A Guide to System Tweaking for Performance (for free!)

*†peter* · #1 08-28-2008, 12:50 PM

A Guide to System Tweaking for Performance (for free!)
Alright, I see a lot of threads about computer performance and many suggestions direct people to upgrade their computer. While better hardware will definitely make a difference. There are many other ways to speed up your computer system. After finishing these steps, you will notice an improvement.

My Personal tips
1. Uninstall any program you haven’t used in 1 month. Don’t worry you can always reinstall it. While Anti-virus and Winamp agent are nifty little tools, they can both be uninstalled / disabled if you do not visit any questionable websites and don’t run any untrusted software. I personally do not use any anti virus on my gaming PC and scan files on my laptop if I have any doubts. Look at your system tray and uninstall any programs that are not essential. (See Disable Unnecessary Services)

2. Consolidate large media files onto a separate partition away from your system files (useful for step 6), may require re-partitioning

3. Install and run Ad-Aware (http://lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php)

4. Empty the Recycle Bin, Run Disk Cleanup on every single drive. Start Menu -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup

5. Download and install CCLeaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/download), run the Cleaner and the Registry Cleaner as well.

6. Defrag your harddisk, use windows defrag or personally I would recommend using ‘OO Defrag Professional’, which can be acquired from various sources. Run COMPLETE/Name

7. Download and install Omega ATI/Nvidia optimized drivers (http://www.omegadrivers.net/), this set of drivers has been in development for over 5 years and supports almost every gfx chipset there is. Huge performance improvement on modern day gfx cards. I use these drivers in all 5 of my computers.

8. BUY MORE RAM, if you have under 1 gb of ram, upgrade to 2

Commonly Known Tweaks

1. Disable Indexing Services
Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

Go to Start
Click Settings
Click Control Panel
Double-click Add/Remove Programs
Click the Add/Remove Window Components
Uncheck the Indexing services
Click Next

2. Optimise Display Settings
Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimise:

Go to Start
Click Settings
Click Control Panel
Click System
Click Advanced tab
In the Performance tab click Settings
Leave only the following ticked:

Show shadows under menus
Show shadows under mouse pointer
Show translucent selection rectangle
Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
Use visual styles on windows and buttons

3. Speedup Folder Browsing
You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:

Open My Computer
Click on Tools menu
Click on Folder Options
Click on the View tab.
Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
Click Apply
Click Ok
Reboot your computer

Optimise Your Pagefile

If you give your pagefile a fixed size it saves the operating system from needing to resize the page file.

Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.

Right click on My Computer and select Properties
Select the Advanced tab
Under Performance choose the Settings button
Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

Defragment Your Pagefile (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx)

Keeping your pagefile defragmented can provide a major performance boost. One of the best ways of doing this is to creat a separate partition on your hard drive just for your page file, so that it doesn’t get impacted by normal disk usage. Another way of keeping your pagefile defragmented is to run PageDefrag. This cool little app can be used to defrag your pagefile, and can also be set to defrag the pagefile everytime your PC starts. To install:

Download and Run PageDefrag
Tick Defrag at next Reboot,
Click Ok
Reboot

Improve Memory Usage With Cacheman (http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail...an/982371189/1)

Cacheman Improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings. Once Installed:

Go to Show Wizard and select All
Run all the wizards by selecting Next or Finished until you are back to the main menu. Use the defaults unless you know exactly what you are doing
Exit and Save Cacheman
Restart Windows

Optimise your internet connection
There are lots of ways to do this but by far the easiest is to run TCP/IP Optimizer (http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php)

Download and install
Click the General Settings tab and select your Connection Speed (Kbps)
Click Network Adapter and choose the interface you use to connect to the Internet
Check Optimal Settings then Apply
Reboot

Run BootVis - Improve Boot Times (http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664)

BootVis will significantly improve boot times:

Download and Run
Select Trace
Select Next Boot and Driver Trace
A Trace Repetitions screen will appear, select Ok and Reboot
Upon reboot, BootVis will automatically start, analyze and log your systems boot process. When it’s done, in the menu go to Trace and select Optimize System
Reboot
When your machine has rebooted wait until you see the Optimizing System box appear. Be patient and wait for the process to complete

Turn Off System Restore

System Restore can be a useful if your computer is having problems, however storing all the restore points can literally take up Gigabytes of space on your hard drive. To turn off System Restore:

Open Control Panel
Click on Performance and Maintenance
Click on System
Click on the System Restore tab
Tick Turn off System Restore on All Drives
Click Ok

Make Your Menus Load Faster

This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will ‘feel’. What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.
This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to ‘0? but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them - well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood

Go to Start then Run
Type ‘Regedit’ then click ‘Ok’
Find ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop’
Select ‘MenuShowDelay’
Right click and select ‘Modify’
Reduce the number to around 100?

Disable Unnecessary Services

Because Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many services running that take up system resources that you will never need. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines:

Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Fast User Switching
Help and Support - (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Remote Registry Service
Secondary Logon
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service - (Unplug n’™ Pray will disable this)
Telnet
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Upload Manager
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)

To disable these services:

Go to Start and then Run and type ‘services.msc’
Doubleclick on the service you want to change
Change the startup type to ‘˜Disable’

Speedup Folder Access - Disable Last Access Update

If you have a lot of folders and subdirectories on your computer, when you access a directory XP wastes a lot of time updating the time stamp showing the last access time for that directory and for ALL sub directories. To stop XP doing this you need to edit the registry. If you are uncomfortable doing this then please do not attempt.

Go to Start and then Run and type ‘regedit’
Click through the file system until you get to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contr ol\FileSystem’
Right-click in a blank area of the window on the right and select ‘˜DWORD Value’
Create a new DWORD Value called ‘NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate’
Then Right click on the new value and select ‘˜Modify’
Change the Value Data to ‘˜1′
Click ‘˜OK’

Improve Swapfile Performance

If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.

Go to Start then Run
Type ‘msconfig.exe’ then ok
Click on the System.ini tab
Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
Click on new then in the blank box type ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
Click OK
Restart PC

Other improvements
Memory manager (google memturbo)
RAMDisk (google RAMDisk Windows XP)
Windows Vista -> ReadyBoost