How to speed up your computer

[devilgoob]

Just a few things that have proven themselves to speed up my computer.

Click on the Start button on your taskbar, click Run, Type msconfig, press enter, click the Startup tab, Click disable all, Click apply, Click close, click Exit without restart.

Note: Any computer programs that startup with your computer like yahoo messenger, aim, or anything you see pop-up when your computer starts will not startup when you boot your computer and will only run when YOU want to run them.

And here is my favorite one: Click start, Click my computer, double-click C:\ drive icon, double-click the folder named windows, double-click the folder name Prefetch, click Edit on the top of your screen, click Select All, press delete and then click yes.

Even one of these optimizations are better than defragmentation.

EDIT: I've looked up CCleaner and recommend it, as it does what I just told you. I've provided a link if that's ok: Download CCleaner

 

[B4O2N0G]

Thanks for this information.I remember doing the msconfig before to stop programs from starting up but forgot how to get here.Now it wont seem like forever when loading windows.Peace

 

[ToKEN]

I use ccleaner...that program rules. Gets rid of all junk you dont use and cookies and such. after dl it my laptop ran 50x faster.

 

[Budsmith]

Thanks a bunch

 

[nycdfan042]

I use ccleaner...that program rules. Gets rid of all junk you dont use and cookies and such. after dl it my laptop ran 50x faster.

ditto me 2

 

[Dr Dog]

you can also increase your virtual memory, that will help your performance, especially if you notice games that seem to lag a bit on your system

Control panel> System> Advanced > Performance > settings button > advanced > virtual memory> change to around 3000 somewhere> set
your done, you are using some of your HD space as virtual memory

 

[gramsci.antonio]

there's just one effective way to speed up you PC, increase your safety and anonymity.



Erase windows, install Ubuntu

 

[Kizzattack]

What do you all think of a program called "FreeRAM XP Pro" or something like that?
I have heard mixed opinions on it in regards to speeding up computers.

 

[Verite]

.. Click on the Start button on your taskbar, click Run, Type msconfig, press enter, click the Startup tab, Click disable all, Click apply, Click close, click Exit without restart.

Note: Any computer programs that startup with your computer like yahoo messenger, aim, or anything you see pop-up when your computer starts will not startup when you boot your computer and will only run when YOU want to run them. ..

Congrats, you just turned off your anti-virus and whatever else might be protecting your system at boot time start up. #1 rule if you dont know what your disabling DONT DO IT.

Same goes for turning off Windows Prefetch. If you think your going to save diddly turning off prefetch, think again. Theres plenty of myths surrounding prefetch tweaks.

.. The Prefetcher is a component of versions of Microsoft Windows starting with Windows XP. It is a component of the Memory manager that speeds up the Windows boot process, and shortens the amount of time it takes to start up programs..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefetcher

Also setting your hard drive VM for too large a size isnt going to do anything but abuse the hard drive with greater frequencies of reads/writes and slow memory access. What do you think is faster? RAM or fragmented HD access times?

You want a good tip to speed up XP windows response? Try turning off all the graphics frills. Right click on My Computer, select properties, click on Advanced tab then the performance button. On the Visuals tab chose the button for best performance and Apply. This will send the video into a reset mode and return with the no frills old looking windows mode returning. XP by default puts in all the video frills, and theres lots. Clicking and opening response times are now much improved.

But when the reality is RAM is so cheap and thats what is really going to improve your performance issues if you have them. Performance tweaks to the Windows operating systems are marginal at best if not dangerous. Always make sure you got good backups before doing stuff.

 

[rusto]

Verite just said what I was too lazy to say. Thanks for clearing it up. Good info.

 

[devilgoob]

Congrats, you just turned off your anti-virus and whatever else might be protecting your system at boot time start up. #1 rule if you dont know what your disabling DONT DO IT.

Since when do you need an anti-virus? If you have a firewall and download only off trusted sites you will never get one.
And yes, DELETING prefetch files, NOT disabling prefetch, is what I was talking about and it does help, I never said to disable prefetching or to turn on Superfetch at all. uUnless you've tried it, you really don't know, do this on a computer that has tons of files and usage on it, if the XP bar passes 16 times across the screen, next time it will be 12. The best trick is to disable file application prefetching and leave the boot file prefetching on, this is because prefetch stores the most frequently used data of a program onto your disk, eventually to many files are stored and the seek cycles become too many to be efficient anymore in helping you out and instead slow down your computer.
Take it from a person who download Uptime and found out his computer was running 6 months and some odd days, this was an Athlon XP 2500+ (barton of course) oc'd to 2.57ghz.
I've done the prefetch delete on all computers I have fixed and can personally atest to it, but it looks like you've just read a bunch of hype and/or didn't know I actually said to just delete the files. BTW, CCleaner deletes the old prefetch files too. If you don't believe me that this tweak works I can videotape the whole thing, because I'd really hate to prove my computers skills to someone who knows just a little more than average about computers.

 

[nycdfan042]

fast and the furiously computing

fast and the furiously computing

i heard if you put a spoiler on your tower it it will boost its HP by 20%

 

[Jack D Ripper]

spoiler + overclock!

and by spoiler I mean put it outside in the cold

 

[Verite]

Since when do you need an anti-virus? If you have a firewall and download only off trusted sites you will never get one.
And yes, DELETING prefetch files, NOT disabling prefetch, is what I was talking about and it does help, I never said to disable prefetching or to turn on Superfetch at all. uUnless you've tried it, you really don't know, do this on a computer that has tons of files and usage on it, if the XP bar passes 16 times across the screen, next time it will be 12. The best trick is to disable file application prefetching and leave the boot file prefetching on, this is because prefetch stores the most frequently used data of a program onto your disk, eventually to many files are stored and the seek cycles become too many to be efficient anymore in helping you out and instead slow down your computer.
Take it from a person who download Uptime and found out his computer was running 6 months and some odd days, this was an Athlon XP 2500+ (barton of course) oc'd to 2.57ghz.
I've done the prefetch delete on all computers I have fixed and can personally atest to it, but it looks like you've just read a bunch of hype and/or didn't know I actually said to just delete the files. BTW, CCleaner deletes the old prefetch files too. If you don't believe me that this tweak works I can videotape the whole thing, because I'd really hate to prove my computers skills to someone who knows just a little more than average about computers.

Thats the great thing about the internet, is you never know when you are talking to a Network Systems Administrator thats fixed computer systems since 1985. I'll put my 23+ years of computer skills up against what you think you know anyday. Suggesting that no one needs anti-virus/anti-malware only shows how wet behind the ears you still are.

Then again having a 23 year head start means I get all that time to go pollute 100's of websites proving how wrong you are. Heres some of my work.

From an XP Myths site.

Myth - "Deleting the contents of the Prefetch folder improves performance."

Reality - "Every time you delete an application's Prefetch (.PF) file you will cripple that application's load time the next time you go to launch it. This can temporarily increase load times by as much as 100%. For one thing, XP will just re-create the Prefetch (.PF) trace files anyway; secondly, it trims the files if there's ever more than 128 of them so that it doesn't needlessly consume space. However you do not regain optimal application load times back until after the second time you launch the same application due to the Prefetch (.PF) trace file being re-created. Prefetch (.PF) trace files are not a cache and are not preloaded into memory upon windows startup. They are never even accessed until you launch an application. Only one Prefetch (.PF) trace file per application is created. There is never ANY reason to delete these files. Cleaning the Prefetch folder is actually a temporary self-inflicted unoptimization. Why you would want to deliberately hurt your PC's performance I have no idea." - Source - Source 2 - Source 3 - Source 4 - Source 5

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html#Optimization

More, this time I even bolded text at the website. Great explanation of the prefetch system too.

Windows XP Prefetching by default is already optimized. There are no tweaks that do anything but hurt performance. Anyone making any claims otherwise does not understand how Windows Prefetching works. They also do not provide documented and accurate reproducible testing to prove that some "tweak" does work. This nonsense has been copied off one site to another.

It is completely impossible for unused entries in the Prefetch folder to slow a system down.

Prefetch files are trace files that simply include a list of files and their locations that are used by an application when it loads. Nothing is preloaded or cached in memory before you attempt to load an application.

Prefetching is the reason Windows XP Boots faster.

The Prefetch folder and the “layout.ini” file will Defragment itself every 72 hours, and will self clean older Prefetch files from your system. You will hardly ever see more then 130 Prefetch Files in your Prefetch Folder...

It is totally unnecessary to clean out the PF files in your prefetch folder.

It is just a myth that it helps speed things up.

The Prefetch folder and the “layout.ini” file will Defragment itself every 72 hours, and will self clean older Prefetch files from your system. You will hardly ever see more then 130 Prefetch Files in your Prefetch Folder.

I would strongly advise to just leave the prefetch and it’s files alone. It does no harm and will keep your system in better running condition.

But if you must, please use caution and be advised that your system could see a slowdown in boot time.

http://members.rushmore.com/~jsky/id14.html


Still need convincing? Heres a 'few' more links that all say the same thing.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ryanmy/archive/2005/05/25/421882.aspx

http://askbobrankin.com/windows_prefetch.html

http://xperiencexp.blogspot.com/2006/04/prefetch-cleaning-myth.html

http://www.diskcleaner.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1131

http://www.internetfixes.com/readers_questions/IF01933.htm

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000024.html

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000619.html

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000743.html

 

[specialk]

Ohhh i remember ol tweaking days since windows 98 days. There tweaking actually worked

WIth a monster that is windowns XP and even bigger monster windows vista there is little tweaking you can do to speed up your computer

 

[specialk]

Btw Verite, i personallye believ anti virus is a load of rubbish on a private PC where your the owner. Ive been in the compueter industry since 1995 i built and had more than 5 computers since then and i still have to catch a single virus if you kno what ur doing u never gonna get it..

Ifi catch soemthing i dont like i remove it manually.

AS for norton anti virus and other security software i woould call em viruses themselves. They are large, bulky, slow, expensive and virtuallly useless

 

[titoon29]

NOD32 is IMO and some i read, the lightest antivirus software in memory (25MO for me), great performances, but no firewall...

As verite said, in Xp changing performance settings really improve xp exploring speed...
And ram is cheap

about ram boost Xp, i don't really see the differencewith and without,i just use it before launching high memory application, and if you have more than 2GB of Ram it's useless.. Should run some bench...

 

[panopticist]

Take all those icons off your desktop...

 

[Verite]

Btw Verite, i personallye believ anti virus is a load of rubbish on a private PC where your the owner. Ive been in the compueter industry since 1995 i built and had more than 5 computers since then and i still have to catch a single virus if you kno what ur doing u never gonna get it..

Ifi catch soemthing i dont like i remove it manually.

AS for norton anti virus and other security software i woould call em viruses themselves. They are large, bulky, slow, expensive and virtuallly useless

A bigger load of rubbish than contradicting yourself?

So which is it? " I still have yet to catch a single virus " or " If I catch comething I dont like I remove it manually " ? You cant have both.


And without running any anti-virus or anti-spyware how the hell would you know exactly what you have going on in your system? Short and sweet is you wouldnt. Private PC's are no longer private when you attach them to the internet.

 

[nycdfan042]

^^^ you the alien ware computers are run by aliens fromt he mooon..they actually are look for you sp K