Tom's Hardware: Topic Cool XP Tweaks
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I'll list a few, but there are quite a few that are configuration specific. For instance, I am on dial up and not broadband, my machine is not part of a network, etc. etc.
Shutdown XP Faster
Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or shutdown windows XP when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled. To solve this problem you must disable this useless sound.
Click Start button.
Go to settings > Control Panel > Sound, Speech and Audio devices > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds.
Then under program events and windows menu click on "Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it. Now from sounds you can select, choose "none" and then click Apply and OK.
Easily Disable Messenger
Go into: C
Program Files/Messenger. Rename the Messenger folder to "MessengerOFF".
This does not slow down Outlook Express or hinder system performance.
Turn Off Indexing to Speed Up XP
Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then you may want to turn this feature off:
Open My Computer.
Right-click your hard drive icon and select Properties.
At the bottom of the window you'll see "Allow indexing service to index this disk for faster searches," uncheck this and click ok.
A new window will pop up and select Apply to all folders and subfolders.
Performance Increase Through My Computer
Easy enough tweak to usually find out about it on your own, but still, some of us still don't find it right away. So here it is:
Start > right-click on My Computer and select Properties.
Click on the "Advanced" tab.
See the "Performance" section? Click "Settings".
Disable the following:
Fade or slide menus into view
Fade or slide ToolTips into view
Fade out menu items after clicking
Show Shadows under menus
Slide open combo boxes
Slide taskbar buttons
Use a background image for each folder type
Use common tasks in folders
There, now Windows will still look nice and perform faster.
Increase BROADBAND
This is for broad band connections, though it might work for dial up.
Make sure your logged on as actually "Administrator".
Start->Run->type gpedit.msc
Expand the "Local Computer Policy" branch.
Expand the "Administrative Templates" branch.
Expand the "Network Branch".
Highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in left window.
In right window double-click the "Limit Reservable Bandwidth" setting.
On setting tab check the "Enabled" item.
Where it says "Bandwidth limit %" change it to read 0.
Effect is immediate on some systems, some need to re-boot. This is more of a "counter what XP does" thing. In other words, programs can request up to 20% of the bandwidth be reserved for them, even with QoS disabled.
...and so on and so on...and there are also links to other tweak sites.
....WW
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