Windows tips & tricks

[Friendz]

How to Increase Windows Speed


Step1 Defrag your hard drive as needed. Go to "My Computer" to find your hard disk drive. It usually is designated as the "C" drive. Right click on the hard drive. Click "Properties." Choose "Tools" to find Defragmentation. Click "Defrag Now," and follow the onscreen prompts to consolidate fragmented data.



Step2 Clean out temporary file folders. Go to the "Tools" menu option in your browser window and click "Internet Options." Find the section for Temporary Internet files, and click "Delete Files." You can also access temporary files through Windows Explorer. Do this regularly, as temporary folders accumulate quickly. If you don't want the hassle, buy a "windows washer" program that will automate the process.



Step3 Remove your desktop wallpaper. Desktop graphics can use quite a bit of memory, and anything that uses this much memory slows your computer. Right click on your desktop. Click on "Properties." Choose "Desktop." For "Background," select "None" and click "OK."



Step4 Delete unused programs. During software installation, other programs sometimes piggyback onto other programs. Go to your Control Panel and check Add/Remove Programs. Delete programs that you never use from the list.



Step5 Get rid of unused folders as well. Your hard drive is programmed to check folders when starting. Delete folders you no longer need. Computer techs say you can also delete these folders in Windows: Driver Cache, Prefetch and RegisteredPackages.



Step6 Stop "Indexing Services" if you don't search your computer very often. Indexing Services is continually updating lists of files on your computer so that searches go faster. Go to "Add/Remove Programs" in your Control Panel. Click "Add/Remove Window Components," and remove the checkmark next to "Indexing Services."



Step7 Eliminate unnecessary start-up programs to add some speed. As a temporary fix, you can bypass start-up programs by holding down the shift key while you're booting up. For a longterm solution, go to C:\Windows\Tasks, and delete the shortcuts of programs you don't want to run automatically. Delete other start-up programs by clicking on "All Programs" and selecting "Startup." Right click programs you want to remove. It's best to do this one program at a time and reboot.

[annie]

A modern PC with Vista Home Edition takes about one and a half minutes to boot. An older machine with XP is about the same. That’s 30 seconds for the PC itself (the BIOS) to boot up, plus a minute for the Windows operating system to boot.

Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.

The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.

Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice.

Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down combo box under “What do you want the computer to do?” to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.

[Zer(O)]

good tricks