8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 8

Day 8 – Defragment your hard drive 

Your operating system works best when all of the files on the hard disk are organised into one (or a few) large blocks. When files are added/deleted, settings changed and programs are installed and uninstalled, files on the hard disk become fragmented and move on the disk. Therefore, when these files are requested by the user, the operating system must work harder to find the information which slows down the whole process. The more fragmentation the slower the machine.

Windows Disk Defragmenter reorganises these files and thus improves performance.

To use Disk Defragmenter: Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter

In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment, and then click the Analyze button. After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears, letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives.

To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment button.

After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results.

To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report.

To close the View Report dialog box, click Close

To close the Disk Defragmenter utility, click the Close button on the title bar of the window.

So this concludes our mission to speed up XP and hopefully you have found some good tips for maintaining your PC aswell.

I'm always happy to have some feedback so please feel free to post a comment :-)

8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 7

Day 7 – Clean up your hard disk

Time for one last big push on cleaning up XP. This time we are going to use a tool built into XP called 'Disk Cleanup Utility'. By using the 'Disk Cleanup Utility' we can free up space on the hard drive and improve performance.

Disk Cleanup allows you to :

• Remove temporary Internet files
• Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls
  and Java applets).
• Empty the Recycle Bin
• Remove Windows temporary files
• Remove optional Windows components that you don't use
• Remove installed programs that you no longer use

To use Disk Cleanup

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, click Disk Cleanup and then click OK.

2. In the Disk Cleanup for dialog box, scroll through the content of the Files to delete list

3. Choose the files that you want to delete

4. Clear the check boxes for files that you don't want to delete, and then click OK

5. When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes

This process will take a few minutes to complete but it will free up a lot of useful space.

See you tomorrow for the final day of speeding up XP

8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 5

Day 5 – Update and Run Anti-virus/Anti-Malware programs

I would hope that today's item is already happening regularly on your PC but if not then this posting should act as a welcome reminder.

My request is simply this "Get the latest updates for your Anti-virus/Anti-Malware software and run a full system scan to remove any malicious programs."

Simple :-)

8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 4

Day 4 – Reduce Windows Visual effects 

Windows XP has Visual effects activated by default to give it the appearance you are no doubt familiar with. These effects do have a performance overhead and may contribute to any slowness you are encountering.

The following steps will take you through how to optimise these settings to match your performance requirements.

Click on Control Panel in the Start menu (Ensure you are in Classic View)

Click the System icon

Click the Advanced tab and then click Settings under the performance option

The Visual Effects tab provides an easy way to set your preferences. You can select the 'Adjust for best peformance' or you can customise which features are applied.

Take some time to play around with these settings, you may like the results.

8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 3

Day 3 – Prevent unnecessary programs from starting 

Yesterday we looked at removing unwanted applications from your PC and today we are going to stop the valid programs from slowing us down when we don't need them. A good place to tackle these programs is at system start up.  Programs that launch themselves at startup not only delay the PC from booting up but they will continue to run in the background and act as a drain on other system resources.

There are several ways to stop an application from running when Windows loads, I will address the two that can be easily carried out without the risk of intefering with critical startup processes.

1. Open up the application and check the settings for an auto-start option that you can disable.

2. Check the startup folder for shortcuts to applications you do not want to start when the PC boots up. The startup folder can be found by clicking on Start and All programs.

Right click the shortcut in the startup folder for the appropriate application and press delete on the keyboard. By doing this you will only delete the shortcut and not the application itself.

Well done, another step completed. See you tomorrow for step 4  :-)

8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 2

Day 2 – Remove unwanted programs

If you're anything like me then you like to install programs, try them out and if you like them they become a regular part of your tool set. Other times, a program might not do exactly what you would hope and if you fail to remove it, it will take up resources and impair your PC's performance.

Follow these steps to remove your unwanted programs :

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel

2. Click Add or Remove Programs

3. Untick the ‘Show updates' option at the top

4. Scroll down through the list and examine each program and remove as appropriate.

* Do not Uninstall any program labeled as Update or Hotfix as these will be Windows Security additions from Microsoft.

Congratulations, you have started the clean up process. See you tomorrow for more improvements.

8 ways to speed up Windows XP - Day 1

There is plenty of talk at the moment about Windows 7 and how it is going to change the world blah, blah,  blah but what if you have Windows XP and can’t afford the much needed upgrade just yet. Well chances are you have had XP for sometime and if you haven’t been maintaining it, it has gradually been getting slower and slower.

One of the most common questions I get asked is “How can I speed up my computer?”. So for the next 8 days I’m going to provide some tips for restoring XP to it's former glory.

 Day 1 – Back up your data

Hopefully, you already have a regular backup procedure in place for your data i.e. photographs, documents, favourites, passwords etc. If this is the case, ‘Well done', if not then I urge you to create a back up before carrying out the following steps.  Backing up on this occasion is a good start but a regular back up routine (although rather dull sounding) will save you alot of heartache should the worst happen to your data.

This process may take you some time, so I’ll let you get on with it and i'll see you back here tomorrow for the next instalment :-)

Will my PC run Microsoft Windows 7 ?

Windows 7 was launched today and many people who pre-ordered PCs and Laptops will be up and running immediately. However, for those with existing computers that want to upgrade (especially from Windows XP) there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether they can make the leap.

Generally there are two ways of knowing whether your current PC is compatible with Windows 7.

Minimum system requirements :  The ability to run Windows 7 is determined by the type of hardware you have rather than the operating system you are currently using so Microsoft has released it’s minimum system requirements and these should give you an idea of whether you need to upgrade your hardware for Windows 7. Click here to see the requirements.

Windows upgrade advisor : The system requirements are fairly general and do not indicate what will happen to your existing settings and applications if you do go ahead and upgrade. Thankfully, Microsoft has gone some way to address this and have provided a useful compatibility tool ‘called Windows Upgrade Advisor’.

Microsoft’s description of the software :

“Just download, install, and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta. You'll get a report telling you if your PC can run Windows 7 and if there are any known compatibility issues. If an issue can be resolved, you'll get suggestions for next steps. For example, it may let you know that you need an updated driver for your printer and where to get it “.

I have used this on a couple of my PCs and it does perform very well. Give it a go and see if you 'have what it takes'.

Download :  Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

How to find the size of your hard drive using a DOS command

There are other easier ways of finding the size of your hard drive but this tutorial will show you how to do it using only DOS command.

1. Open the 'run' window by going to the start menu>run (or Winkey + R).
2. Type 'cmd' and press enter and the black DOS window will open
3. Type the following to see the details for C: drive.

'fsutil volume diskfree C:'

4. You will be shown something similar to the following :

Total # of free bytes : 748716032
Total # of bytes : 69265047552
Total # of avail free bytes : 748716032

5. These numbers may be abit confusing so it is best to convert them to Gigabytes or Megabytes using a converter off the net. Here is a link to the converter i used which produced the following results :

Total # of free Mb : 714.03125
Total # of Gb : 64.5081
Total # of avail free Mb : 714.03125

How to show system folders that are hidden within Microsoft WindowsXP & Server

By default, system folders within Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Server will be hidden. There may be instances where you will need to access these folders, and the steps are as follows :

1. Go to 'My Computer'.
2. Select 'Tools' and then 'Folder Options' from the drop down menu.
3. Go to the 'View tab'
4. Under 'Advanced settings' untick the option that says 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)''.
5. Click 'Apply' and click 'OK'

The folders will now be visible.

How to show the extensions of files within Microsoft Windows XP & Server

By default, within Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Server file extensions will be hidden i.e. if you have a text file called 'Testing' it will show as that rather than 'Testing.txt'. In order to show these file extensions do the following :

1. Go to 'My Computer'.
2. Select 'Tools' and then 'Folder Options' from the drop down menu.
3. Go to the 'View tab'
4. Under 'Advanced settings' untick the option that says 'Hide extensions for known file types'.
5. Click 'Apply' and click 'OK'

Microsoft Windows version release dates

Windows 1.0 - November 1985

Windows 2.0 - December 1987

Windows 3.0 - May 1990

Windows 3.1 - April 1992

Windows for Workgroups 3.11 - February 1994

WinNT 3.51 - June 1995

Windows 95 - August 1995

Windows NT4 - August 1996

Windows 95 OSR2 - October 1996

Windows 98 - June 1998

Windows 98SE- May 1999

Windows 2000- February 2000

Windows Me - July 2000

Windows XP - October 2001

Windows Server 2003 - 2003

Windows XP 64-bit - 2003

Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs - July 2006

Windows Vista (Business Customers) - November 2006

Windows Vista (Retail Customers) - January 2007

Windows 7 - October 2009

Display hidden files and folders on your PC

Windows XP

Go to My Computer>Tools>Folder Options>View tab and put a marker next to 'Show hidden files and folders.

Windows Vista

Go to Computer>Tools>Folder Options>View tab and put a marker next to 'Show hidden files and folders.