TOP 20 TIPS TO MAKE YOUR SYSTEM FASTER

Top 20 Tips To Keep Your
System Faster
Follow these tips and you will
definitely have a much faster and
more reliable PC!
1. Wallpapers:They slow your
whole system down, so if you're
willing to compromise, have a
basic plain one instead!
2. Drivers: Update your
hardware drivers as frequently
as possible. New drivers tend to
increase system speed especially
in the case of graphics cards,
their drivers are updated by the
manufacturer very frequently!
3. Minimizing: If you want to use
several programs at the same
time then minimize those you are
not using. This helps reduce the
overload on RAM.
4. Boot Faster: The 'starting
Windows 98/XP' message on
startup can delay your booting
for a couple of seconds. To get
rid of this message go to c: and
find the file Msdos.sys. Remove
the Read-Only option. Next, open
it in Notepad or any other text
editor. Finally, go to the text
'Options' within the file and
make the following changes: Add
BootDelay=0. To make your
booting even faster, set add
Logo=0 to remove the Windows
logo at startup.
5. Restart only Windows: When
restarting your PC, hold down
Shift to only restart Windows
rather than the whole system
which will only take a fraction of
the time.
6. Turn Off Animations: Go to
Display Settings from the Control
Panel and switch to the Effects
Tab. Now turn off Show
Windows Content While Dragging
and Smooth Edges on Screen
Fonts. This tip is also helpful with
Windows XP because of the
various fade/scroll effects.
7. Faster Start-Menu Access: Go
to the Start menu and select Run.
Now type Regedit and hit Enter.
The Registry Editor will appear
on the screen. Now, open the
folder
HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl
PanelDesktop. You should see a
MenuShowDelay value. If you
don't then do the following: right
click on a blank space in the right
pane and select New String.
Change the name in the new
value to MenuShowDelay. Now
that we have the MenuShowDelay
value, double click on it and enter
0 in the value data field. This sets
the start menu delay to 0
milliseconds.
8. Resolutions: If you are willing
to do anything for faster
performance from your PC, then
try lowering your display
resolution. The lower it is, the
faster your PC.
9. Turn off Active Desktop: Go to
your Display Properties and
switch to the Web tab. Uncheck
View My Active Desktop As a Web
Page. Since the Active Desktop
option under Windows 98 uses a
lot of system resources, this
option can have a dramatic effect
on the speed of the whole
system.
10. Defragment Often: Windows
98's Defrag tool uses Application
Acceleration from Intel which
means that when you
defragment your drive, data is
physically arranged on the drive
so that applications will load
faster
11. Take your PC to Bed: Using
the Advanced Power
Management feature under
Windows 98 gives you the
option to use the sleep
command. That way, you can
send your PC to sleep instead of
shutting it down and then
restarting it. It's as simple as
pressing a button and then
pressing the same button to
wake it up. You can tell Windows
after how many minutes/hours
of inactivity to automatically sleep
the machine in the Advanced
Power Management section of
the Control Panel.
12. Faster Internet Access: If
you use the internet for
reference and the sites you visit
are rarely updated then try the
following. In IE (the same can be
done in Netscape) go to Tools,
Internet Options. Next, click on
Settings... in the Temporary
Internet Files section. Finally,
select Never for the first option
and double the amount of
storage space to use, click OK!
13. Benchmarking:
Benchmarking can be very useful
when run frequently. It can tell
you how your PC's components
are performing and then
compare them to other machines
like yours. For example, when
you overclock your PC, you want
to know how much more speed
you have and whether it is stable.
All this and more can be
discovered using benchmarking.
An excellent piece of software for
doing this job is SiSoft Sandra
which can be found in the
Downloads File Archive!
14. Refresh the Taskbar without
restarting: If you in some way
change the taskbar, either in
Regedit or elsewhere, you can
refresh the task bar without
restarting. Hold down Ctrl Alt Del,
and double click on Explorer. Say
Yes to close Explorer, but no to
closing Windows. This will
refresh the Taskbar and system
tray.
15. Quick CD Eject: Instead of
pushing the button on your
drive, right-click your CD drive
letter in My Computer and click
on Eject. This will also remove
any icons that have become
associated with the CD drive
16. Start Up Programs:
Windows can be slowed down
when programs run on start up.
To eliminate this, check your Start
up folder. You can access it from
the start menu: Start, Programs,
Start Up. Another way to
eliminate programs from loading
even before Windows actually
starts is by doing the following:
Click on Start, then Run. Type
msconfig. It will take quite a long
time for this program to load, but
when you finally see it on your
screen, explore the different tabs.
They all have to do with how
quickly your PC boots, so select
what you want, and uncheck
what you don't want!
17. Fonts: When Windows starts,
it loads every single font in the
Fonts folder. Therefore, the more
fonts you have, the slower the
booting process. To get rid of
unwanted fonts, simply go to the
Fonts folder under c:windows
and remove whatever you don't
want. Fonts that have a red letter
'A' as their icon are system fonts,
so don't delete them.
18. Stretching Wallpapers: Don't
"stretch" your wallpaper in
Windows 98 since it actually
slows Windows down when you
drag icons around on the
desktop.
19. RAM Matters: If you have less
than 32MB then you should
seriously think of upgrading it to
at least 64MB. Windows runs
much more smoothly with 64MB
or higher and tends to use less
hard disk space for virtual
memory.
20. Partitioning: A very nice little
thing you can do to boost system
performance. By partitioning
your hard drive, splitting one
physical drive into several logical
ones, you can gain several
advantages. 1. If you get a virus
or you accidentally format a
drive, not all will be lost. 2. By
placing the swap file
(Win386.swp) on a separate
drive, The swap file will be less
fragmented and thus, faster. 3.
Place Windows on a separate
drive and whenever you need to
reinstall it, you rest assured that
your data is safe on a separate
drive. Partitioning can be done
using a few programs such as
FDisk which comes with DOS.
However, FDisk formats
everything on the hard disk
before partitioning. Alternatively,
you can use Partition Magic from
Power Quest to partition your
hard disk without losing your
data.