Originally posted by Steely
I lot of people think you should go with the XP defaults, as opposed to tweaking/optimising it. it has to be one of the biggest resources on the net for XP.
so far, the only thing that I see improving xp are the gui tweaks, for instance, the resart shortcuts, your access to files,and various control items...wich speeds your personal computing, but does not speed your copmputor...if you notice, on the "my favorite tweaks" thread, I think the only tweaks left are gui adjustments.
that's because the old tweaks that were valid on the 9x, have been addressed by mictosoft...ie, io page lock...is false on xp, static page file is not only false, but should eventually lead to performance hits. for anyone that actually uses the ram they have installed...Another of my pet peeves, is partitions...like it or not, and no matter how convienient you think they are, partitions definately suffer performance degradations on xp, proven and written about by ms, yet most experienced users feel some kind of need to partion...when you partition, xp is not as efficient in reading apps, plus, it doesn't tune your files to the optimum
btw, as far as partitions, if you have multiple discs, partitions are of cource recomended, and also, if you only have a single disc and you must partition, put your apps on the same drive as the os...then there won't be a performance hit for your partition philosophy.
otherwise, turning off the services YOU KNOW you don't use will speed your boot time, but will not speed your os...once the service is launched, it takes no juice, except when it's used by the user...so, obviously, if you're turning a service off that you don't know what it does, this could become a performance hit when your os does actually want the service...
As far as your box slowing down, what exactly do you meen? Xp, by it's nature speeds up as you use it, due to it's self tuning design, it should be getting faster every third day! (xp tunes itself every third day).
so, do you meen the boot is slower, or your actual computing is slower? actual computing, then I believe something is wrong with the apps you're installing, or you're changing more then the gui when you're tweaking....
I've had my box for 8 mnths...not one reformat, this babies running faster then the brand new day I pushed the power
ok, out of breath, last words,... look into which services you're turning off, you might need one or two, and don't mess with any os functions...just mess with gui stuff..you also should concider leaving your computor on for an hour or two when you're not using it, so it does tune itself...and of cource, update your drivers...good luck