Category: Windows

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Speed Up Windows XP

Most people who ask me for computer support eventually need one of their computers to just be faster.

There are many cases where optimizing Windows for speed is useful. For slower machines (less than 1.3Ghz) or those with only a little RAM (512MB or less), these tips can allow applications to work faster.

PC Decrapifier

If you have a new PC with lots of bloatware (programs that are unneeded that Dell and others are often paid to include), consider running PC Decrapifier first. This runs a batch script to remove applications. It is free for personal use.

Add Remove Programs

While just removing programs that are on your hard drive does not speed up a computer, it is a good practice and will help if those programs auto-start. It also helps if you are very low on disk space. To remove programs, go to Add Remove Programs (Start – System – Add Remove Programs).

MSCONFIG

MSCONFIG allows control over many startup options. Be sure to only modify options if you understand what you are doing because you can accidentally disable needed Windows functions here. To reach MSCONFIC click Start, then Run, then type msconfig. From there you have a menu that will allow you to turn off startup items.

Startup Items Folder

The startup items folder (Programs – Startup) also lists items that will start up automatically. If you have applications such as AOL, MS Office, or music programs that you use but do not need to always have running, you can remove them here to save your active memory for other applications. Often applications will have helper programs that allow MS Office or iTunes, for example, to start up faster. If you don’t use those applications much, you can remove the applications from the startup folder.

Appearance

You can remove visual effects such as animating windows and having shadows under menus.

Click Start – Control Panel – System – Advanced tab – Performance Settings

From here you can adjust the computer for best performance or remove individual performance options

Desktop Wallpaper

If you have a picture background, you can replace it with a solid color background for a very small performance improvement.

To change your wallpaper or background image:

Right-click on the desktop, click Properties, Desktop tab

Disable Microsoft Messenger

Microsoft Messenger, in addition to taking up memory, can be a conduit for viruses. Messenger is not easy to remove and will attempt to launch when you run Outlook. I recommend using Steve Gilmore’s Shoot The Messenger application to disable Messenger.

Defragment the Hard Drive

Disk defragmenting can be useful when your computer has been used for a while and files are no longer in their optimal location on the disk. You can reach the Disk Deframenter here:

Start – Programs – Accessories – System Tools – Disk Defragmenter

Clean Install

Over time, Windows does become slower. And no matter what you do to clean it up, it may not be as fast as it was originally. So a fresh install may be the only real practical solution once your computer has been used for a long period of time with many programs having been installed over that period.

You will want to back up all of your documents and favorites from your browser before wiping out your system.

Add RAM

If you have 512MB or 1GB of RAM, adding RAM can be helpful depending on how many and what kind of programs you tend to run. Click CTRL-ALT-DELETE and then the Performance tab. From here you can see the physical memory available compared to how much total memory that you have.

Make sure to check how much memory your computer can physically see. This is a limitation of the motherboard and BIOS.

Also, XP’s standard 32-bit installation can only read a total of 3GB of RAM. The less popular 64-bit version, also known as x64 version, can use up to 128GB of RAM.

Buy a New Computer

Okay, this isn’t a very technical solution. But keep in mind that businesses typically replace computers every 3-4 years because beyond this point it is a better business decision to have a faster and more easily maintained computer. So if your computer is old, then consider that purchasing a new computer might be a better use of your time and money. A decent computer costs $500-$1500 depending on your needs. If you do decide that you need a new computer, be sure to properly recycle your old computer.

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Acer Aspire One running Windows Vista

The Acer Aspire One is a fun little netbook, but it’s just not fast enough to run Windows Vista. That’s why Windows XP was included instead of Vista. Right? Well, I put that to the test and found that by modifying Vista as I described earlier, Vista runs great on the Aspire One.

It actually ran more fluidly than Windows XP did. I attribute that mainly to Vista’s support of:

  1. the Atom chipset’s hyperthreading. XP Home does not take full advantage of the chipset.
  2. ReadyBoost, a Vista feature that uses a flash drive to cache and speed up random reads that would otherwise go to the hard drive.

See this video of my Aspire One showing the speed of opening several applications:

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12 Ways to Speed Up and Slim Down Windows Vista

Windows Vista is a much maligned operating system, mainly because people say it:

  1. is slower than Windows XP
  2. has a silly security system requiring multiple clicks just to delete a file
  3. looks bad with all the Aero effects

While Microsoft is working to fix these and other problems in Windows 7, these problems can also be fixed today for most people by following these modifications

Note: Only make the changes that you understand and feel comfortable with. Also, if you already have a fast machine there is no need for most of these changes.

1. Turn off Windows Features

Turn off unneeded features by going to:

Start – Control Panel – Uninstall a Program (Under Programs) – Turn Windows Features on or off (on left Task panel)

From here, you can uncheck everything you would like to. On my system, I deleted everything except:

  • Some of the games
  • XPS Viewer (under .NET Framework 3.0)
  • Remote Differential Compression (a network optimizer)
  • Windows Ultimate Extras

2. Consider Disabling Security Center

Security Center is useful, but if you have a firewall, antivirus software, and you are comfortable with the idea, you can disable the Security Center. Open the Security Center from the System Tray in the bottom right. Then click Change the way Security Center alerts me on the left pane. Then select the last option, Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon (not recommended). To finish disabling security center, follow the instructions below in services.msc.

3. Disable Services in services.msc

Services.msc shows you all the services that can run on the computer. Go to:

Start

Then type in the text area (where it says Start Search) services.msc and hit Enter

Services are under the Startup Type categories:

  • Automatic – service starts when Windows starts.
  • Manual – service starts when Windows detects that something needs it.
  • Disabled – service doesn’t start at all.

You can look for automatic services and change them to manual or disabled. Right click and choose Properties for the option to change the Startup Type. TweakHound has a Vista Services Guide listing the services and what they are used for.

This is the list of services that most people can disable:

  • Computer Browser
  • Distributed Link Tracking Client
  • IKE and AuthIP IP Keying Modules
  • Offline Files
  • Remote Registry
  • Tablet PC Input Service (unless you’re using a tablet PC)
  • Windows Error Reporting

Other services to consider diabling include:

  • DFS Replication
  • Distributed Link Tracking Client
  • IP Helper
  • IPsec Policy Agent
  • KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator
  • Secondary Logon
  • Security Center (as noted in the above Consider Disabling Security Center)
  • SSDP Discovery
  • Terminal Services
  • Windows Defender

Be sure to NOT disable:

  • Multimedia Class Scheduler
  • Plug and Play
  • Superfetch
  • Task Scheduler
  • Windows Audio
  • Windows Driver Foundation

4. Remove System Tray and msconfig items

Go to the system tray in the bottom right and remove programs that you do not need to be running, or at least remove their system tray portions if you do not need them. This is often available in the application preferences or options. You can also remove services and system tray items by typing in the start bar (where it says Start Search) msconfig and hit Enter

Each of the tabs show startup items that you can edit. There are usually items like iTunes helper, Quicktime, and AOL that are listed here. Even if you use those programs, you may not want them to start up automatically if you use those programs less frequently. They typically allow an app to start up more quickly, but at the price of always running and taking up computer resources.

5. Update your drivers

Device drivers are often updated for motherboards, chipsets, graphics. You can get a boost in performance by checking your drivers for updates. Go to:

Start – Control Panel – Hardware and Sound – View hardware and devices (under Device Manager)

From there you can right click on devices and select Update Driver Software.

6. Use ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is a feature that uses a flash drive (thumb drive) or memory card (SD card or other) for caching data so that it does not need to be read from the hard drive. Microsoft recommends using a drive one to three times the size of the system RAM. So if you have 2GB of RAM, use a ReadyBoost flash drive of 2GB to 8GB in size.

ReadyBoost is particularly useful if you have a small amount of RAM (512MB – 1GB).

Hard drives are great for large sequential I/O. For those situations, ReadyBoost gets out of the way. ReadyBoost concentrates on improving the performance of small, random I/Os, like paging to and from disk.

7. Remove Transparency

Personally, I find the transparent bars at the top of Windows ugly. They also take up video processing resources.

Go to:
Right-click on the desktop, Personalize, Windows Color and Appearance. Uncheck Transparency

8. Stop the Sidebar

While pretty, the Sidebar takes up memory. Right-click on the sidebar, select Properties, uncheck Start Sidebar When Windows Starts. To get the sidebar back, type sidebar into the start bar.

9 . Shoot the Aero

I prefer Windows Vista Basic to the Aero visual effects. Aero also puts a heavy hit on the computer’s video resources.

To remove Aero, right-click on the desktop, select Personalize, and then Windows Color and Appearance. Click Open Classic Appearance Properties and choose a theme in the Scheme list.

10. Run occasional Defrags

Disk deframenting still helps computers that have been used for some time. But Vista is scheduled to defrag every week. You should defragment whenever you want and turn off the scheduled defrags. Type defrag into the Start area and hit Enter.

11. Turn off Anti-Virus

Yes, it’s a little dangerous. But removing antivirus software, especially standards such as Norton and McAfee will free a lot of resources.

12. Use Vista

Over time, Vista’s speed should improve as it learns how you use it, through a system called Superfetch. This takes often used files and moves them to the outer edge of the disk because the outer edge of the disk is the fastest part. Vista does this by default.

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Securely Erase Your Files and Unused Space

If you are trying to erase sensitive files but do not want to completely erase a hard drive, you can use:

Eraser Portable

This is a portable version of the free Eraser application, meaning that it can be installed and run from a flash drive so that you can bring it with you to run on any computer.

It allows you to erase unused space because unused space still contains “deleted” files. Deleting a file in Windows only deletes the reference to the file so that you can’t see it. Snoops can still find and recover files that were deleted using the normal deletion in Windows.

Eraser can also securely erase a file or a folder. Unlike the method of completely erasing your entire drive, Erase allows to you delete just what you want. This means that you don’t have to delete the Windows operating system and that you can still have the computer work normally when you are done erasing what you need to.

If your company is collapsing and you have documents that could hold you liable or if you need to erase information here in the D.C. area before the next administration moves in, Eraser can help.

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Removing Duplicates in MS Outlook

A recent Arlington, Virginia, client found herself with duplicate contacts in Outlook. Microsoft Outlook can easily get duplicate emails, contacts, or calender records if you have a problem with importing, exporting, or syncing.

First Backup Your Outlook

Before doing anything, you should be sure to backup your Outlook file in case you mess anything up. You can find your outlook.pst file usually in the folder such as:
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Copy the .pst files to another directory for you to put back there in case you destroy the original files.

Then Remove Your Duplicates

Duplicate Remover For Outlook was the software that we used to remove the thousands of duplicates that were in the Outlook file. It costs $24 for a single account. They have a free 30-day trial that will only delete 10 dups, but it shows you how the program works. It can remove duplicate contacts, notes, tasks, journals and calendar items.  It also has multiple options for how to handle duplicates: deleting to the deleted folder, deleting permanently, flagging, copying, and moving the duplicate items.

If you find that you have lots of duplicates in Outlook, the $24 will be well spent on the Duplicate Remover software.