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Tweaking Windows - How to keep your machine running fast and clean
Well since the Firefox speed boost thread got such a warm reception, I thought I'd post my own little "speed boost" guide to help people optimize and speed up slow systems. 
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First things first. Create a system restore point in case anything goes wrong and you need to undo the changes. Start / programs / accessories / system tools / system restore.
Next, clean all of the spyware off your computer using Ad Aware 2008. Update the program, do a complete scan, then reboot.
Once all the nasty stuff is gone, go to ccleaner.com and install the program. In the main menu, click the "tools" tab on the left side..followed by "startup". You should be able to safely disable everything in your startup menu except your antivirus and firewall. The other stuff is likely "bloatware" that just wastes CPU power and memory by loading into memory when you don't really need it.
After you've done this, click the start menu and right click the "my computer" icon. Choose properties, advanced, performance settings, and under visual effects tab, choose "adjust for best performance"...then recheck the boxes for drop shadows, animate windows, visual styles, and font smoothing, then hit apply. This turns off most of the unnoticeable "eye candy" in XP and will save a nice amount of CPU power..leaving it free to focus on your programs.
While still in performance settings, click the "advanced" tab and look under virtual memory. I personally have set my machine to 0MB or "no paging file". This keeps Windows entirely in RAM rather than using the hard drive as a form of "virtual ram" which is much slower. This is only recommended if you have at least 2GB of ram. If you have less than 2GB of RAM or run highly demanding applications, it is recommended you set the paging file to a static size (example: initial size 2048MB - maximum size 2048MB) This prevents Windows from constantly resizing it and should give you a nice performance boost.
One more thing I usually do: Disable the indexing service. This service indexes your files to shorten the time needed to search your hard drive for a specific file, however this really doesn't save much time at all (a few extra seconds when you do a search)...and the constant indexing of files actually slows down system performance a lot. To disable the Indexing Service, go into "My Computer", right-click on your primary hard drive (usually C: ), left-click "Properties", and uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching". Select "Apply changes to subfolders and files". If any files cannot be updated select "Ignore All". Once you reboot, you should notice a general improvement in performance.
Finally run the "sweep" option on ccleaner to clean junk files off your system, then defragment your hard drive. Start / programs / accessories / system tools / defragment.
Reboot the machine and defrag again.
Congratulations...Your PC is now PIMPED! 
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Last edited by Capitalizt on Sep-03-2008 at 14:28
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