How to keep WinXP really fast & stable.

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EricB

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How to keep WinXP really fast & stable. this question was asked

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55862.

HereÂ’s how to keep windows fast. I donÂ’t know about 2 years though. There are too many chances for user error

Tricks to speed your computer

1.Reformat. Use the XP CD to break it into 2 partitions. Make one 15-30 gig for your operating system, the rest for your data (gamers need to make a 3rd 10-20 gig partition for your games). You can move my document to the 2nd partition. Go to start right click my documents, click properties (you can only do it here) and select move. Move it to you second partition. This will speed up disc performance plus if you have to reformat, you won't lose your data. Download all new things to the first drive and after a few weeks and you are sure they contain no virus or Trojan horses, then move them to the 2nd drive

2. If you have a second hard drive you need to move your paging file there. Make 2 partitions. The first is 3 gigs which will be your swap file drive (it is faster at the beginning)

3. If you can get customizer XP, get it. I am not sure but I don't think it is free anymore. It does a million things to speed up your computer.
http://www.tweaknow.com/

4. Go to display properties, change your desktop theme to windows classic, also change in the appearance tab to windows classic. Change these 2 things to classic will free up 60mb of ram alone. You use any old picture as desktop wallpaper

5. Install zone alarm. Turn on cache cleaner to make it clean your temporary internet files every 2 week. It will delete spy ware like files that the XP clean up disc can't. Or use Netscape 8. You can set it to erase your tracks every time that you exit it.
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp

6. Get evidence eliminator to disable all of windows XP tracking services for you. half of XP resources is use to track everything that you are doing. http://www.internet-washers.com/. You will find a much faster computer when you are done

7. DonÂ’t use IE
http://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape8/english/8.0/windows/win32/nsb-install-8-0.exe
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

8. DonÂ’t download free music. If you must download from file sharing programs, get you a dummy computer that you don't care if it gets a virus or spyware

9. start, run type msconfig check startup remove all of the check item except your firewall and antivirus and email programs so that you won't have so many things running in the background that are just wasted computer resources.

10. Get adaware, sybot and spyware blaster (you can change the first 2 programs for other spyware programs like spysweeper and MS antispyware, but spyware blaster is a must. It blocks sites from ever accessing your computer.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/sbdownload.html
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

11. Get an antivirus. Avast is free. I don't recommend Norton
http://www.avast.com/
 
this how you set the page file

To accurately determine the optimal pagefile size you should see how much memory your most memory- intensive programs use and then set the pagefile to comfortably accommodate this. A rough and ready way of doing this is to configure your Task Manager as specified under the Task Manager section, then nm what you believe is your most memory-intensive application or game and use it for a period of time. Then without quitting the game or application, bring up the Task Manager and check the peak memory usage figure for the largest process under the Processes tab -this should indicate how much memory the program usually needs. Also after a period of time using various applications and games on your system, open up Task Manager and go to the Performance tab, then check the Peak figure under the 'Commit Charge (K)' section -this is approximately the maximum amount of memory in KB required so far by your system. These will give you an indication of how much total memory you need when going through the next step.
I understand that for most people accurately working out which is the most memory intensive application or game, and more importantly predicting the amount of memory future software will require is tedious if not impossible. Therefore follow my general recommendation below to set a fixed pagefile that should be sufficient for all your needs. Since the total memory available to Windows XP is a combination of your Virtual Memory plus your 'Real Memory' (System RAM), you should ensure that the suirr of these two is sufficiently large to prevent Windows from nmning out of memory. In general, I suggest a minimum of 2GB (2048MB) for your Virtual Memory +RAM:

Example: If you have 256MB of RAM set the Initial and Maximum pagefile sizes to 1792MB each.

Example: If you have 512MB of RAM, set the Initial and Maximum pagefile sizes to 1536MB each.

Example: If you have 1024MB (1GB) of RAM, set the Initial and Maximum pagefile sizes to 1024MB each.

Exam)~le:If you have 2GB of RAM or more, set the Initial and Maximum pagefile sizes to 200MB each.

Once you've adjusted your Virtual Memoly size settings click the Set button and reboot if required. Your pagefile will now be in a single fixed unfragmented file, created closer to the start of the hard drive for faster performance (See Position of the Pagefile below). There will be plenty of headroom for memory-intensive applications and games and you should notice smoother performance.
Note that the common myth about the pagefile being '1.5 x RAM' or some other multiple is quite clearly counterintuitive. Consider the situation where you only have 128MB of RAM: setting the maximum pagefile size to 1.5 x 128MB = 192MB + 128MB = 320MB of total available memory for Windows XP which is obviously not going to give you enough memory for modem games and applications. Remember, it is about how much total memory (RAM+ Pagefile) that should be made available for Windows to operate efficiently.
If at the end of all this you still have doubts about what to do, or you nln into any problems, you can either increase the fixed pagefile size further (which never hurts), set a 'semi-permanent' pagefile which has an Initial size equal to your current RAM, and a Maximum size which is very high, e.g. 3000MB, or failing that simply choose the 'System Managed Size' setting to revert to the Windows default pagefile size. Whatever you do, don't set a zero pagefile.
 
Thanks for writing this article :cool:, I'm going to test it and i'll PM you when my XP is messed up, so you know how long Windows XP can work with these settings withour reinstall :)
 
also type in *.temp in the search for windows xp, or any os i think, and delete those files. They are all useless temporary files.
 
when i go to move my documents to another partition drive, it asks me if i want to move system file "desktop". do i?
 
I think it's also a smart move to set the maximum size of temporary internet files to 1mb and to set cookies to popup dialog so you just accept cookies from the sites you want to.

And also completely delete everything from the
C:\Documents and Settings\*Your Name*\Local Settings\Temp
folder. If you use disk cleanup to delete temporary files it will still always seem to miss a lot of crap in here, not sure why.
 
derrmc said:
when i go to move my documents to another partition drive, it asks me if i want to move system file "desktop". do i?

it usually ask you if you want to move your old documents to the new drive. click yes on that one
 
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