Registry Clean and Repair

Is your Windows XP PC already slowing down? I know the feeling. I thought that it all ended when the 95/98 series ended but sadly a PC will still get more and more slow over time.

My first Windows XP PC lasted me about 5 years. During that time I rebuilt it twice completely because it had become so slow. I am now on my second Windows XP PC and I was surprised to find out that already within 3 months it was becoming slow!

Here are my tips for XP performance tuning to keep your PC fast for as long as possible.

Temp Files

If your browser performance in particular is extremely slow then you should clear out all temporary files on a regular basis. For example, Firefox slows down an awful lot if you don’t do this regularly.

Display Properties

Right click the desktop and go to properties. Make sure that the theme is set to either “Windows XP” or even better, “Windows Classic”. I recommend having no background at all.

Taskbar Properties

Right click the taskbar (at the bottom) and click on properties. Customize the start menu and go to Advanced. Here I recommend that you add the links you need as a menu. This is much faster than always opening new windows.

My Computer Properties

Right click “My Computer” and select properties. Go to the Advanced tab then click the Performance Settings button. Here I recommend selecting “Adjust for best performance”. You can instantly see that XP gets rid of all the flashy cosmetics like fading, sliding and animating.

In fact, your PC will now resemble Windows 2000 or the Windows Server operating system. Little wonder then that most IT technicians only have contempt for the cosmetic “bells and whistles” that come with XP and Vista.

Pagefile

Whilst you were on that Visual Effects tab last, click the neighboring tab “Advanced” and look down at Virtual memory. This should be set to 3x your current RAM which it probably is not by default. Also by default, this file will change size as and when Windows feels like it. This is very bad from a performance perspective.

Instead, set the pagefile to be 3x your RAM and a custom size with the same value for initial and maximum. This way, your pagefile will just stay put and will not become fragmented all over your hard disk over time.