Posts Tagged ‘speed up xp startup’

postheadericon 10 Simple Ways to Speed Up your Windows Xp

1. Defrag Disk to Speed Up Access to Data

One of the factors that slow the performance of the computer is disk fragmentation. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. To speed up the response time, you should monthly run Disk Defragmenter, a Windows utility that defrags and consolidates fragmented files for quicker computer response.

  • Follow Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
  • Click the drives you want to defrag and click Analyze
  • Click Defragment

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I’m sick of how darn slowly my Windows XP computer boots up, Dave. It seems to just take forever, to the point where I turn the PC on then find something else to do for 5-10 minutes. After all that time, I know it’s ready to use. Worse, shut down seems to take lots of time too. Am I doomed?

Dave’s Answer:

Great question, and one that I can understand as my PCs also seem to gradually get slower and slower on boot as this, that and the other app have to check in and get updated definitions, apps, data files, and who knows what else. Fortunately, I have permission from O’Reilly Media to republish some of their best hacks and in the book Windows XP Hacks, by Preston Gralla, it turns out that hack #3 addresses just this topic. Without further ado:

Windows XP Hacks

Shorten the time it takes for your desktop to appear when you turn on your PC
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Incoming search terms for the article:

  • chong: Alongside slimming the startup list, also run a diskcleanup. After that a full defrag will help speedup...
  • Eric Hollis: I have no doubt that breaking the symmetry of treating all icons (desktop or not) as windows would...
  • Nancey Haag: After that my machine performed MUCH better. I know this shouldn’t make a difference, but it was...
  • Jacob Bowles: “Well MacOSXHints has it wrong. Sorry guys, what is slowing down your machines is the size of the...
  • Daryl House: To do this set up a cron script to automatically delete it every night at around 2 am.