How To Speed Up Windows XP

Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers.

Disable services

There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically. This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources. Here is a tutorial on which services to disable.

Clear Page File on Shutdown

If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown make the following changes.

1. Click Start -> Run...
2. Type regedit and press OK.
3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Session Manager -> Memory Management.
4. Double click the option ClearPageFileAtShutdown and set the value to 1.
5. Reboot your computer for this tweak to take effect.

Increase Graphics Performance

By default, Windows XP has a lot of shadows, fades and other effects turned on. All together slow down your computer. Therefore you might consider giving up on some of them.

To turn these off selectively:

1. Click Start and right click on My Computer.
2. Select Properties and click on the Advanced tab.
3. Under Performance, click on the Settings button.
4. You can turn them all off, by selecting Adjust for best performance. However you might want to customize them on your likes.

Clean the Prefetch Directory

WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs. However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs. Once a month is good to detele them all.

1. Click Start -> Run... and type prefetch.
2. A window will appear. Select all the files and delete them.

Speed the startup of some CD burner programs

If you use a program other than the native Windows XP CD burner software, you might be able to increase the speed that it loads.

1. Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services.
2. Double click on IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service.
3. For the Startup Type, select Disabled.
4. Click the OK button and then close the Services window.

Decrease boot time

Microsoft has made available a program to analyze and decrease the time it takes to boot to Windows XP. The program is called BootVis.

1. Download BootVis.
2. Install BootVis.
3. Run BootVis.
4. For a starting point, run Trace -> Next Boot + Driver Delays. This will reboot your computer and provide a benchmark.
5. After the reboot, BootVis will take a minute or two to show graphs of your system startup.
6. Then run Trace -> Optimize System.
7. Re-Run the Next Boot + Drive Delays. Note how much the time has decreased.

Increase system performance

If you have 512 MB or more of memory, you can increase system performance by having the core system kept in memory.

1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Session Manager -> Memory Management.
3. Double click DisablePagingExecutive and set the value to be 1.
4. Reboot the computer.

No GUI Boot

If you don't need to see the XP boot logo, you cand have it removed.

1. Click Start -> Run..., type msconfig and hit Enter.
2. Go to the BOOT.INI tab.
3. Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT.
4. Click Apply.