YO! Computer Guys, XP Question.

[fgarvb1]

What is this and do you do it?

Increase Speed By Tweaking Prefetcher Settings

This is a unique technique for XP, which could improve the performance significantly by tweaking the prefetcher. Recommended hardware: PIII 800 or higher, 512M RAM or more.

run "regedit";
goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher];
Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both ("3" is recommended).
reboot.

It will decrease the boot time, but double and increase the performance of your XP. Try it!

Clean Your Prefetch To Improve Performance

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer notably. My suggestion is:

open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch;
delete those junk and obsolete files;
reboot.

It is recommended that you do this every month.

 

[fgarvb1]

My computer is not all that slow, however my wife's is bogging down.

Do ya think I could crash it pretty good doing this?


http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

 

[VSE]

What is this and do you do it?

To quote MS:

"Windows XP monitors the files that are used when the computer starts and when you start applications. By monitoring these files, Windows XP can prefetch them. Prefetching data is the process whereby data that is expected to be requested is read ahead into the cache. Prefetching boot files and applications decreases the time needed to start Windows XP and start applications."

Dont use XP, cant see a computer running it without wanting to take a baseball bat to it.

Depending on how you use your PC and without any opinion based on actually using it, I'd either turn it off totally or set it to boot only. If you run a lot of different "stuff" on your PC rather than the same 3-4 apps all the time, I'd certainly flush it regularly.

 

[New2FL]

It will decrease the boot time, but double and increase the performance of your XP. Try it!

Clean Your Prefetch To Improve Performance

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer notably. My suggestion is:

open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch;
delete those junk and obsolete files;
reboot.

It is recommended that you do this every month.

I'm not saying don't try it, but I've played around with my system registery a bunch, and have REALLY messed some things up. One time I was able to boot my computer, but my logon name didn't come up... had to reformat.
One time I was able to boot, logon, but no start menu/toolbar/shortcuts... had to reformat
One time my computer would boot, but Winblows wouldn't start... had to reformat.

Get the hint. I'm not saying with 100% certainty that this will do any of the above to your machine, but there is a reason the system registry written in "geek code." If you don't understand what you are doing, DON'T DO IT!

PS. I've never turned off prefetch and have no problems with my computer being slow.

 

[New2FL]

It will decrease the boot time, but double and increase the performance of your XP. Try it!

Clean Your Prefetch To Improve Performance

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodically. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch directory can get full of junk and obsolete links in the Prefetch catalog, which can slow down your computer notably. My suggestion is:

open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch;
delete those junk and obsolete files;
reboot.

It is recommended that you do this every month.

I'm not saying don't try it, but I've played around with my system registery a bunch, and have REALLY messed some things up. One time I was able to boot my computer, but my logon name didn't come up... had to reformat.
One time I was able to boot, logon, but no start menu/toolbar/shortcuts... had to reformat
One time my computer would boot, but Winblows wouldn't start... had to reformat.

Get the hint. I'm not saying with 100% certainty that this will do any of the above to your machine, but there is a reason the system registry written in "geek code." If you don't understand what you are doing, DON'T DO IT!

PS. I've never turned off prefetch and have no problems with my computer being slow.

 

[quickfoot]

It usually wont hurt to try it, XP has some pretty nice restoration tools compared to previous versions of Windows.

If your wifes computer is much slower than normal it can be due to a couple reasons.

The first thing I would do is launch task manager, you can do this by pressing Control-Alt-Delete or by right clicking on the task bar and clicking Task Manager, next Click the performance tab, there will be headings in blue, one of them will be Commit Charge take a look at Total and Peak, next take a look at the physical Memory (K) section and compare that Total to the Commit Charge Total and Commit Charge Peak, particuarly look for for the Commit Charge Total and Peak being significantly higher than the Physical Memory Total. If you are consistently running with Commit Charge Total or Peak higher than Physical Memory Total you should install more memory in the computer. Windows will use "Virtual" memory when physical memory runs out, this is using part of your hard disk to simulate ram and is thousands of times slower than using real memory.

The next thing I would check would be making sure there is plenty of hard rive space available, at 80% full a hard disk is going to be about 1/2 to 2/3' as fast as it is when it is less than 80% full. If it is pretty full run one of the Microsoft wizards or check to see if there is big software you can uninstall.

The third thing I would do would be boot XP into safe mode (f8 should give you the option) and then open my computer, right click on your disk drive and click Properties, then Defrag the disk. It is best to defrag in safe mode with XP because it stops uncessary software from being loaded.

The fourth thing I would do would be check to see what software is being started automatically on bootup, I would uninstall or disable this software, you can check this out by going to start, run and typing in msconfig.

The fifth thing I would do would be scan for spyware that may be decreasing system performance, you can download a free utility to do this at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

As a windows installation ages there is a natural accumlation of dll files and other system garbage that can be cleaned up with several different software programs. Windows itself comes with some programs to do it. I do not recommend poking around in the registry unless you know what you are doing or you are following directions. It is not typically easy to destroy unintentionally destroy a windows registry but it is completely possible if you don't know what you are doing (in which case you shouldn't be in there).

There are plenty of graphic front ends to change most the settings, Microsoft Powertoys / tweakui is one of the better ones for changing a lot of the settings.

If you don't use hibernation you might go into Control Panel and under "Power" disable hibernation, this will free up as many megabytes of hard drive space as you have memory (1 GB for me).

You can also go into System and turn off system restore if you don't mind not having this protection, it will free up to 10 to 15% of your hard disk and will also speed up your system by not monitoring the files for changes.

If you are running an anti virus program you may change its configuration to only scan commonly infected file types instead of every file (norton by default now scans every file and slows the system way down, it has the option to scan only common files which will still provide you with a good degree of protection, you can also still schedule a full system scan to occur once a week or so).

 

[VSE]

tbh if I were simply trying to make my PC run faster the absolute first thing I do before anything else, is turn off windows sound effects (I dont need "dings", silly sound effects at start up and all that crap, and it does have a relatively high system overhead for what it actually does, namely annoy me at inopportune moments).

 

[fgarvb1]

Thanks everyone!

We have Goback on it and I will "ghost" the HD before I fuck...I mean tinker with it.

 

[ReadyOne]

Goback can be a speed killer.

After you boot, it spends an LOT of time an disk accesses updating it's view of your hard disk, and then some more tracking the changes you make to it.

Goback has kept the HD lite on almost solid for an hour after a reboot after Windows Updates has change a bunch of stuff.

While they try to keep in the backgound, they can't be invisable. And the HD clicking anoys me because I know nothing should be happening (sans Goback).

And don't forget Indexing Service, MS Office Quick Start (which also does indexing in some configurations), and the Symantec/Norton Protected Recycle Bin.

 

[fgarvb1]

Yeah, That would just about cover it.

LOL!

I think she has all of that and then some.


Still, even with all of that it was a lot faster until about a month ago. She has a 1.2 Gigahertz processor on it. A small update will cause it to slow down for hours.

 

[Wolf_77]

Thank god for ad-aware. Man, I couldn't tell you how bad my prior computer was bogged down all the time. Couldn't figure it out til I took the chance to research the problem.

Ads, spyware, and some of the other happy horseshit that they come out with now-a-days gets downloaded into the commputer.

I agree also on not playing with your registery. The only time I've been in it was to get rid of the SVC.EXE virus. Took 2 months to get rid of it. (Didn't know til last week that I had to turn the system restore off)

 

[Hooper_X]

You should try "Spybot search & destroy" too. It's a nice compliment to ad-aware, and it finds things that ad-aware misses.