Windows XP Optimization

i already do all of that

theres tons of tips like this on tweakxp.com

Stez

Olger901, very nice

just go to google.com and type tweakin xp will get ya with loads

If you have a router within your home, don't bother with a firewall (disable the firewall service in this case, its worthless). Normaly all inbound traffic is blocked. Theres hardly any point in blocking outbound traffic, unless you can't keep track of your own software. Whenever you need a specific inbound port open, just have your router forward it to your PCs IP address.

Instead use Microsoft's WinXP built in firewall <--lol no
none of your first post tweaks actually 'tweak xp' except modifying windows services

kazaa lite, adaware, and that virus stuff is just your recommendation on what to use

personally norton 2003 sys works does a fine job on my pc and i really notice no slowdown at all


one of the best tweaks i've found is just doing this:

right click on my computer, properties, advanced tab, performance->settings

and change it to "adjust for best performance"

it really made a difference on my mom's slower p3 600/256 ram/tnt vanta

Heres some good information about tweaking your XP services. By me giving you this URL, you agree to transfer ownership of your soul to me :devil: :

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Xp's firewall is CRAP. It is nothing good at all. Disable it and use a proper firewall, is a good tip. Xp's firewall isn't very secure (hint: microsoft), but that's besides the point, because it's really hard to configure and it blocks stuff such as sending files on irc and over messenger and the gods alone know what else.

doom i hate to say it, but you didnt give me any decent reason to disable it (supposing i had it enabled)

i'm tired of people hating on MS just b/c they can and think it makes them look good. obviously it blocks inbound traffic on weird ports (e.g. mIRC uses 113, with 1024-5000 for files)

please grow up and back up your statements with some sort of actual proof rather then opinion.

It blocks good ports, I'm telling you.

Doom, why on Earth are you bringing up old threads? You have done this twice now.

My fault :corpse:
I thought it was "new psots" while it was a search result....a search I made myself. :doh:

Upgrade to ad-aware 6!! Ad-Aware 5 is a piece of garbage in comparison, ad-aware 6 found hundreds of things ad-aware 5 missed. I'm glad I decided to upgrade...

Spybot search and destroy kicks adawares backside

I don't remember where it's located, but change largesystemcache from 0 to 1 for a nice performance boost, given you have a good amount of RAM (256MB+ RAM minimum, I would think would be about right.)

Other basic stuff: (Some of which has been already mentioned)

Turn off file indexing! It'll save disk space AND speed up your system! What a deal! I also turn off thumbnail caching, as that saps up HD space, and can actually SAP today's powerful processors and HD's. I don't like windows making huge trails without my explicit permission, anyway, and turn off all those things that cause such things. I don't remember everything, but there was one specific setting about windows keeping track of you and your preferences, which I strongly recommend turning off, for privacy and speed reasons.

As far as system restore is concerned, DON'T turn it off! Instead, turn off the individual drives, and without a doubt turn off your non-system drives. That way, you can still use restore points (which are invaluable,) but won't have to deal with the performance loss for useless stuff. If HD space is a concern, I hear many complaints "It eats up SO much space!", then simply adjust how much space it's using! Solved. So many people just shrug this stuff off without looking in to it. I personally have system restore on, and only my main partition on with the minimal amount of space to use. I turn it off at times.

Don't use IE. Don't use Outlook Express. They are huge security risks, and are not the most efficient browsers either. I strongly recommend mozilla. Whenever you run IE for the first time after a boot up, even after you close it it leaves a copy running for faster loading, and there is no way around it.

There is absolutely no reason to have a swap file anymore, unless you are poor. Upgrade to 512MB RAM (minimum) for 50 bucks or less and get rid of it. You won't regret it.

I will stress it again: AD-AWARE (or equivalent, of which I wasn't aware of but am informed exists.) This isn't negotiable in today's internet world. Ad-watch, however, IS negotiable, if you don't mind/can take care of spyware cookies and scan with ad-aware regularly. I don't think anyone here is stupid enough to use Kazaa, but just in case, NEVER, EVER, EVER use Kazaa! It's spyware garbage! If you must use kazaa (it is helpful in certain rare circumstances, I prefer IRC for filesharing however,) use Kazaa Lite, and always have a virus monitor running.

Virus scanners, as well as things such as ad-watch, really sap your processor & HD. Turn them off when you are gaming.

To save a little system resources and lots of RAM, turn off all those useless services (which is nearly all of them) that come automatic on with XP, even home edition. You can save a good 64MB this way, early all of them are specialty stuff that you will only need in certain rare special situations. On that note, make a very close look at your processes list, as well as your boot list (use MSConfig, it's in the last column, the non-service boot programs,) and get rid of any garbage you don't want running. Turning off themes if you don't use them saves RAM as well.

There is an awesome little program called "bootviz." Download. Run. Enjoy. It fixes up your HD so things boot faster. It nearly halved by boot-up time! Great great program.

Finally we come to an unfortunate necessity (unless you are under a proper router, which is a wise investment I haven't yet made,) which is a firewall. I use Norton IS 2002. It's an excellent program, but it does sap alot of resources. It asks me EVERY time a connection is attempted, inward or outwards, that isn't specifically in it's list of "OK." That's one item that's not debatable. The built-in XP firewall isn't great, but it does a minimal job with little resource sapping if you aren't too concerned with firewalls (if you actually install a firewall, and see all the hack attempts your computer will be getting, you'll quickly change your mind.) You CAN be pretty safe by disabling all possibly entryways such as file and print sharing, for one minor example, in conjuction with the XP firewall. That will keep the low-level hackers at bay, but won't leave you totally safe. The chances of a smart reputable hacker getting into your home system is slim to none though, really, they have bigger fish to fry.

I know most of this is pretty basic but hope it helps


There was this program somewhere in the administrative tools that allows you to go through nearly all the hidden settings of XP, properly described, without registry hacking. It was excellent, and I can no longer find it. Can someone please tell me how to access this? I think it's not well know at all.

On another topic: PROBLEM:
I made some changes with MSCONFIG, and now every time I boot my machine I get a message that I made changes with it and am getting a message because it's in selective startup (even I changed it back to full,) and even if I check the box for it not to run at startup and not to show me the message, it still comes up, every time. Any suggestions?

you can try going in the registry to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig\

Delete anything anything in startupforlder and in startupreg . Unfortunately they'll dissapear also from the msconfig list (you can't enable them later)

nephalim said:

Don't use IE. Don't use Outlook Express. They are huge security risks, and are not the most efficient browsers either. I strongly recommend mozilla.

Click to expand...

I second that.

nephalim said:

There is absolutely no reason to have a swap file anymore, unless you are poor. Upgrade to 512MB RAM (minimum) for 50 bucks or less and get rid of it. You won't regret it.

Click to expand...

Actually, some programs insist on having a swap file, no matter how much RAM you have. Setting it to "system managed" has almost the same effect speed-wise as disabling the swap file, while maintining compatibility,

nephalim said:

I will stress it again: AD-AWARE (or equivalent, of which I wasn't aware of but am informed exists.)

Click to expand...

SpyBot Search & Destroy
I recommend running both.

nephalim said:

use Kazaa Lite

Click to expand...

And make sure you get it from http://k-lite.tk/, not kazaalite.com.

nephalim said:

There is an awesome little program called "bootviz." Download. Run. Enjoy. It fixes up your HD so things boot faster. It nearly halved by boot-up time! Great great program.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's bootvis.

nephalim said:

There was this program somewhere in the administrative tools that allows you to go through nearly all the hidden settings of XP, properly described, without registry hacking. It was excellent, and I can no longer find it. Can someone please tell me how to access this? I think it's not well know at all.

Click to expand...

TweakUI? Also check out Xteq X-Setup.

Ok, it's time to quote!

nephalim said:

As far as system restore is concerned, DON'T turn it off! Instead, turn off the individual drives, and without a doubt turn off your non-system drives. That way, you can still use restore points (which are invaluable,) but won't have to deal with the performance loss for useless stuff. If HD space is a concern, I hear many complaints "It eats up SO much space!", then simply adjust how much space it's using! Solved. So many people just shrug this stuff off without looking in to it. I personally have system restore on, and only my main partition on with the minimal amount of space to use. I turn it off at times.

Click to expand...

Actually, system restore rarely works for me...I don't really see a good reason to why having it on.

Don't use IE. Don't use Outlook Express. They are huge security risks, and are not the most efficient browsers either. I strongly recommend mozilla. Whenever you run IE for the first time after a boot up, even after you close it it leaves a copy running for faster loading, and there is no way around it.

Click to expand...

Internet doesn't take up much resources...
I hardly believe it can make your computer faster...but you're right on that it's a big security risk, though.

There is absolutely no reason to have a swap file anymore, unless you are poor. Upgrade to 512MB RAM (minimum) for 50 bucks or less and get rid of it. You won't regret it.

Click to expand...

Wrong! I used a computer with 512 mb ram and a swap file of about 150 mb. When using video compression, it froze and complained about virtual memory! It's best to enable this.

There is an awesome little program called "bootviz." Download. Run. Enjoy. It fixes up your HD so things boot faster. It nearly halved by boot-up time! Great great program.

Click to expand...

Well unfortunaly, this one hasn't done anything for me when I last tried it...

Finally we come to an unfortunate necessity (unless you are under a proper router, which is a wise investment I haven't yet made,) which is a firewall. I use Norton IS 2002. It's an excellent program, but it does sap alot of resources. It asks me EVERY time a connection is attempted, inward or outwards, that isn't specifically in it's list of "OK." That's one item that's not debatable. The built-in XP firewall isn't great, but it does a minimal job with little resource sapping if you aren't too concerned with firewalls (if you actually install a firewall, and see all the hack attempts your computer will be getting, you'll quickly change your mind.) You CAN be pretty safe by disabling all possibly entryways such as file and print sharing, for one minor example, in conjuction with the XP firewall. That will keep the low-level hackers at bay, but won't leave you totally safe. The chances of a smart reputable hacker getting into your home system is slim to none though, really, they have bigger fish to fry.

Click to expand...

It's actually good that it asks you what should be allowed. It would be a security risk otherwise. But then, you may disable this if it doesn't suit you I think...