As most people who use Windows XP will know, there comes a point in the life of every computer when things just seem to take longer and longer to do. Most people think that the reason for this change is because their computer is getting old, however, the speed of your computer hasn’t changed since you first opened the box of your new PC. What has changed is the efficiency of the software that controls your computer, which is what most of us know as Windows XP.
This ‘Windows XP Slow effect’ is due to a number of reasons with the most common one coming from cluttering of files and the Windows Registry. For those who don’t spend their lives reading the latest PC World magazines, the registry is a file on the computer that stores all the settings and storage locations for everything else on the computer. As time passes by, this central file begins to fill up and gets quite complicated causing things to take a little longer, and in some cases a lot longer.
So to help make things easier for everyone, we’ve prepared a list of the top 5 tips to speed up your Windows XP PC:
- Run the Disk Cleanup wizard (this is found by clicking on the ‘Start‘ menu, then Programs, Accessories, and System Tools folders)
- Run the Disk Defragmenter program (this is found by clicking on the ‘Start’ menu, then Programs, Accessories, and System Tools folders
- Remove those programs that you no longer use on your computer (use the ‘Add/Remove Programs‘ application in the Control Panel which is normally located in the ‘Start’ menu as well)
- Remove the unnecessary programs from your startup folder (again in the ‘Start‘ menu, and under Programs, there is a folder called ‘Startup‘). The contains programs that will automatically start when your computer boots up and you can remove programs that you don’t use regularly.
- Clean up your Registry with a proper registry cleaner – this is by far the most important of the 5 tips and the one that will make the biggest difference to the speed of your PC. If you haven’t made much change to the speed of your Windows XP computer after you’ve completed the first 4 tasks, it means that you have problems with your Registry and they need to be fixed.
All of these can be done without the need of having to buy any software however, if you really wanted to make a big difference to the speed of your PC, you’ll need to get a good quality registry cleaner. They are fairly inexpensive and can save you from spending hundreds of dollars on a computer technician or even worse, a new computer.
If you’re not sure which registry cleaner will help make a difference to the speed of your computer, check out our latest reviews here: http://xpslow.org.
Windows XP Slow Blog 