11 New Tips for Boosting Windows XP Performance

While sharing network drives is a quick way to add capacity to PC, unused connections can cause serious performance problems on startup when remote computers or network drives don't respond immediately.

At startup, or whenever a network drive is accessed, WinXP will wait patiently for the drive to come online, even if the drive is disconnected. This can slow a PC, even if the file the user is opening is directly on the local computer. If a system has unused network connections, you can shave time off the startup wait-time and generally improve performance by removing these connections.

To get rid of unused network connections, disconnect any unused drives by following these three steps:

1. Open My Computer.
2. On the Tools menu, click Disconnect Network Drive.
3. Select the network drives that you no longer need. Then click OK.

Without these unused network connections, startup and file access should be faster.

Tip 5: Remove Unnecessary Autostart Programs

Software providers that want their programs to appear to load quickly when needed configure autostart programs to run in the background. Some of these programs show an icon on your taskbar to let you know that they're running, but others are completely hidden. All are stealing trace amounts of memory and processing time as the computer runs.

WinXP comes with the System Configuration tool (Msconfig.exe), an excellent way to manage the startup process, as well as to identify any unnecessary programs that start automatically. To start it and make the changes, follow these four steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type Msconfig, and then press Enter.
2. On the Startup tab, you'll see a list of all the programs and processes that are set to run when WinXP loads.
3. Clear the checkbox next to any item the user doesn't need.
4. Click Apply, and then restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

If you need help figuring out which startups do what, look up the entries at Paul Collins' Startup Applications List. It's a very handy resource.

Tip 6: Rejuvenate Prefetch

WinXP loads applications much faster than its predecessors. To accomplish this, XP uses what's known as the Prefetch technique, in which the OS gathers information about each program launched, then stores that information in the \Windows\Prefetch folder. On subsequent restarts, WinXP uses the information stored in the Prefetch folder to essentially preload parts of those programs at boot time. The result: When the user launches an application, it appears to load really fast.

But there's one problem: Over time, the Prefetch folder can accumulate too much information. This makes the OS so busy loading bits and pieces of lots of applications into memory, the boot process gets slowed down. Fortunately, you can clean out the Prefetch folder at any time by following these four easy steps:

1. Access the Run dialog box by clicking Start, then Run.
2. Type "Prefetch" (without the quote marks) in the Open text box. Then click OK.
3. Press Control A to select all the files.
4. Press Delete.

Over time, WinXP will rebuild the contents of the Prefetch folder. By the way, an excellent time to create a disk image for your clients is after a couple of weeks of use, after Prefetch has "learned" about applications to preload, but before it becomes bulky.

Tip 7: Remove Remnants of Old SP2 Installs

Upgrading XP with SP2 leaves a lot of unused files on the disk that the user will need only if they were to uninstall XP. Personally, I've never had to back-out of SP2, but if you did, chances are it would have be shortly after you installed it. So, assuming the user is happy with their SP2 installation, remove these old files by following these steps:

1. A very big System Restore point will have been made by the SP2 installation. To be sure you have a good regular size restore point, create a new one by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. In the System Restore dialog box, click Create a restore point. Then click Next. Type a description for your restore point, such as "After SP2" and click Create. Then do a clean-up by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Under "More Options," click the bottom button to remove all but the most recent restore point.

2. Delete the hidden folder of files that would be restored by an uninstall: C:\Windows\$NTServicePackUninstall. After this step, if you try to use the "Remove" for Service Pack 2 in Add/Remove Programs, it will fail and offer to delete the entry.

3. There may also be a large folder C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download, depending on how the installation was done. This can be deleted, too.

4. Check that the installation's temporary folder was properly removed. The directory will be in the root directory of the drive where you downloaded the setup files (probably on C:) and will have a long name of random letters. If you can find this folder, remove it.