Accelerating Win XP - 2

Ratcheting up XP’s performance.

Judging by the phenomenal response received for last week’s XP tips by this Mammu of yours, I think the going has been good. And no gaalis, galochs, or bumb golas from you means I haven’t turned any PC into a tin pumpkin so far. Ab aagae…

Waitasec: For additional precaution, I would suggest you try only one tweak at time. Then reboot. If everything is hunky-dory, then move to the next ‘un. Else rewind and retract. Ok?

Swat the Unwanted at Startup
Why load proggies at start up that you ain’t going to use? Logical na? To get to the unwanted programmes in the Startup folder, first click Start > Programs > Startup, and right-click items that you want to kill. Alternatively, attack c:\documents and settings\username\start menu\programs\startup (where the username is your Windows logon), and delete the shortcuts of the programs you don’t need at startup.

Next strike: Scheduled Tasks folder. Go to c:\windows\tasks and remove the programme shortcuts of anything you don’t want to auto-run on a schedule.

Final assault: System Configuration Utility. This helps disable hidden startup programs as well. Click on Start > Run, type ‘msconfig’ and click on OK. Go to the Startup tab. Now uncheck the box next to a programme you want to disable. To get more info about a listing, you can widen the Command column. But saavdhaan yaar: Tamper with ONLY ONE setting at a time. Note down what you are disabling. And reboot. Also, tweak with only what you can comprehend. Shun what looks like gobbledygook. Unless you’re trigger happy…

Boot Faster
XP’s boot defragment feature places all boot files next to each other for faster booting. Usually this is enabled. But in case it isn’t, here’s what you should do:

Click on Start > Run, type ‘regedit’ and click on OK. Find ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction’, enable it by changing the value to ‘Y’. And reboot.

Load Menus Quicker
There’s often many a tick between your click and a menu’s flick. To fix this delay in display, click on Start > Run, type ‘regedit’ and click on OK. Next, find ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’. Pick ‘MenuShowDelay’, right-click and select ‘Modify’. Change the value to ‘100’ and scram. The lesser the value, the faster your menus open. Yeah, try ‘0’, and see what happens… heh heh heh!

Speed up the Swap File
This little tweak will help your PC use every iota of RAM before sliding into the swap file. Go to Start > Run, type ‘msconfig’ and click on OK. Now go to the ‘System.ini’ tab and expand ‘386enh’ by clicking on the plus sign. Next click on `New’. In the blank dialog box type ‘ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1’, click on OK and reboot your PC. Those of you with more the 256 megs of RAM will benefit the most from this tip.

Stamp out the Eye Candy
You may not like to hear this but all those glitzy visual effects (animated menus, menu shadows, fade effects, cursor shadows…) that make XP look and feel so dandy actually eat away system resources and processing power. So those of you who haven’t been able to upgrade your PC’s gigahertz but still need to eke max power out of your systems, heed this: Disabling eye candy can boost XP’s performance.

To do so, go to Start > Control Panel and select `System’. Next, choose the `Advanced’ tab and pick the `Settings’ button under Performance. Check the `Adjust for best performance’ box and click on `Apply’. If you want to be more picky, choose `Custom’, and selectively enable or disable effects as you please. Similarly, choosing the `Windows Classic’ display will also ratchet up your routines.

Chaltae, chaltae, here’s a ute to help you monitor your system… right from the number of process running to motherboard taapmaan to fan gati! Go fetch CoolMon from www.coolmon.org. Ji haan, maibaap, it’s free…