Thread: Windows optimization guide

In this point I have gathered lots of tips to enhance moreperformance on your PC.

NB: This is mostly aimed at PC’s with a Microsoft Windows Operating System.

These Windows optimizations are to be used at your own risk, I or PCHF cannot be held liable for any damage done to your operating system, or data lost, as an effect from using these settings. Any alternative in the registry should be altered with the extreme care.

I would also suggest you backup the registry before using any software on it. How to back up, edit, and restore the registry in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

Important Software for Security and Maintenance

Defragmenter

This must be performed weekly to keep your system in excellent order. You can use the defragmenter built into windows, but if you want better presentation from defragging then you would like to purchase a defragmenter which will also be faster. Other option includes: Diskeeper, Vopt XP and PerfectDisk.

A good tip before performing a defrag is to clear up your computer. This can be done within windows or you can use a free program called CCleaner, which performs somewhat better, to perform this in Windows you can use Disk Cleanup. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. And then select the drive you desire to clean and click OK.
To execute a defrag using the built in windows utility go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. Then click “Defragment” to perform the operation.

Antivirus

Antivirus software is one of the most vital pieces of security software. Antivirus software is considered to get rid of computer viruses and other wicked software that may have got onto your computer. I advise running an Anti-virus scan at least once a week. Windows does not have built-in Antivirus software, though you can download free antivirus software if you wish or you can purchase it. I would suggest purchasing it as you will get better protection, however the free alternatives are very good. For example AVG Free Edition is a good piece of Antivirus software and will remove a lot of pc viruses and includes real-time protection. However if you wish to purchase some I recommend NOD32 which is a nice antivirus with and very light on resources, which means it will not hog up your RAM.

Firewall

A firewall is a part of software which will limit access to your computer and access to the internet from programs to stop the unauthorized access (by hackers etc) and stop any malware if present accessing the internet. There is a firewall built into Windows XP Service Pack 2 which is ok but I urge you get better protection by getting a commercial firewall. There are a lot paid for firewall’s obtainable but there are some very well-organized free versions like Zonealarm, which is a lot better than the Windows Firewall.

Spyware Scanner

A spyware scanner is a very helpful tool. It will scan your pc and get rid of any nasties like adware and malware. There are many spyware scanners out there, but again there are some very good free versions. I suggest Spybot Search and Destroy, which is a very widespread tool.

Registry Cleaner
One more useful tool is a registry cleaner which will scan for and repair any troubles within the windows registry. I propose using the freeware registry cleaner –Regseeker.

Good XP Tweaks for better Performance

Following is a list of useful XP tweaks and how to carry out them. And below that there is some service tweaking information. All these tweaks are intended to speed up your computer and improve performance, but you may find that you need one of the objects listed below, so do not disable something if you need it. Also I advise you make a notepad file listing the tweaks you have performed for prospect notice in case you need to restore them.

To start I have two very hungry Windows services which use fairly a lot of RAM. These are Indexing and System Restore. Blackviper.com which is at present not working is a useful website, but what we need from the site is in a PDF document which I found here.

Warning: If you do not know much about windows registry please do not try without asking question’s first. Make a backup by clicking on Start, Run, type inregedit. Right click on the key you would like to change, then Export and save to a folder such as your “My Documents” folder.

Indexing Service

The indexing service uses about 500KB to 2MB, it also use a lot of CPU resources. I individually have this service turned off.

How to:

• - Go to the Start, Run and type in services.msc
• - Right click on the Indexing service and then go to Properties.
• - Stop it and then select ‘disabled’ at the startup option.

If you hope to remove it entirely you can via Add/remove programs and Windows Setup Components.

System Restore

If you don’t use Windows System Restore then stop it. System restore takes up a lot of disk space on your hard drives and if you don’t use it then you may as well recover some free disk space.

To turn it off:

• - Go to Start, Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance after that System.
• - Click on the System Restore tab, and also Check the ‘System restore’, then OK to concern the setting.

Then you will have to to disable the system restore service:

• - Go to Start, Run and type as services.msc
• - Right click on the System Restore Service and go to Properties.
• - Stop and Disable it this service too.

Other common WinXP Tweaks

Disable Windows XP Themes

With Windows XP came with some new themes, which are all colourful and also with high on RAM usage. If you are not bothered about the new themes you can just stop them and go back to grey. You may save up to 12MB of RAM by disabling these themes.

How to:

• - Go to Start, Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance afterwards System.
• - Go to the Advanced tab.
• - Under Performance select Settings, Visual Effects and select ‘Adjust for Best performance’ and then click the OK button.

Also If you want to you can disable the themes service from running:

• - Go to Start, Run, and type in services.msc
• - Right click on the Themes Service and go to Properties.
• - Stop and Disable the service.

System Tray Icons and Services

Although them fancy icons at the bottom-right hand corner of your desktop on the taskbar look good and presents easy access they do take up a lot of system resources and then slow down your computer. If you do not need some of them running at startup, then disable them using CCleaner (above). But make sure you leave your security software enabled and running. You can find out what any of them are in CCleaner, if you don’t recognize one find out what it is by entering it into Google.

• - Open CCleaner
• - Click the Tools tab, Startup, then click ones that you want to stop and click Delete entry at the bottom.

Windows XP Hibernate

If you need to save on disk space a good proposal would be to disable the Hibernate function if you don’t need it.
It can be disabled by going to:

• - Start, Control Panel, Power Options followed by Hibernate.
• - Uncheck ‘Enable Hibernate’.

XP: Slow Shutdown
If you’re Windows XP PC shuts down slow or ‘hangs’ then try this jerk.

Response Time For ‘Hung Applications

This will state the time before Windows XP automatically shuts down applications which are ‘hanging’ during shutdown/log off. For this we will need to use the registry.

• - Go to Start, Run and type regedit in it.
• - Navigate to: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] > then locate HungAppTimeout
• - Double click on it and vary the value data to 1000 which is 1 second > Complete , Close the registry.

Also take a look at this thread where there is a download which can help.

Registry Tweaks

Here are some sites with lots more registry tweaks but I have listed some of the good ones.

Win XP Tweaking: XPTUNEUP

Windows 9x and ME Reg Tweaks: SpeedGuide.net :: Windows 9x/ME Registry TweaksTweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software

Windows Registry Guide - Registry tweaks and fixes for Windows systems
Windows 2000 and XP Reg Tweaks: SpeedGuide.net :: Windows 2000/XP Registry Tweaks

Prefetch Tweak

This will only work in XP. It could get better performance a bit by tweaking this folder which is a cache folder.

How to:

• - Go to Start, Run, type regedit
• - CNavigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters] > then find EnablePrefetcher
• - Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both … I recommend ‘3’

Enable Boot Defrag

Windows XP can do a boot defragment which will place all the files necessary for booting next to each other on the hard drive thus enabling for faster booting. This is usually turned on but occasionally it can be found off. I suggest you turn it on.

• - Go to Start, Run, type regedit
• - Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction] > then find EnablePrefetcher
• - Double click, vary the v

alue to Y for enabled and N if you want it disabled, then reboot your pc.

General Performance

This tweak I found on the forums from GarHar. It is believed to increase general performance over the whole computer.

• - Go to Start, Run, and type in Regedit
• - Navigate to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> PriorityControl
• - Once in here, right click in the white space, and create a new DWORD value calledIRQ8Priority with the value of 1, and then Reboot.

Disable the Unused Ports

If you don’t use all the ports on your pc, for example USB or COM ports, you may as well disable them for better performance. You will find when you disable ports that are unused that your boot time will be faster.
To disable ports on your pc please go to:

• - Start, Control Panel, System, Hardware tab, Device Manager.
• - Right click the a port and then select ‘disable’.
• - Reboot your PC.

Steps for a Fresh Reinstall/Reformat

When you reformat or f-disk your hard drive and have installed windows I recommend following these steps in order to continue the process:

• - Install Windows
• - Motherboard and the Chipset drivers
• - Graphics Card Drivers
• - Install Real-time Security Software and update them (for protection)
• - Service Packs from windows if any
• - DirectX Update
• - Other hardware drivers inc. modem, sound, network/lan etc
• - Install all other programs, update them and prefer their settings
• - Also if you can it is a good idea to get your hard drive with all programs down to about 5gb and then create a bootable dvd with a program like Norton Ghost for when you next restore so everything is there as it is now. Most programs will compress data aswell.

It is also a good idea to backup drivers on CD before you format, so there is no risk of getting infected and restart after each driver install.

This concludes this guide. If you have followed some of these tweaks you should now find your PC is performing better. If you have had any problems with these please don’t hesitate to post in the forums for help. On a final note take a look at TuneXP for some extra tweaking and better performance.