My answer: YES! As a computer and network technician, I have visited many clients who wanted me to fix a certain issue that had nothing to do with the speed and 'pep' of their system. As we sat together waiting (for quite a while) for screens to load, programs to open, and things to download, I would always ask, "Would you like your system to work faster than it does?". The answer was always a resounding 'YES!'.
After performing a few simple tweaks, their PCs spring to life and you can literally hear squeals of delight as pages pop up, browsers display information as they should (unless you are on dial-up, that always takes longer), and programs launch right away!
Tip #1: Turn Off The Eye Candy!
Some of the visual effects are nice to have and don't negatively impact your performance. Removing them can drastically speed up your computer!
- Show Window Contents While Dragging
- Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts
- Use Drop Shadows for Icon Labels on Desktop
- Show Translucent Selection Triangle
- You will have to wait a few seconds while the changes take effect. As soon as they do, you will notice a significant increase in your PC's performance.
Tip #2: Disable Unnecessary Services!
Windows XP comes with so many features and services that it's hard to know what to leave turned on and what to turn off. This totally depends on your level of familiarity and comfort with the OS. Power users will want to use more of these services than, let's say, our grandmother who just wants to get on the computer to use Microsoft Word and check some emails from the grandkids.
In no particular order, here are the Windows XP resource hogs to disable:
- Hibernation- This feature sounds good in theory, but only if you are using a laptop. I have had many people bemoan the fact that Hibernation just locked up their systems and took up quite a bit of space.
- Indexing Service- This is Windows XP's way of speeding up your searches on the hard drive. It's handy if you are running frequent searches using the Search function, but at the cost of a huge hit on your system resources.
- System Restore- This is a good feature to use if you tend to download a lot of stuff that could compromise the computer, or if you have children or teens that like to download a lot of stuff. If you tend to be the only one who uses it and are relatively careful, you will most likely never have to use this feature. It takes up a lot of room on your hard drive, so turn it off to get more of a performance boost.
- Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop- These two features almost never get used by Windows XP users. Turning these off has a dual benefit: increased performance and extra security that prevents people from accessing your computer remotely.
Make these simple changes and watch XP spring to life!
0 comment:
Post a Comment