Accelerating Win XP - 1

Putting a little potion in XP’s motion.

Agonised by sitting and watching your toenails grow while your PC ambles through its tasks? Crack your knuckles and roll up your sleeves because its time to shrug off this sluggishness by putting a little potion in XP’s motion. Though the efficacy of these tweaks will differ from PC to PC, they are by and large guaranteed to perk up your PC’s performance.

However, remember: Thou shalt try these tweaks at thine own peril. Thou shalt not crack my jaw if thy PC turns into a tin pumpkin. And I beseech thee to heed the Three Golden Rules of Safe Computing afore attempting any actus reus on thy Windows: 1. Backup thy data. 2. Backup thy data. 3. Backup thy data.


Killing Unnecessary Services
I should be talking about unnecessary applications first, but this fascinates me more. So let’s hold the apps. While XP runs applications in the foreground, it also runs services (processes) in the background--to aid the OS or provide support to applications. Several services are auto-launched at start-up though not all of them are required by everyone. Since these unnecessary services tend to bog down your system, it is best to switch them off. However, you need to be very cautious.

Depending upon your needs, there’re a whole lot of services you can suspend. These include: Alerter, Clipbook, Computer Browser, Distributed Link Tracking Client, Fast User Switching, Help and Support (don’t disable this if you use Windows Help and Support), Human Interface Access Devices, IPSEC Services, Messenger, Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing, Portable Media Serial Number, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Procedure Call Locator, Remote Registry, Remote Registry Service, Secondary Logon, Routing & Remote Access, Task Scheduler, Telnet, Upload Manager, Windows Time, Wireless Zero Configuration.

To disable these services, go to Start and then Run. Type ‘services.msc’ to run the Services computer-management console. (This also carries a description of the services.) Double-click on the service you want to alter and change the Startup Type to `Manual’ from the dropdown list. For beginners, this is safer than disabling it straightaway. See how it works. Be sure, only then `Disable’ it.

Speeding Up Folder Access
Each time you open a folder, XP takes time to update the timestamp showing the last access time for the directory as well as all its subdirectories. So, to get faster folder access, you need to kill Last Access Update. (Unless you use this info, of course.) But carefully yaar…

Click on Start, select Run and type `regedit’. Get to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem’. Right-click in the blank area on right pane and select 'DWORD Value'. Next, create a new DWORD Value called 'NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate'. Right click on the new value. Select 'Modify'. Now change the Value Data to '1' and click on OK.

Shutting Down Faster
Does your XP takes ages to shut shop? Here’s what you should do to speed up the process: Click on Start and select Run. Type 'regedit' and click on OK. Find 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\'. Select 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'. Then right-click and select 'Modify'. Alter the given value to '1000' and click on OK. Next pick 'HungAppTimeout'. Right click and select 'Modify'. Modify the value to '1000' and click on OK. Then find 'HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop'. Choose 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'. Right click and select 'Modify'. Again, change the value to '1000' and click on OK. Lastly, find 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\' and select 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout'. Yet again, right click, select 'Modify', change the value to '1000' and click on OK.

Lots more to come. Be back here next week. Now if you want to want to have a bit of fun, take a peek at this:

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