite is a really good toolkit.
Another One:
Do away with your McCaffe or Norton AntiVirus suites and get something like comodo firewall professional. Its free and is a lightweight suite. If your still paranoid get AvG Free.
Also SuperAntiSpyware is probably the best spyware/malware cleaning kit I’ve found. (Did I mention it’s free)
–Thanks for the guide Steve!!
March 6th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
good gob steve it worked grate thanks looking forword to more updated tweaks
March 6th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
[…] Steve’s Tech Guide — The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide […]
March 6th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
You’re all very welcome, and thanks for the compliments.
@f.kalie
I’m not sure what you mean about rebooting the Windows XP CD disk, but if you do disable the services to notice their effect you will have to reboot your PC.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am
[…] The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide - […]
March 7th, 2008 at 10:01 am
[…] The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide “The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization/Tweak Guide is a comprehensive guide that will give you performance increases all across the board, perfect for a slower machine, and amazing for a fast machine. These XP tweaks will speed up XP dramatically along with improving Windows XP start times, shutdown times, file copying performance, playing games, installing and using programs.” Wow. This thing really is comprehensive. I’m sure that a bunch more stuff could be added but really this is one of the best writeups I’ve seen on Windows XP optimization. Of course the best optimization would be to just uninstall it and install Linux but hey, I’m not there yet. […]
March 8th, 2008 at 9:44 am
[…] squeezing every last drop of horsepower out of your computer. Handily, Steve’s Tech Guide has a useful tweaking guide to ensure you can do just that. I consider the following of his points most valuable to novice […]
March 9th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Another error: The size setting of the trashcan will only work up to around 4GB. So if your drive is 500GB and you chose to use 10% for trashcan, it will still only use up to about 4GB.. I’m not sure if that’s tweakable somewhere in the registry.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:45 am
TWEAKXP VERSION 1.5 Probably the most advanced tweaking utility for all areas They have a newer version which is even better but I didn’t feel like paying for it. Any idea on bios specific tweaks…. Ie where to find based on motherboard type? Overall good info on website help shave a few more things out of xp
Mike
March 9th, 2008 at 8:02 am
@MIKE F
Well, motherboards usually don’t have very specific options for tweaking the BIOS, with the BIOS you’d want to make sure that you’re booting from the hard drive first, enable quick boot, or quick power on self test options, pick the default graphics card, or if you have an onboard graphics card and a PCI or AGP card, make sure your onboard one is disabled so it’s not using up any memory, disabling features in BIOS that you’re not using like an onboard ethernet port when you have an ethernet card in your PCI slot.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:09 am
These are mostly simple stuff but when you apply them all, the perfomance is awesome. Thanks for geting this all together. My pc is awesome now!
March 13th, 2008 at 12:47 am
For tip number four, I’ve also heard that you should just keep the minimum and maximum the same. This keeps the page file from needing to allocate more space when needed and also keeps it from fragmenting. As far as this goes, I’ve also heard that this amount should be twice the amount of your physical memory, until you reach 3Gigs in physical memory, where, interestingly, you can do two different things:
Size it to reflect your physical memory (3gig memory = 3gig page file) or, disable page file. In theory, disabling you page file should speed up your computer because it takes less time than to write to the hard drive, unless you’re truly utilizing 3+gigs of memory. However, I’ve also heard that some things in windows actually like to live on the page file, Micro$oft doesn’t follow theory, go figure. (Note that disabling page file also eliminates tip number 18)
March 13th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Disabling the page file can cause several problems, though I think it all really depends on how you use your computer, even with tons of ram, games would probably have trouble running with no page file, or if you’re using a memory-intensive application like Photoshop or a rendering program you could run out of memory easily.
Personally, I’d rather be safe than sorry when dealing with the page file, some people swear that you can disable it and be completely fine forever, other people say it needs to be the same size so Windows doesn’t have to resize it, ExtremeTech says you need to set it to 3x your amount of RAM, and Microsoft says to let Windows manage it for you.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Just a note on disable the page file. I am currently using a system with 1 gig of ram. Just had it running CS source, with photoshop and dreamweaver cs3 so the memory was definetley overloaded, and it caused no problems. I don’t even have a graphics card, it just reads it into memory as it is needed and takes it out as not needed. It might run a bit slower noticably when the ram is overloaded like this, but it didn’t cause any problems besides this.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Thanks for the great tips, I always thought why HDD light blink for no reason and turning off system restore monitoring solves the problem.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Matt,
I wouldn’t recommend that ;). My comment was mainly something to think about, and also the main point of my comment was to say that, in my eyes, it makes most sense to set the min and max pagefile as the same value, and that value should be 2x your RAM, unless you have more than 2G of RAM, then it should be 1x your RAM.
Steve,
great tips, great site, keep up the good work.
I’m with ya all the way
March 20th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
[…] Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide from- The Ultimate Windows XP Optimization Tweak Guide This is one of the most complete Windows XP Tweak guides on the net. This guide will show you […]
March 21st, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Install Linux.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I did most of the listed tweaks and one thing that occurred was the disappearance of my printers - and now i can’t ‘add a printer’ due to ‘the print spooler service is not running.’ How do I repair? Thanks.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Go to Run -> Services.msc and right click on the Print Spooler service go to properties and set it to manual or automatic, and your printers should come back.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:10 am
Thanks a bunch for the tips! My computer/Internet is now way faster as a result!
March 31st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Steve: I lost all of my printer info - can’t find printers or drivers - help?
thanks
March 31st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
In Services.msc did you disable the print spooler service?
March 31st, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Set up on ‘manual’ and tried on two different printers. Then set on ‘automatic’- both times got a pop-up that stated:
Windows can’t print due to current set-up; try one of the following: 1) check printer with a test page 2)check printer is on 3) reinstall printer drivers
I appreciate your help - any suggestions?
Joe
April 1st, 2008 at 7:20 am
Try doing everything that’s stated in here and see if one of those solutions doesn’t fix it. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223420
Steve
April 1st, 2008 at 10:30 pm
finally i found VERY VERY GOOD tutorial to speed up my pc..
thanks to steve ^_^
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Okay,
My computer seems to be a bit more speedy, even though I had a huge stop of the explorer, and I ended up with huge usage of both firefox and the afore mentioned explorer.
My LAN connection also doesn’t seem to work anymore…
Some help would come in a bit handy, because I’m only as good as the tutorials are when translated to dutch.
Greetings,
Anton
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
My apologies, I have a laptop with two network adapters. One for wireless LAN/Internet, and one plug for LAN/Internet, and they both seem to be different components.
TCP optimizer allowes you to choose which component you apply the changes to, and I only put the changes to the Wireless adapter. Make sure to check that if you happen to have two of them.
Silly me,
Thanks for the great guide, it seems a bit faster, allthough it’s still somewhat slow on start up.
Greetings,
Anton
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Here I am again.
What the heck happened to my sound? No audio-device found?
What am I gonna do now?
April 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Good stuff. I knew most of these, but you had some good ones I hadn’t known about. Cheers!
April 8th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Well thank you. I am a slow and lazy self=study of all this so I was happy to find one or two tweaks that I could still use.
Thanks for putting this together,
Ash
April 8th, 2008 at 11:43 am
No problem. Thanks for coming to my blog.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Thanks!! I know v little about the in-depth setup of windows but this guide was really straight-forward and easy to follow.
Again, I disagree with hibernation, I use it 4/5 times a day! (laptop user too) and I kept system restore because I’m paranoid… Cheers xx
April 17th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Thank’s.for artikel
April 29th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
great guide in here.
im impressed to know that the pagefile.sys can be defraged as it cant be touched by my defrag program by the use of this tool.
i have read that clearing the “prefetch” folder can give an increase in the loading time at the startup. can u verify that? thanks
May 6th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Hello!
Excellant ideas to make your computer run faster and better.
Thanks a lot.
Jitendra
May 9th, 2008 at 5:17 am
thanks! [:
it amazes me how many people on here
keep disagreeing with your hibernation comment
and then go on to say, they use a laptop..
“…Hibernation is one of those things
that you’re just never going to use,
unless you have a laptop…”
haha.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Nothing that i wouldnt know but good tutorial for noobies.
It really helps.. speacially old computers.