Hey guys,

I found this tutorial on a website but have forgotten where. This was really useful for my extremely slow laptop. Hopefully it can be of help to you.

Unfortunatly speeding up Windows XP can involve (depending on how much faster you need it) removing all the fancy graphics.

Peter

Speed Up Your Windows XP Computer

Okay, this document is for those people can't afford the hardware upgrading damands by Microsoft Windows XP, and have enjoyed the new XP look and "feel" for quite a while. This is very useful for people who are doing serious work on their Windows XP, requiring lots of system resources.

System Properties

Visual Effects
Windows XP contains a huge list of special effects and visual enhancements such as animated menus, fade effects, cursor shadows, menu shadows, etc. Disabling some of these settings can make Windows XP running faster and use less system resources.

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose "System."
2. Choose the "Advanced" tab.
3. Select the "Settings" button under the Performance section.
4. Check the "Adjust for best performance" box and click "Apply" to apply the settings.
5. Alternatively, you can choose the "Custom" open, you can then selectively enable or disable each specific effects.

The cursor shadowing effect can have a noticable impact on performance.

Remote Desktop
So you want to allow someone from another location to control your Windows? Disable it.

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose "System."
2. Choose the "Remote" tab.
3. Make sure both "Allow Remote Assistance ..." and "Allow users to connect ..." are not selected and click OK.

Automatic Updates
Having Microsoft automatically screwing up your computer is not a good idea. There are a number of reasons not to let your Windows updates itself.

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose "System."
2. Choose the "Automatic Updates" tab.
3. Uncheck the "Keep my computer up to date..." box
   OR
   tick the box that says "Turn off automatic updating..."

Display Properties

Well, it is sad to say goodbye to special effects, but we want to speed up the computer.

1. Open Control Panel from the Start menu and choose "Display".
2. Choose the "Desktop tab and set the Background to "None."
3. Select the "Appearance" tab.
4. Under "Windows and buttons," choose "Windows Classic Sytle" from the drop-down menu.
5. Click the "Effects" button.
6. Unselect all options and click OK.
7. Click OK to close the Display Properties and apply the changes.

There's more ways to speed up your XP.

Start Menu and Folders

Start Menu and Taskbar
Context click (usually known as Right click) on the Windows XP Start button and choose "Properties" from the contextual menu.

1. Choose "Classic Start Menu"
2. Click the "Customise" button
3. Select the "Show Small Icons in Start Menu" option
4. Unselect any other items that you don't use often.

Folder Options

1. Open My Computer
2. Open the C: Drive or any other drive
3. Choose "Folder Options" from the Tools menu
4. Select "Use Windows classic folders"
5. Select the "View" tab.
6. Unselect the "Automatically search for network folders and printers" option.
7. Click "Apply"
8. Click the "Apply to All Folders" button
9. Click OK.

Now, you can enjoy your Windows XP faster.
(Based on Connectix's documentation for optimising Windows XP Professional and Home Edition)

Last Tweak


There is another thing you can do (I've done this in XP Pro) - Enable the "Classic' theme.

1. Right click on My Computer and select "Manage".
2. Then open the Services and Applications section.
3. Click on the Servcies option.
4. Scroll down and disable the "Themes" service.

This provides a bit of a speedup, and is very useful to those with 128mb of memory and XP.

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That's an awesome article Peter!

Keep up the good work

Tech

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or you could just install a replacement shell.

I have a screenshot of mine here, its a custom build but there are several commercial and freeware shell replacements out there that are faster & more secure than windows.

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Hey Darksat,

Nice to see you

I clicked the link and no screenshot loaded...

Does the replacement shell replace the programs windows gives with better commercial and freeware products?

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Essentially yes. you are replacing explorer as the default shell with something else, its unusual the link didnt work for you, it works fine for me.

OK try here.
http://www.aaitechnologies.co.uk/sshot.jpg

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