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!
This is great! This is the most comphensive listing of Windows speed enhancements that I have run across.
Very useful tips. You could even publish everything together as a e-book.
Great effort!
Thanks for the list, I will have to try a few and see what the results are.
Thanks for all the advice! It has worked wonders. This may be off subject, but I've noticed another thing that has helped my speed a lot as far as internet browsing. For one, the type of browser you use effects a lot. I use firefox. If you edit userChrome.css and the like (there are a couple more in there) you can improve performance amazingly well. User.js is the other main one. http://webdesigns.ms11.net/chromeditp.html makes things a lot easier than going the 'about:config' route. You can google through lists of good tweaks. If anyone is interested in any just email me at monopoles@hotmail.com
This is a very comprehensive list you have here. I have tried a number of these myself and they can do wonders.
Thanks for the effort you put into coming up with this post.
I'm sure it will help a lot of people.
Good Job!
If you think the number of installed programs affects system speed, and that registry cleaning is necessary or helpful, and defragging will make a significant difference in performance, it indicates that you have no idea what you're talking about.
#1 WAY TO MAKE YOUR COMPUTER BLAZING FAST…GET MAC OR LINUX SCREW WINDOWS
Turning off the boot logo? O.o That thing's 500kb big at max, how is this shortening the boot process? 46 is downright dangerous and could lead to data loss.
In general most of those tips wont make your computer noticeably faster, diabling ports may work on a 486 but won't make much difference on the average pc at all.
GET A MAC!
My own strategy to diagnosing a slow/unresponsive computer:
1. Check signs of malware and use something like MBAM <a href="http:// (www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php)” target=”_blank”> <a href="http://(www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php)” target=”_blank”>(www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php) to clean it up
2. Use tip #5 to oust legit programs from startup (Quicktime (qttask.exe), Adobe Reader, DVD/CD burner software, printer/scanner utils, sound control panels, keyboard/mouse utils, etc.) Evaluate whether useful functionality is lost (react to scanner buttons, keyboard media keys, etc.) and re-enable if necessary. For more extreme measures, disable programs such as IM clients or switch to leaner alternative programs (Foxit, Pidgin, VLC, etc.)
3. Spend the cash on tip
#4. – 5. DDR and DDR2 esp. are dirt cheap.
All of this is really designed to prevent memory usage from hitting close to 100% with normal usage and causing large amounts of paging, which is what typically causes computers to become "slow".
#40 is a great way to get a higher quality/cheaper machine if you research parts/shop for deals. Plus you start with a clean Windows install and don't need #13!
#7 may not be "faster" if you do a lot of searching, esp. in Vista with start menu search.
#16 I wouldn't recommend. Instead if you get excessive UAC prompts, give yourself higher permissions in folders that make sense, such as the Start Menu. UAC is needed to use IE or Chrome sandbox mode.
#67 May actually slow desktop response if you have a fast video card. Windows 7 also stores the image of each window solely in VRAM, which means turning off Aero would use MORE main memory.
#81 seems contrary to this article. For the computer savvy, not running antivirus helps a lot, especially on older machines.
#86 may make a machine run faster, and be better in the long run, but the learning curve will definately make the user less efficent in the short term. Learning curve length would vary quite a bit, depending on what kinds of software someone uses and would have to learn replacements for. If Computer = web browser = Firefox, then the switch could be pretty quick/painless. In my personal experience, Linux (Gnome) seems less responsive than Windows, but of course that's just one measure of speed.
OK…i have been in the computer repair/installation world since about 99. i have watched the evolution of the OS's…*nix open source OS, The Microsoft OS, and the Apple OS. So….that being said, YES there has been issues with Windows…and the other companies have practically shouted about it since the creation of Windows.
What better way to hide one's own flaws than go NUTS about someone elses? The thing they all have seemed to overlook…is that even with all the flaws Windows has….it is still the "easiest, most User friendly OS" out there. Look me in the eye and tell me that the average joe will be able to sit down at a *nix computer and get it to do what he wants. And don't get me started on the Macintosh/Apple OS.
SO…in argument, YES windows has issues…but rather than just saying "go with *nix" because it happened to work for you…why not use your obvious knowledge of computing skills….and HELP someone!
All but maybe 10 of these aren't even a problem in Linux because Linux, unlike Windows, isn't broken in its design.
What an awesome post!
Loved it!Really helping!You rock computer geek!
Keep sharing these kinda stuff!
Switching to Ubuntu Linux definitely resolves the issues. It is much faster and infinitely more stable than any Windows OS. I mention Ubuntu simply because it is the most popular and easy to use for the vast majority of users out there. I meant no disrespect to the other Linux distributions out there as there are many good Linux distros.
I've gone through a defrag after making an image backup of my system and my Windows XP system is running much quicker. Thanks for the tips. So far this seems to be the best laid out list of Windows performance tips I've found on the web. Just read one comment regarding Windows being the easiest to use and strongly disagree. I've been using the FREE Ubuntu OS for some time and find it easier to use and much faster then Windows. The only hangup is when you come accross a program that's not ported to a Linux distro. But that the fault of the app Vendor not the OS.
Thanks….. These are very useful tips
Thank you for this helpful post. I appreciate your willingness to share knowledge instead of keeping it to yourself.
Now I'm enjoying the benefits of your article.
Wow 99 ways, now if only we can find a software that will automate at least half of these important but admittedly mundane tasks. This is some really great research, and how to speed up ones pc is about one of the most asked computer tech questions – Well done!
useful list. If you follow 5 important maintenance tasks, you can always increase the performance of your computer.
Check out..
pcsplace.com/tips-n-tricks/5-maintenance-tasks-that-improve-performance-of-computer/
Thanks a lot for this!
I really was getting tired of my pc being slow.
And for all saying this doesn't work, I am witnessing my PC get faster with every point.
Thanks!
Great Tips – I will be trying these out tonight, thanks :)
Shame about the negative comments above…
Sharon
I use Linux.
Fast. Reliable.
Almost impossible to break, in fact I have never broken it with all the fiddling I do – installing/uninstalling all the FREE software to try out new things.
And over a year down the line, it is still as fast as ever and never once had a system freeze etc.
As a windows user all my life prior to this, the last straw was buying a new laptop with Vista on it and realising how slow and inefficient it was out of the box and just didn't do what I wanted it to do (watch and recode video etc. etc.).
Dual booting with Linux and I can't remember the last time I booted into Vista… don't need to as the software (which is OpenSource and free) on Linux is generally (99% of the time) MUCH better than the windows equivalents and just works without tweaking, fiddling around etc.
Best of all… it is FREE.
Microsoft has had it's day.
If I owned MS shares, I would definately have sold or be looking for other places to invest my money.
Google is bringing out it's own OS soon as well.
Microsoft's answer? Windows 7 and another large bill for PC users to carry on using a second rate OS.
Rant over!
I love how the Mac cultists suggest that OSX is actually faster without actually using a well-optimized XP on the same PC to compare. I have OSX and XP (with Litestep) on this Macbook. XP simply runs rings around OSX. And everything takes less clicks. Mac people make me laugh.
Comment by: Prasanth Chandra, July 13th, 2009 @5:38 am
"Check out.. pcsplace.com/tips-n-tricks/5-maintenance-tasks-that-improve-performance-of-computer/"
Site is listed as potentially Deadangerous by WOT.
#9 is wrong. Even Microsoft has debunked this.
#10 is unnecessary and can even make your PC unbootable.
#20 will actually slow down your PC and cause your PC to boot slower. Leave the prefetch files alone.
#21 is pointless. What is it gonna do, shave 1/10th of a second off your boot time? Give me a break.
#23 can cause programs to hang, crash, etc. Don't do this.
#25 System Restore is priceless. Don't disable this. You might regret it one day no matter how many backups you have.
Show me proof that #27 and #28 do anything.
#39 is smoke and mirrors and can actually cause your browsing to slow down and/or not work at all.
I'm not even going to continue through this list. Thumbs down from me.
If you want to speed up your computer, buy more RAM. It's cheap.
It actually amazes me how I could reduce a list of 99 fixes to maybe 10 or 15 when I just use something other than Windows.
Oh, and to all the anti-Linux naysayers in the comments saying its too hard: I've successfully converted several people who are far from tech savvy. When they have problems (Only happened a few times.) I have no issues helping them fix it.
And the ONLY reason Windows is "user friendly," so-called, is because you've USED it extensively. Many a /. poster has pointed out that if the situation were reversed and we all grew up on Linux we'd be bashing Windows as the steep learning curve and praising Linux as the "user friendly," so-called, operating system.
"User friendly" is a myth.
Great tips…. definitely noticed less sluggishness with my system.. thanks…
this really helped my computer….my virus scan detected a trojan horse virus from one of your error fixing links…
Linux.
Skinny Puppy, Browser Puppy,
Freakishly fast on my 700 Mhz dumpster Pc.
UBUNTU is idiot proof and user friendly…a little bloated but you can
whittle it down and the new one (Fawn or Jackalope) loves faster new PCs. Even found my wireless with no problem.
Great list, I still have windows cowering in the dark on a dual boot, I may let it out to see the light of day.
The only real way to make a PC go faster is to make sure you are on a higher floor when you drop it out the window!!
Dude, get a Mac.
Good post…I will bookmark this post.Thank you.
Some mediocre to flat out bad advice in this article. I'd say 1/5th or so of these methods are actually valid enough to work and not break a computer if a novice is performing these steps.
I'm with the guy that says to take a few computer classes, and never post something like this unless you are an IT professional.
Which yes, I am.
give me a good reason why macs are soo good? just because everyone says so? Watch pirates of the valley, Steve Jobs is worse than Gates! face the truth!
This is excellent. Finally all the ways to speed up Windows in one place.
Great Post. I'm going to subscribe on your feeds.
Thank you very much – 99 ways i was looking for maybe a few ways to sort out my vista – taking ages to load up……i have bookmarked this for future ref.
That's a great list of performance tips! I'll come again and again :)
Thnx for the tips! really helpful optimizing my xp:)
hmm, its funny how to make a pc run faster you need to install 99 programs which will make the pc run slower than before!
A complete list of Windows tweaks. What I do to my PC is defrag regularly, use ccleaner, and never use windows Aero ;)
Since reading all the above comments could someone pick out the (lets say ) the best five optimization tips to use…
Thanks for compiling this list. It depends on us whether to use it or not. As for ID "geeknik", perhaps u should try the modification before u disagree with it! I've done SOME of the ways above even before I read this list and they work fine!
I would have to agree that most of these are pretty good, but some you have to be careful about. My recommendation to most people is to simply reformat their computers every 6 months or use virtualization software.
To all of the linux and mac users, you are sooooo full of crap!!!!! I have several friends who use both mac’s osx and linux ubuntu (or however it’s spelled), and we frequently get together to test our computers against each other. I am running win 7 ultimate, and i kick their butt’s every single time.
No matter what they come up with, i always beat them. Ubuntu may be a faster os, but it can’t do squat! It is boring, and doesn’t have half of the abilities or programs to do the things i want to do. The mac’s take several more click’s, and are consistently slower at everything we try. The only thing i give mac’s credit for, is the multi-finger mouse funcx’s. Those are cool. But the linux is so limited in what you can do with it, i wouldn’t even load it as a dual boot os.
Almost all of the problems people have with windows is operator error. For instance, so many people complaining before about the user account security notices in vista… turn them off! It took two clicks! Others saying they can’t find things in vista. Type anything into the search box on the start menu, and it appears as you type. Done! Maybe if half of those people had a brain, and some common sense they wouldn’t have so many problems.
I will put my win 7 ult os, up against anyone else os, any place, any time! All of you linux and mac users, can kiss my cache!!!!!!!!
It would be real nice if you could come up with a list like the above for MAC's as well.
Thanks for all the performance tips! see you next time:):):):)
If I install Linux in my PC, will I still be able to reinstall my old programs or will I have to find the Linux versions? Because if thats the case, why would I want to bother with Linux just because its faster, but I wont be able to work my programs.
I can almost summarize all of these tips into one! Install windows 7 :P