How to Speed up Windows
Although this article is titled “How to Speed up Windows”, a more accurate description would be be “How to give your computer less to do”. Assuming there aren’t any serious hardware issues, computers generally get a bum rap for being slow. In reality, they are dutifully handling incredible amounts of work. No matter what we throw at them - spreadsheets, graphics, video, database searches, or web browsing – they diligently churn through millions of calculations in order to do our bidding. With a few exceptions – like popping in a faster hard disk, faster processor, or adding more memory – making your computer faster is really about giving it less work to do.
No matter how well endowed your computer hardware, performance over time will become slower and slower. And it’s generally not because the hardware is slacking off the job. It’s because your computer is being asked to do more. For example, whenever you install a new program, the operating system must create and store settings for it in a huge database of settings known as the Registry. This database is read into the computers memory every time Windows starts up. The larger it is, the longer it takes to start up. If that same program needs to be loaded into memory during start-up – as in the case of an Anti-virus program – you’ve just increased the start-up time. If that programs files are stored in various places scattered around the hard disk, it takes time to find all the parts, string them together, and load them into memory.
Maintenance Tasks
Regular PC maintenance is important and very easy to accomplish. Our tasks include removing unneeded programs, delete unused temporary files and caches, disable services that have dubious value, and borrow from Peter to pay Paul by giving more processing time to foreground applications as opposed to those running in the background. Finally, we will re-organize the files so the computer can read them in more quickly.
Remove Unused Programs
The first step is removing programs you never use. They take up space on the drive and the registry, and cause the operating system to load software and services that do nothing but take up computer ram memory and processor time. If you bought a new PC that had everything pre-installed, it was likely burdened from the beginning with a host of bloated programs which do little but provide eye-candy. Begin by going to Control Panel. If using Windows XP click Add/Remove programs. For Vista and Windows 7 it’s called “Uninstall a Program”. Glance over the list of installed porgrams and make note of anything that you are sure you do not use and remove it. Be careful! If you are not certain what a program does or whether you need it, leave it installed. When that’s done, consider checking for updates to programs you use most. Newer versions often have speed improvements. If the program doesn’t have an option to check for updates automatically, visit the developers website to see what’s new. When you are finished, re-start your computer.
Clean out the Junk
Now you are ready to do the PC equivalent of vacuuming under the couch. We are talking about removing temporary files that are no longer needed, and clearing out the web browser cache(s). There are two utility programs I recommend for this. The Disk Cleanup program, which is built into Windows, can be used at any time or it can be run on a schedule.Open My Computer and right click on the drive letter where Windows is installed. Select Properties from the menu. Under the General tab, click the button for Disk Cleanup. After a brief pause, you will be presented with a list of candidates for removal. The list will vary depending on the version of Windows you have and which applications are installed. Typically items that are safe to remove will already be checked. You can usually add “Temporary files” to the list by clicking it’s check box. Simply click OK, and then “Delete Files”.
Disk Cleanup - Windows XP
Beware! XP has a couple of categories that we do not recommend checking. One is the “Compress old files” category. It may take considerable time to compress depending on the number of files. The other – “Offline Files” – can get you into hot water. Laptop users often use Windows Offline Files functionality to make copies of of files stored on the company network. Checking the “Offline Files” category will delete any copies of network files or folders from your laptop.
You can take the temporary file removal process a step further by downloading a free program called ATF Cleaner. Save it to the Windows Desktop or any place of your choosing. Double click the ATF-Cleaner icon and click on the “Select All” option. I would then recommend that you uncheck “Cookies” unless you know for sure you don’t need them. If you use Firefox as your web browser, don’t forget to click on the Firefox option on the menu. For Firefox, select everything with the exception of “Firefox Saved Passwords” if you have configured it to save password for websites. Once everything is selected, click on the “Empty Selected” button.
Screen-shot of ATF Cleaner
Processor Time
Programs you actively use are referred to as “foreground” programs, while those that do not require input from you are called “background” programs. While not a technically accurate description - it works well enough for our purposes. We are going to increase the amount of processor time for foreground programs over those in the background by the maximum allowed. Do NOT do this for Windows Servers, as background performance will suffer.
This command will change a Registry setting to a hex value of 26 (numeric 38). This works for Windows 2000 through Windows 7.
REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl /v Win32PrioritySeparation /t REG_DWORD /d 26 /f
This command – although it may display as more than one line – should be entered as a single line.
To run the above command, you can copy the line(s) above and paste it as a single line, into a Notepad text file. Save the file with any name you want as long as the extension is either .bat or .cmd. Then right click the icon for the file and select “Run As…” (for XP), or select “Run as administrator” (for Vista or Windows 7).
A bit of Trickery
The next trick – and I do mean trick – is to shorten delay time when showing Windows Start Menus. This does nothing but allow the menus to display a bit faster. The idea is if it seems faster, then it is! The normal value is 400, but we are going to change it to zero.
REG ADD “HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop” /v MenuShowDelay /t REG_SZ /d 0 /f>nul
This command – although it may display as more than one line – should be entered as a single line.
To run the above command, you can copy the line(s) above and paste it as a single line, into a Notepad text file. Save the file with any name you want as long as the extension is either .bat or .cmd. Then right click the icon for the file and select “Run As…” (for XP), or select “Run as administrator” (for Vista or Windows 7).
Disable Last Access Time
By default, each file and folder on an NTFS volume has an attribute called Last Access Time, which records the last time the file or folder was opened, read, or changed. This means even when you merely read a file on an NTFS volume, a write action occurs on that volume too. Normally this isn’t a problem, but if you have an application that tends to frequently access files for short periods of time, this feature of NTFS can really slow performance. If this is disabled, the Last Access Time attribute for newly created files will simply be their File Creation Time.
Note: Disabling Last Access Time may affect the operation of backup programs that use the Remote Storage Service.
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1
To run the above command, you can copy the line above and paste it into a Notepad text file. Save the file with any name you want as long as the extension is either .bat or .cmd. Then right click the icon for the file and select “Run As…” (for XP), or select “Run as administrator” (for Vista or Windows 7).
To reverse the command above, change the value back to zero: FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 0
Optimize the File System
It is time to re-organize/defragment (take your pick) the files stored on your hard drive. You can use any file defragmenter of your choice. A good free defragmenter is Auslogics Disk Defrag. Close all your applications before running this type of program – and be very sure you disable the real-time protection feature of any installed Anti-Virus programs. If using the Auslogics program, make sure you select the correct drive letter by clicking the check box to the left of the drive letter. Typically this is Drive C: (see large red oval in picture).
Auslogics Disk Defrag Program
Below the drive selection area, you will see a row of three buttons. The first button by default is labeled “Defrag”, but you can use the “down arrow” to select Analyze. If analysis indicates defragmentation is warranted, simply click the button again to begin the defrag process. Do not use your computer during this process. The bottom pane will indicate when the process is complete.
Note: There are also programs which will reorganize your Registry. We do not recommend any of them as we feel re-organizing the Registry is dangerous and unnecessary.
I had a few more tips, but when researching them a bit more, I realized some were not worth using. Disabling the Windows Search service, in Vista and Windows 7 was one of those. It has been modified from XPs version to have less of a strangle-hold on the system while it’s indexing, and it provides some very useful features.
I will try to add more useful ideas as I find them. If you know of any good tweaks, let me know.
