Improve WinXP Performance

[DR STRANGELOVE]

copied and pasted...

Hi,
I am doing a write-up on how to improve your computers performance. I know there are a lot of these treads out there but I would like to tell everyone the programs I use, how they help, and why these programs are the best tools for the job.
I was getting tired of looking around for "good" programs, when all I found was junk. So, once I found good programs I decided to write something up to help the advanced computer guru's (hopefully) as well as the people who don't know a lot about computers, and wonder to themselves 'why does my computer lag so much' and 'where has all my room gone on my comp?'Some stuff written will be very 'beginners' stuff and others (hopefully) won't be.

First things first...
Go To...Start...Programs...Accessories....System Tools...Disk Cleanup....clean up all your files and get some nice free mb's storage back. You will be surprised at how much Windows Temporary Files take up. Now...Go to explorer window...Go to home drive directory...Windows...Temp...Everything in that folder you see can be deleted, as complicated as some of the stuff looks there it is useless and taking up space. Delete it all, you can, and there will be no harm to your computer.
Next...Go to Control Panel...Add/Remove Programs...Tab across to Add/Remove Windows Components (it should think for a bit before the next window comes up)...Go through each category and their details, and unclick the ones you KNOW you DONT use...then press next...Finish.
While you are in that Add/Remove Window go through your installed components and check to see if you can uninstall stuff you either forgot about or just realized that you don?t a lot of the programs you have on your pc.

Second Thing...
With Windows XP its default physical look (i.e. Blue taskbar etc) takes up a lot of your running RAM, to save up to 15mb of RAM, make your computer look like Windows 98 style, personally I like it better (not so blue looking) plus it allows you to have more RAM free for the stuff you really need it for...) To do this go to your desktop, right click... Properties... Themes ...Windows Classic, after you can change the colors and stuff but you'll be surprised at how much faster you pc runs. While you are in your desktop Properties to the tab...Appearance and then click 'Effects.' You see some options read through them and unclick the ones you don?t want, after look at you normal effects throughout the computer and you will see that there is not much difference as what it looks like, yet your menus will pop-up faster, makes your computer run more smoothly. Personally I unselect the first two options (Transition effect and Method of Smooth Edges).

Next thing...
On your taskbar (system tray)...if you see a lot of icons (mainly loaded from startup) this may explain why your computer runs slow-if it does at all. It has been proven that 30% percent of your RAM usage is wasted with system-tray icons. You may see battery ones, monitor icons, games, just crap that u never use....get rid of as many as possible, this slows down your pc so much, I only have two icons down there and my system loads up so quickly and never freezes etc.
Please Note: Never close down your Anti-virus system tray icon...that icon will save your computer at the best of times.
If you close some program down and it still startsup on next startup, do this: Go Start...Run...type: msconfig --> the tab across to startup, untick the ones you know you don?t want those unselected program to startup, the ones you don?t know what they are...leave them, they are probably all Windows Registry keys and you really don?t want to touch those!

Next thing....
Get ad aware (Lavasoft) from http://www.lavasoftusa.com , search your pc and delete all necessary spyware, I know a lot of people use Ad aware but there are many who
don't, spread the word and tell your friends about it - it won?t hurt. You can use other programs besides Ad aware, there are many out there but I know that Ad aware is stable and they know there spyware, and there are frequent updates. Which reminds me...Make sure you download all Ad aware Lavasoft Spyware Updates...)

Next...
Go to...Start...Programs...Accessories...System Tools...Disk Defragmenter...Defrag your system, could take a while but it?s worth it.

Next we will use the Registry Cleaner for Windows...Get Registry Cleaner from: http://www.geocities.com/licit_moles/home.html , and then install and go into the program....When at the main window, go along the top where all the tabs are till you reach 'Tools', then go down to 'Registry Cleanup,' and then 'Do them all.' It will look through your registry, once finished, go up to 'Select' and then 'All,' go down the bottom to the 'Remove Selected' button, and you are done. If you wish you can look throughout the program, read up on it and you will find you will be able to delete more stuff without hurting your pc....if a problem does occur,
RegCleaner automatically backs up your registry for you just in case you remove something your pc does not like.

Next you need to download Tune Up Utilities from: http://www.tune-up.net/download/ , download the trial; you can use that for now until you wish to buy the software, which is worth it in my opinion.
Once installed go into the main menu and make sure you look around, you will find that it is a great program that offers to clean-up your computer in many ways. It allows you to change system properties that you may have never known existed within Windows. Do yet another registry cleanup, clean up your hard drive, and do anything else you wish to do within the program.

After this sit back relax and watch how your computer works beautifully with no pop-up errors, lagginess etc.

Thanks

DaVo


Also, check out this site
http://www.blackviper.com

 

[KMA]

There's some good info here, BUT, the registry is VERY TOUCHY!!! Most people are not not savy enough to go into the registry. It takes a very long time to understand the registry and NOT screw things up!!! It really should NOT be touched by less than a PC Guru, you're inviting trouble.

 

[KotysDad]

There's some good info here, BUT, the registry is VERY TOUCHY!!! Most people are not not savy enough to go into the registry. It takes a very long time to understand the registry and NOT screw things up!!! It really should NOT be touched by less than a PC Guru, you're inviting trouble.

I wish I would have read your post before I tried that shit. I cant tell you the mess my computer is in now at home.

 

[KMA]

If you post what has happened or what it is you think you did, I'll try and help you out of it if possible.

 

[KMA]

Given the right circumstances, all of the above, with the exception of the registry section, is good advice. I will also qualify by saying that all the "right" circumstances occurring at the same TIME is extremely rare if never. Unfortunately, there is no single "Catch-All" set of procedures which will cure everything that ails a computer, very much like there is no one single medication which will cure every ailment in the human system!!!

 

[KotysDad]

KMA,

Thanks. I am not very computer savvy but I'll try to explain my situation. Basically, I followed those directions to the letter. Apparently I deleted a bunch of stuff in that registry section that shouldnt have been deleted. Funny thing is, when I clicked delete, a box popped up and said something like "You are about to delete important files, are you sure you know what you're doing?" LOL Of course I dont, and hit delete anyway.

Well what I experienced after that was the following:

- my fonts were all goofy looking
- colors were grainy and distorted
- bmp and jpgs were unviewable

Maybe a few other things, but at this point I knew something was screwed up. So, the FIRST thing I tried (and realize now it should have been the LAST thing I tried) was to insert the CD that reloads the Operating System. I assumed this would reset my harddrive to the point where I first bought it. I would be happy with that even though I would lose a few files. Well that didnt happen, during the course of the reinstall it saved a bunch of settings. I still have 2 users set up, one for me and one for my son. I expected not to see that, so I knew this wasnt a clean total install. But, the color, fonts, images were ok, just really small for some reason (which i can live with). I realized after the fact that there is something on my system that allows you to reset your harddrive to a point in the past when you knew things were ok. Again, I was into the install when I flipped across this nugget of information in the users manual. I should have tried this first. It was too late after I did the install.

So, next I go to reinstall my Earthlink software to get back on the internet. No go. Wont connect me. So, I call Earthlink and they show me how to do it manually. It worked but within a few minutes I would be a box pop up saying "System shutting down in 59 seconds because of some probem with RPC (remote procedure call)". This happens everytime I connect to internet.

So, a friend at work suggested that I use my son's user account. Amazingly, in his account I can log into Earthlink automatically. It doesnt do a system shutdown or anything like that.

So, I assume (?) that those problems are limited to my main user account. If I make another account, then delete my original maybe everything would be ok and I wont have to keep using my son's account.

I am a little confused as to why I can access Earthlink from his user account with no problems, but from mine I have to do it manually AND get a system shutdown when I go there.

I am going to try to make another account for me and delete the original and see what happens. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. I know this is long winded, but actually its the most concise description I can give.

P.S. I was able to create a new user and set up a profile under Earthlink. It connected automatically and doesnt seem to be having any issues. I'll just delete my original user account and never ever do anything with the registry again. I still have to try to run some of his CD games and see if they work ok.

 

[KMA]

For starters yu have the BLASTER WORM.
That is why it is shutting down.
You must be running windows XP
The Blaster worm only affects XP and 2000
The remote proceedure call shutdown is caused by the blaster worm and you must download the Microsoft patch or your machine will shut down constantly!!!
Also you must do it before the 16th of the month. Or it drops its payload and you will not be able to download the updates from Microsoft.


Go do that first and then post any other problems you are having. I'll check back and see what you've said.

 

[TAZ]

Here is one for you, I run XP, no issues, but when I follow the steps for disk clean up, the popup box sits on "Disk Cleanup is calculating how much space you will be able to free on (C. This may take a few minutes. Try hours!

Says calculating
<bar in the middle does not move past 1/4>
Scanning: Compressing old files

:shrug:

 

[KotysDad]

KMA,

I think I did the updates and patch correctly. I give ya a holler if something else goes wrong in the next couple days.

thanks for your help.

 

[Hoops]

Here is one for you, I run XP, no issues, but when I follow the steps for disk clean up, the popup box sits on "Disk Cleanup is calculating how much space you will be able to free on (C. This may take a few minutes. Try hours!

Says calculating
<bar in the middle does not move past 1/4>
Scanning: Compressing old files

:shrug:

Funny, same exact thing started happening to my computer a few weeks ago. Haven't been able to get disk cleanup to work correctly.

 

[DR STRANGELOVE]

kotysdad,

my apologies for what happened to your cpu. If problems do persist, post them here and I'll look into it with a techie........thanks KMA for rectifying the matter.

 

[KMA]

If you continue to have problems:

The other things you have described here suggest that there may be issues with your account profile. You can create a temporary account, and give it Admin privileges, and then log in as the temp account and move all the data in your old account's profile (it would be in the Documents and Settings folder under the name of the old account.)

Then you would delete that account, and then delete the old profile.

I do not believe that the system needs any restarts before recreating a new account under the old name, adn then restore whatever data that cannot be recreated

Good luck!

The fonts: not all together difficult to resolve and there are many ways of handling the situation.

If you like the real estate on your desktop, then you can just increase the fontsize on your desktop without reducing the pixel resolution.

From a blank area in your desktop, right-click and then click on Properties. Click on the right most tab - Settings and in that section click on Advanced. In the next pop-up, under the tab 'General', you can set the DPI setting (Dots Per Inch) to say 125%, so you will see larger fonts using the same high resolution desktop, say something like 1280 X 1024 or even 1600 X 1200.


Backing up the Registry:

You can use the Windoze backup facility, and I have no idea how to get to it. I'll wager it is in the Administrative Controls somewhere.

You can click on Start -> Run and enter regedit in the box and click OK and the Registry Editor will open up. From there, you can click on File -> Export and point the output to a directory of your choice where your registry will be saved under a name of your choice.

 

[KMA]

Taz:


Hours???
When you delete, do you have all the boxes checked???
Have you run defrag???
Is your hard disk full???
Bad sector?
Processor speed? How much memory? Do you scan for viruses and spybots???

 

[KMA]

Try this Taz:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310312

 

[TAZ]

I may have overstated with "hours", I usually give up in 15-20 minutes, I lt it go for an hous last night though. Just hangs on the pop up screen never doing anything.

Have absolutely no issues with the PC, only using 10G of 40G drive, processor is Pentium 4 2.0Ghz, 512 or RAM. I use Symantec corporate edition and ad aware6 to keep things clean. I don't believe I have done the defrag, wouldn't think I would need to in my situation.

Just confusing since everything else is OK :shrug:

 

[TJBELL]

Here is one for you, I run XP, no issues, but when I follow the steps for disk clean up, the popup box sits on "Disk Cleanup is calculating how much space you will be able to free on (C. This may take a few minutes. Try hours!

Says calculating
<bar in the middle does not move past 1/4>
Scanning: Compressing old files

:shrug:

Mine used to work after a few minutes, now it takes hours if it works at all.

trying some other things now.

 

[KMA]

It is probably taking so long because your 40 GB hard drive isn't partitioned. It has a lot of data to go through. I have 80 GB's but it is partitioned off into 8 smaller drives. I just used the clean up utility on C: and it took about 90 seconds for it to determine what could be cleaned (which was only some temp internet files from IE which I dont use)



To answer your question, if you want to save your existing data on your computer, then you can't at this point, unless you use a program like partition magic (which I havent had the best sucess with to be honest but some people rave about it and I in NO WAY am suggesting or endorsing it) The easiest way, is prior to loading your operating system to f disk your hard drive and set the partitions through there. Here are Instructions from Microsoft on how to use f disk, partition, and reformat a drive:


http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q255/8/67.asp&NoWebContent=1

 

[mrshoes]

do you have any help to make us me users to run better

thanx