smart computer use?

I’ve recently become interested in ways to speed up Windows XP. The reason for this is that the machines I use on a consistent basis aren’t exactly the most powerful or capable computers by todays standards. They are all around the 4-5 year mark. Running a lot of the newer applications available is becoming a pain or just not possible at this point.

I remember doing the same thing for Windows 98 back when I had machines that were getting to slow with that OS, so I figured I’d better now figure out some good optimization ideas for XP.

I’ve used XP enough to know some basic things that keep the machines from running slow. I make sure to keep the amount of applications running in the background to a minimum, I uninstall stuff I don’t use to keep the hard drive clutter down, and I turn of most visual effects.

But, a quick scour of the internet will yield many examples and tips of stuff to do to make your Windows XP machine run more efficiently.

Here’s a quick example of a tip from an article at Connected Internet about speeding up Windows XP:

1. Disable Indexing Services

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of RAM and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, or even if you do search often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

* Go to Start
* Click Settings
* Click Control Panel
* Double-click Add/Remove Programs
* Click the Add/Remove Window Components
* Uncheck the Indexing services
* Click Next

It’s a great little tip. There’s many more out there that, as a whole, should make your machine just a little snappier.

Here’s some more links regarding speeding up Windows XP that I found to be useful:

• The complete guide to optimizing Windows XP
• How can I speed up my Windows XP pc?
• 99 performance tips for Windows XP

Of course, one other major thing is just having enough RAM. Not enough RAM seems to be the easiest to fix performance inhibitor that comes up most often. It is also a relatively cheap upgrade in the PC world. But, that is another topic for another day.