5 Ways Accelarate Your Windows XP

1. 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:


a. Open Control Panel
b. Click on Performance and Maintenance
c. Click on System
d. Click on the System Restore tab
e. Tick "Turn off System Restore on All Drives"
f. Click "Ok"

2. Make Your Menus Load Faster
This is one of my favorite tips as it makes a huge difference on how fast your machine will "feel". What this tips does is that removes the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.

a. Go to Start then Run
b. Type "Regedit" then click "Ok"
c. Find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop"
d. Select "MenuShowDelay"
e. Right click and select "Modify"
f. Reduce the number to around "100"

3.Disable System Sounds
Surprisingly, the beeps that your computer makes for various system sounds can slow down particularly at startup and shut-down. To fix this turn off the system sounds:

a. Open Control Panel
b. Click Sounds and Audio Devices
c. Check Place volume icon in taskbar
d. Click Sounds Tab
e. Choose "No Sounds" for the Sound Scheme
f. Click "No"
g. Click "Apply"
h. Click "OK"
i. Improve Boot Times

4. Improve XP Shutdown Speed
This tips reduces the time XP waits before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown.

a. Go to Start then select Run
b. Type "Regedit" and click ok
c. Find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop" Select "WaitToKillAppTimeout"
d. Right click and select "Modify"
e. Change the value to "1000"
f. Click "OK"
g. Now select "HungAppTimeout"
h. Right click and select "Modify"
i. Change the value to "1000"
j. Click "OK"
k. Now find "HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop"
l. Select "WaitToKillAppTimeout"
m. Right click and select "Modify"
n. Change the value to "1000"
o. Click "OK"
p. Now find "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control"
q. Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
r. Right click and select "Modify"
s. Change the value to "1000"
t. Click "OK"

5. Improve Swapfile PerformanceIf you have more than 256MB of RAM this tip will improve your computer performance. It will be sure that your PC uses full capacity of memory (faster than the swap file) before it uses the swap file.
a. Go to Start then Run
b. Type "msconfig.exe" then ok
c. Click on the System.ini tab
d. Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
e. Click on new then in the blank box type "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
f. Click OK
g. Restart PC