Tips to boost startup speed of your computer
Services You Can Disable:
There are quite a few services you can disable from starting automatically.
This would be to speed up your boot time and free resources.
They are only suggestions so I suggestion you read the description of each one when you run Services
and that you turn them off one at a time.
Some possibilities are:
Alerter
Application Management
Clipbook
Fast UserSwitching
Human Interface Devices
Indexing Service
Messenger
Net Logon
NetMeeting
QOS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Routing & Remote Access
SSDP Discovery Service
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Web Client
Cleaning the Prefetch Directory:
WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs.
However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.
To clean this periodically go to:
Star / Run / Prefetch
Press Ctrl-A to highlight all the shorcuts
Delete them
Not Displaying Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Status Messages:
To turn these off:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\m*cro$oft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system
If it is not already there, create a DWORD value named DisableStatusMessages
Give it a value of 1
Clearing the Page File on Shutdown:
Click on the Start button
Go to the Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
Local Policies
Click on Security Options
Right hand menu - right click on "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Select "Enable"
Reboot
For regedit users.....
If you want to clear the page file on each shutdown:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\Session Manager\Memory Management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Set the value to 1
No GUI Boot:
If you don't need to see the XP boot logo,
Run MSCONFIG
Click on the BOOT.INI tab
Check the box for /NOGUIBOOT
Speeding the Startup of Some CD Burner Programs:
If you use program other than the native WindowsXP CD Burner software,
you might be able to increase the speed that it loads.
Go to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services
Double-click on IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service
For the Startup Type, select Disabled
Click on the OK button and then close the Services window
If you dont You should notice
Getting Rid of Unread Email Messages:
To remove the Unread Email message by user's login names:
Start Regedit
For a single user: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\m*cro$oft\Windows\Curre
ntVersion\UnreadMail
For all users: Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\m*cro$oft\Windows\Curr
entVersion\UnreadMail
Create a DWORD key called MessageExpiryDays
Give it a value of 0
Increasing Graphics Performance:
By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items.
Most simply slow down their display.
To turn these off selectively:
Right click on the My Computer icon
Select Properties
Click on the Advanced tab
Under Performance, click on the Settings button
To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging
Increasing System Performance:
If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer
Increasing File System Caching:
To increase the amount of memory Windows will locked for I/O operations:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\Session Manager\Memory Management
Edit the key IoPageLockLimit
Resolving Inability to Add or Remove Programs:
If a particular user cannot add or remove programs, there might be a simple registry edit neeed.
Go to HKCU\Software\m*cro$oft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol
icies\Uninstall
Change the DWORD NoAddRemovePrograms to 0 disable it
But there is a glitch in disabling some services in services.msc
If you disable services like following, external USB sticks stop working.
1. Universal Plug and Play
2. Plug and Play
3. Smartcard
4. SSDP discovery service.