Over the last several years working in IT for various companies as a Systems Administrator, Network Administrator, and Help Desk professional, I’ve written and learned about many ways to increase the performance of not only my PC, but also of the many PCs on my networks ranging from Windows 98 to Windows Vista.
In this article, I hope to compile a complete list of all the different methods and tricks that I’ve used to get the last bit of juice out of a slow PC. Whether you are using an old PC or the latest and greatest in hardware, you can still use some of these to make your PC run faster.
Note that since I write two blogs, Help Desk Geek and Online Tech Tips, I have previously written about many performance tips already which I will link back to throughout. If I have not written about it, I’ve throw in a link to a relevant article from some of my other favorite sites. This list is in no particular order, just written in the order that I could think of them.
There are probably a lot of great tweaks and performance hacks that I’ve missed here, so feel free to chime in with comments! Enjoy!
1. Defragment your computer hard disk using free tools like SmartDefrag.
2. You should also defragment your Windows pagefile and registry.
3. Clean up hard drive disk space being taken up by temporary files, the recycle bin, hibernation and more. You can also use a tool like TreeSize to determine what is taking up space on your hard drive.
4. Load up Windows faster by using Startup Delayer, a free program that will speed up the boot time of Windows by delaying the startup of programs.
5. Speaking of startup programs, many of them are useless and can be turned off. Use the MSCONFIG utility to disable startup programs.
6. By default, the size of the paging file is controlled by Windows, which can cause defragmentation. Also, the paging file should be on a different hard drive or partition than the boot partition. Read here on the rules for best paging file performance.
7. In Windows XP and Vista, the Windows Search indexing service is turned on for all local hard drives. Turning off indexing is a simple way to increase performance.
8. If you don’t care about all the fancy visual effects in Windows, you can turn them off by going to Performance Options.
9. You can optimize the Windows boot time using a free program called Bootvis from Microsoft.
10. Clean your registry by removing broken shortcuts, missing shared DLLs, invalid paths, invalid installer references and more. Read about the 10 best and free registry cleaners.
11. One of the main reasons why PC’s are slow is because of spyware. There are many programs to remove spyware including Ad-Aware, Giant Antispyware, SUPERAntiSpyware, and more.
12. If you have a deeper spyware infection that is very hard to remove, you can use HijackThis to remove spyware.
13. Remove unwanted pre-installed software (aka junk software) from your new PC using PC Decrapifier.
14. Disable unnecessary Windows services, settings, and programs that slow down your computer.
15. Tweak Windows XP and tweak Windows Vista settings using free programs
16. Disable UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista
17. Tweak your mouse settings so that you can copy and paste faster, scroll faster, navigate quickly while browsing and more. Read here to learn how to tweak your mouse.
18. Delete temporary and unused files on your computer using a free program like CCleaner. It can also fix issues with your registry.
19. Delete your Internet browsing history, temporary Internet files, cookies to free up disk space.
20. Clean out the Windows prefetch folder to improve performance.
21. Disable the XP boot logo to speed up Windows boot time.
22. Reduce the number of fonts that your computer has to load up on startup.
23. Force Windows to unload DLLs from memory to free up RAM.
24. Run DOS programs in separate memory spaces for better performance.
25. Turn off system restore only if you regularly backup your Windows machine using third party software.
26. Move or change the location of your My Documents folder so that it is on a separate partition or hard drive.
27. Turn off default disk performance monitors on Windows XP to increase performance.
28. Speed up boot time by disabling unused ports on your Windows machine.
29. Use Process Lasso to speed up your computer by allowing it to make sure that no one process can completely overtake the CPU.
30. Make icons appear faster while browsing in My Computer by disabling search for network files and printers.
31. Speed up browsing of pictures and videos in Windows Vista by disabling the Vista thumbnails cache.
32. Edit the right-click context menu in Windows XP and Vista and remove unnecessary items to increase display speed.
33. Use the Windows Performance Toolkit and the trace logs to speed up Windows boot time.
34. Speed up your Internet browsing by using an external DNS server such as OpenDNS.
35. Improve Vista performance by using ReadyBoost, a new feature whereby Vista can use the free space on your USB drive as a caching mechanism.
36. If you have a slow Internet connection, you can browse web pages faster using a service called Finch, which converts it into simple text.
37. Use Vista Services Optimizer to disable unnecessary services in Vista safely.
38. Also, check out my list of web accelerators, which are programs that try to prefetch and cache the sites you are going to visit.
39. Speed up Mozilla Firefox by tweaking the configuration settings and by installing an add-on called FasterFox.
40. Learn how to build your own computer with the fastest parts and best hardware.
41. Use a program called TeraCopy to speed up file copying in Windows XP and Vista.
42. Disable automatic Last Access Timestamp to speed up Windows XP.
43. Speed up the Start Menu in Vista by hacking the MenuShowDelay key in the registry.
44. Increase the FileSystem memory cache in Vista to utilize a system with a large amount of RAM.
45. Install more RAM if you are running XP with less than 512 MB or Vista with less than 1 GB of RAM.
46. Shut down XP faster by reducing the wait time to kill hung applications.
47. Make sure that you have selected “Adjust for best performance” on the Performance tab in System Properties.
48. If you are reinstalling Windows, make sure that you partition your hard drives correctly to maximize performance.
49. Use Altiris software virtualization to install all of your programs into a virtual layer that does not affect the registry or system files.
50. Create and install virtual machines for free and install junk program, games, etc into the virtual machines instead of the host operating system. Check out Sun openxVM.
51. Do not clear your paging file during shutdown unless it is needed for security purposes. Clearing the paging file slows down shutdown.
52. If your XP or Vista computer is not using NFTS, make sure you convert your FAT disk to the NTFS file system.
53. Update all of your drivers in Windows, including chipset and motherboard drivers to their latest versions.
54. Every once in a while run the built-in Windows Disk Cleanup utility.
55. Enable DMA mode in Windows XP for IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers in Device Manager.
56. Remove unnecessary or old programs from the Add/Remove dialog of the Control Panel.
57. Use a program click memtest86 or Prime95 to check for bad memory on your PC.
58. Determine your BIOS version and check the manufactures website to see if you need to update your BIOS.
59. Every once in a while, clean your mouse, keyboard and computer fans of dust and other buildup.
60. Replace a slow hard drive with a faster 7200 RPM drive, SATA drive, or SAS drive.
61. Changing from Master/Slave to Cable Select on your hard drive configuration can significantly decrease your boot time.
62. Perform a virus scan on your computer regularly. If you don’t want to install virus protection, use some of the free online virus scanners.
63. Remove extra toolbars from your Windows taskbar and from your Internet browser.
64. Disable the Windows Vista Sidebar if you’re not really using it for anything important. All those gadgets take up memory and processing power.
65. If you have a SATA drive and you’re running Windows Vista, you can speed up your PC by enabling the advanced write caching features.
66. Learn how to use keyboard shortcuts for Windows, Microsoft Word, Outlook, or create your own keyboard shortcuts.
67. Turn off the Aero visual effects in Windows Vista to increase computer performance.
68. If you are technically savvy and don’t mind taking a few risks, you can try to overclock your processor.
69. Speed up the Send To menu in Explorer by typing “sendto” in the Run dialog box and deleting unnecessary items.
70. Make sure to download all the latest Windows Updates, Service Packs, and hot fixes as they “normally” help your computer work better.
71. Make sure that there are no bad sectors or other errors on your hard drive by using the ScanDisk orchkdsk utility.
72. If you are not using some of the hardware on your computer, i.e. floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, USB ports, IR ports, Firewire, etc, then go into your BIOS and disable them so that they do not use any power and do not have to be loaded during boot up.
73. If you have never used the Recent Documents feature in Windows, then disable it completely as a long list can affect PC performance.
74. One basic tweak that can help in performance is to disable error reporting in Windows XP
75. If you don’t care about a pretty interface, you should use the Windows Classic theme under Display Properties.
76. Disable short filenames if you are using NTFS by running the following command: fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 1. It will speed up the file creation process.
77. If you have lots of files in a single folder, it can slow down Explorer. It’s best to create multiple folders and spread out the files between the folders.
78. If you have files that are generally large, you might want to consider increasing the cluster size on NTFS to 16K or even 32K instead of 4K. This will help speed up opening of files.
79. If you have more than one disk in your PC, you can increase performance by moving your paging file to the second drive and formatting the volume using FAT32 instead of NTFS.
80. Turn off unnecessary features in Vista by going to Control Panel, choosing Uninstall a program, and then clicking on Turn Windows features on and off. You can turn off Remote Differential Compression, Tablet PC components, DFS replication service, Windows Fax & Scan, Windows Meeting Space, and lots more.
81. Install a free or commercial anti-virus program to help protect against viruses, etc. Make sure to use an anti-virus program that does not hog up all of your computer resources.
82. Completely uninstall programs and applications using a program like Revo Uninstaller. It will get rid of remnants left behind by normal uninstalls.
83. If you know what you are doing, you can install several hard drives into your machine and set them up in RAID 0, RAID 5, or other RAID configurations.
84. If you are using USB 1.0 ports, upgrade to 2.0. If you have a Firewire port, try to use that instead of a USB port since Firewire is faster than USB right now.
85. Remove the drivers for all old devices that may be hidden in Device Manager that you no longer use.
86. A more extreme option is to choose a faster operating system. If you find Vista to be slow, go with Windows XP. Switching to Mac or Linux is also an option.
87. One of the easiest ways to speed up your PC is to simply reformat it. Of course, you want to backup your data, but it is the best way to get your computer back to peak performance.
88. Speed up Internet browsing in IE by increasing the number of max connections per server in the registry.
89. If you use uTorrent to download torrents, you can increase the download speeds by tweaking the settings.
90. If you have a desktop background, make sure it’s a small and simple bitmap image rather than a fancy picture off the Internet. The best is to find a really small texture and to tile it.
91. For the Virtual Memory setting in Windows (right-click on My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory), make sure the MIN and MAX are both the same number.
92. If you search on Google a lot or Wikipedia, you can do it much faster on Vista by adding them to the Vista Start Menu Instant Search box.
93. If you have a custom built computer or a PC that was previously used, make sure to check the BIOS for optimal settings such as enabled CPU caches, correctly set IDE/SATA data transfer modes, memory timings, etc. You can also enable Fast/Quick boot if you have that option.
94. If you have a SCSI drive, make sure the write cache is enabled. You can do so by opening the properties of the SCSI drive in Windows.
95. If you have a machine with an older network card, make sure to enable the onboard processor for the network card, which will offload tasks from the CPU.
96. If you are using Windows Vista, you can disable the Welcome Center splash screen that always pops up.
97. If you already have anti-spyware software installed, turn off Windows Defender protection.
98. If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows and have 4GB of RAM or more, you can force Windows to see and use all of the RAM by enabling PAE.
99. Buy a new computer!!! ;) Pretty easy eh?
I’m sure I have missed out on lots of performance tweaks, tips, hacks, etc, so feel free to post comments to add to the list! Enjoy!
Wow, that's a long list, better get started.
Thanks for compiling.
Nice list – but you missed one – hide the common tasks in the explorer window.
Thank you both, welldone.
Wouldn't it be much easier and faster to just back up all your data and then reinstall windows?
Of course if you have a lot of software installed, try this:
1) Resintall windows
2) Install all the software just the way you like it
3) Make a backup image of the hard drive
Now whenever Windows starts to get slow, you can restore from the backup image and it's as good as new!
[...] questo, Helpdesk Geek ha stilato una completissima lista di 99 modi diversi di velocizzare Windows e ottimizzare le prestazioni del tuo PC. Si va da consigli più o meno “banali” (che però è giusto ricordare), come [...]
#98 is incorrect. Doesn't matter what you do, any 32-Bit OS will only see about 3.2-3.4GB, not the full 4GB.
New blog Aseem? Cool post!
please explain how removing files from a hard disk improves speed? (you can't) and this is the sort of misinformation that causes people to delete files or even un-install software for no reason. please study CS101 before posting garbage like this. hint: everything occurs in WS.
I think many of these are becoming less true the better of an OS you get. If you are still working with Windows XP- These things will make a WORLD of difference. It will feel like a new computer. If you are running OSX then many of these are either pointless or well automated. (or, Windows 7, I find that they took care of many of these issues BEAUTIFULLY in the update… This list is why Windows 7 will be the best Windows yet… but it's still in beta)
You have the incorrect link in #65 – it's links to the same URL as #64.
I would like to see hard evidence on whether defragging for today's hard drives (large) for the average user (not a whole lot of data) is truly helpful. Techs in my computer shop argue it is not under those circumstances.
@Will – I wrote reformatting the computer as one of the tips, however, I think it's also something not a lot of people know how to do. These small little tweaks can go a long way for a non tech-savvy computer user.
@Brain – Are you sure? Then what is PAE exactly for?
@Syahid – Thanks man! Two blogs going now!
@benevolent – What exactly are you talking about! Are you saying that installing 100 apps on a computer will not slow it down? I don't know what kind of computer you have been using, but getting rid of junk temp files and useless programs has worked wonders…why do you think people uninstall all the preloaded software from a new PC (hint: to make it fast!)
@christina – I agree with you…these tips are mostly for Windows XP and Vista…which still can have loads of problems in terms of performance. Windows 7 should be a lot better…
@TechnicalBard – Thanks, I'll fix that.
@edwest – Well if you are a user without a lot of data and have a huge hard drive, then you are correct. It's really only useful if you have a lot of files (small or large) and your hard drive is not that big.
I use Linux, so I don't have to do any of this crap.
You could just condense this to one item. Get Linux.
Re benevolent anarchist's post – I agree that removing programs from your hard drive will not in itself make the PC faster. I use the analogy that the hard drive is like a bookcase, putting more books on it doesn't affect the speed at which you can read a book once you've picked it off the shelf.
The only way uninstalling programs will speed a PC up is if the program you removed was loaded up at boot time. The PC will boot faster and you'll have more memory available. Also, reducing the number of files on the hard drive will have a positive effect if you've got indexing on – less files means less to index.
But if the program isn't loaded up at boot time, and indexing is off, I can't see how uninstalling it will make the PC any faster at all.
Cleaning the prefetch folder doesn't do anything to improve performance. In fact, it has the effect of REDUCING it. http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000619.html
Good !
Thanks …
Wow, what a list! I didn't realize you could even do some of these things. Very helpful. Thank you!
@bob, @Mike – I should have named this 99 ways to make your Windows computer blazingly fast. Definitely Linux users would not have to worry about these issues.
@Dan – I would also say that having more programs means that your registry is more cluttered, which means Windows loads slower since it is always accessing the registry. And yes, taking a book off the shelf would take the same time for any book, but finding the book is what takes more time when you have more books.
@ Alf – Interesting point. I will read into that. I might add your point to my tip as a counter argument.
1 ways to make your computer blazingly fast:
Using Linux.
Great list of tips. There was about 15 different tips that I was able to apply to my XP and Vista machines immediately.
#6 is misleading. Paging file size has nothing to do with actual file storage/allocation. I think you may be thinking of page file fragmentation(which is way different from file fragmentation). Also, if this was the case, I think it would cause 'fragmentation'(defragmentation is usually a good thing).
Hi, those were really nice and hidden tips. thanks for sharing with us. It did helped me indeed in making my computer a little faster.
Generally I'm good with keeping my computer speedy (anti-spyware, degrag etc) but there were some new things on this list that never occurred to me – nice one!
However I think clearing the prefetch (#20) is a myth:
http://lifehacker.com/5033518/debunking-common-wi…
Nice list, I would not dare waste my time on all the 99.
But setting up a page file on a different hard drive.
and boot startup programs can be delayed, because 99% when I boot I log in to my email.
ANYWAYS keep it up.
[...] I decided to write about this software because it helped me clean out several old installations of Norton that would simply not go away using Add/Remove programs. It’s a very good idea to remove these types of programs as it will speed up your computer. [...]
You missed 100 to switch over to mac OS. :)
Wow, just wow, did any of the mac/linux junkies even read the article? He very clearly suggests that moving to a faster operating system would improve performance. Vista<slower than XP<slower than mac OS<slower than linux (maybe mac and linux switched, not sure).
And to all the people arguing about clearing the prefetch folder….. if errors in the prefetch folder are so rare (from on the the posted links de-bunking the prefetch speed up myth), why are there so many people who ONLY clean out their prefetch folder and their PC speeds up? I'm not saying it's the prefetch, it probably is errors in the information in the prefetch folder just like many people have suggested, but it seems to me that the errors are pretty common. For people who don't have the time or energy to tear their computer apart looking for the real problem, clearing the prefetch folder seems like a pretty good, once-a-week/once-a-month solution.
26. Move or change the location of your My Documents folder so that it is on a separate partition or hard drive.
The access time to a remote drive or even partition will be slower.
This is a good tip if it is needed, however it would not speed up the computer, it would slow it down.
huge list !! gr8 !! :)
About Physical Address Extension (PAE)
If I remember correctly, it DOES allow use of over ~3.5GB of RAM in 32bit Windows XP and Vista Operating Systems in some circumstances, however, PAE works in the background, separate and somewhat unknown by the Windows OS, and has limitations. Since the methods that PAE uses are at least partially independent from the OS, Windows still only reports that it is using/able to use ~3.5GB. As I read (wish I could find the article with the explanation again to post it here) PAE doesn't enable Windows itself to make use of the additional (>3.5GB) RAM directly by means of caching small files there, but, if the user attempts to open a large file, such as a image or video file, PAE will essentially intercept the memory request and remap it so that the file is able to continue on into the previously unusable memory space.
Superb compilation.
Last point is good :) LOL
26 also has the effect of removing all of your precious data away from C drive, so that if (& when) you need to re-install Windows, you only need to have a few key items like your Firefox profile (& perhaps your outlook folder) backed up & you can then confidently wipe the C drive & go ahead.
I always install machines with 20 Gigs in C drive & the rest in D drive. One of my first activities after that is to MOVE the My Documents folder to the root of the D drive, where it will quite happily adopt whatever is there.
Faster computer in 2 steps only:
1) Format disk
2) Install Ubuntu Linux
You are done…
Revo Uninstaller also does a lot of things to speedup your computer! Check it out you!
Any tips to improve the speed with MAC OS???
Please help. Forget which tip I used, but it has disabled both Firefox 3 and IE7 Neither one will load a web page to tabs. Any ideas on how to fix? (In case you're wondering, I'm using Google Chrome). Thanx
WOW what a list thanks for taking the time to create it. Greatly appreciated!
Typical "I think i'm better than you because I run Linux" users, Who sadly have no clue about computing. Everyone knows that Linux can be faster than windows, there is no need to point it out here on a blog with tips aimed at windows users!
1. Most Linux users use Windows aswell, primarily for playing games and other apps that Linux can't run.
2. I work for a multinational company with offices all over the world. You can't just switch them to linux. It don't work like that i'm afraid.
3. Average Joe at home WILL find the transition to Linux a struggle, and at the end of the day not worth the hassle.
So think before your next "Just install ubuntu" comment, it doesn't make you sound clever. In fact the opposite.
> 99 ways to make your computer blazingly fast
Ahh… I think you mean, 99 ways to make Windows a bit faster. Seriously these are all limited to the Windows OS.
Step 1 should have been "Install Debian Linux" and step 2 "learn some quick package management skills to 'apt-get install kde xorg' ". Rather than spending the time on the other 97 tips here, just get a fast secure system that doesn't have these issues to begin with.
I Agree with the above comment by lefty these 99 ways are limited to Windows OS only
Lots of useful tips. Some things are more beneficial than others, depends on your hardware, computer type and OS version as well. Or just switch to Ubuntu…
Brian, #98 actually is correct. Enabling PAE will cause a 32-bit OS to reconize memory beyond ~3.2GB, but the motherboard needs to correctly support PAE to begin with. This is used in server that have way more than 4GB memory and still a 32-bit server OS ;)
In the tip "22" I copied the fonts back to the original font folder (I realized there were no changes), but still some fonts doesn't appear anymore on Internet Explorer. Could you please tell me how can I fix it??
Great list. Thanks for all the info.
And by installing all those programs you slow down your computer even worse then it was before…tisk tisk
Great list. Most of these are quite useful.
To all the idiots saying "get linux". Get over yourselves. We all know that *nix systems are NOT for everybody and will never be the mainstream home OS. My primary machine still runs a Windows OS, and probably always will. When you say things like that, all you do is make yourself sound like an elitist douchebag.
Yeah, the linux thing is a little silly. I love it for myself but it will never be mainstream. Try troubleshooting linux problems with a non-power user over the phone. You'll be saying 'install windows' after a couple weeks.
Imagine having to do these things to get your OS to perform satisfactorily. Lots of work I must say. Why do people have to put in so much effort maintaining their PC's. When are we going to reach a stage where PC's should only be used and the maintenance of it be almost unheard of like the many appliances we use. Where the failure rate is low. The point being that if a PC slows down as to be almost unusable is as good as having failed.
The closest to this low maintenance scenario are the open source OS's. They need a much lower level of maintenance. The PC with an open source OS is close to the ideal of 'It just works'.
Good list. Helpful. However……prefetch should be left alone. Windows clears and reloads the prefetch every 60 days or so (I forgot the exact interval) automatically based on user activity. Manually clearing the prefetch actually slows down browsing and app launching. You mentioned Smart Defrag. IOBIT has a nifty app containing it's Smart Defrag and other cool tools plus a bunch of very useful utilities…its called Advanced System Care…and its free. The Foxit PDF reader is smaller and faster than Adobe and is free. Also, Malwarebytes Anti Malware will snag nasties other virus scanners miss. Its free too. Everyone should try Open DNS. If you don't like it, its easy to reverse, but, you probably won't want to go back to your ISP's DNS. Always back up your registry before mucking about in there. One wrong keystroke or click could cripple your PC. Vista is indeed the Edsel of OS's. Lets hope for our sake that Microsoft can redeem itself with Windows 7 the way Ford did with the Mustang.