|
1. Wallpapers: They
slow your whole system down, so if you're willing to compromise, have a basic
plain one instead!
|
|
|
|
2. Drivers: Update your hardware drivers as frequently as
possible. New drivers tend to increase system speed especially in the
case of graphics cards, their drivers are updated by the manufacturer very
frequently!
|
|
|
|
3. Minimizing: If you want to use several programs at the same time
then minimize those you are not using. This helps reduce the overload
on RAM.
|
|
|
|
4. Boot Faster: The 'starting Windows 98/XP' message on startup can
delay your booting for a couple of seconds. To get rid of this message
go to c:\ and find the file Msdos.sys. Remove the Read-Only
option. Next, open it in Notepad or any other text editor.
Finally, go to the text 'Options' within the file and make the following
changes: Add BootDelay=0. To make your booting even faster, set add
Logo=0 to remove the Windows logo at startup.
|
|
|
|
5. Restart only Windows: When restarting your pc, hold down Shift to
only restart Windows rather than the whole system which will only take a
fraction of the time.
|
|
|
|
6. Turn Off Animations: Go to Display Settings from the
Control Panel and switch to the Effects Tab. Now turn off Show
Windows Content While Dragging and Smooth Edges on Screen Fonts.
This tip is also helpful with Windows XP because of the various fade/scroll
effects.
|
|
|
|
7. Faster Start-Menu Access: Go to the Start menu and select Run.
Now type Regedit and hit Enter. The Registry Editor will appear
on the screen. Now, open the folder.
|
|
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control
Panel\Desktop. You
should see a MenuShowDelay value. If you don't then do the following:
right click on a blank space in the right pane and select New\String.
Change the name in the new value to MenuShowDelay. Now that we
have the MenuShowDelay value, double click on it and enter 0 in
the value data field. This sets the start menu delay to 0 milliseconds.
|
|
|
|
8. Resolutions: If you are willing to do anything for faster
performance from your PC, then try lowering your display resolution.
The lower it is, the faster your PC.
|
|
|
|
9. Turn off Active Desktop: Go to your Display Properties and
switch to the Web tab. Uncheck View My Active Desktop As a
Web Page. Since the Active Desktop option under Windows 98 uses a
lot of system resources, this option can have a dramatic effect on the speed
of the whole system.
|
|
|
|
10. Defragment Often: Windows 98's Defrag tool uses Application
Acceleration from Intel which means that when you defragment your drive,
data is physically arranged on the drive so that applications will load
faster.
|
|
|
|
11. Take your PC to Bed: Using the Advanced Power Management
feature under Windows 98 gives you the option to use the sleep command.
That way, you can send your PC to sleep instead of shutting it down and then
restarting it. It's as simple as pressing a button and then pressing
the same button to wake it up. You can tell Windows after how many
minutes/hours of inactivity to automatically sleep the machine in the Advanced
Power Management section of the Control Panel.
|
|
|
|
12. Faster Internet Access: If you use the internet for reference and the sites
you visit are rarely updated then try the following. In IE (the
same can be done in Netscape) go to Tools, Internet Options.
Next, click on Settings... in the Temporary Internet Files
section. Finally, select Never for the first option and double
the amount of storage space to use, click OK!
|
|
|
|
13. Benchmarking: Benchmarking can be very useful when run
frequently. It can tell you how your PC's components are performing and
then compare them to other machines like yours. For example, when you
overclock your PC, you want to know how much more speed you have and whether
it is stable. All this and more can be discovered using
benchmarking. An excellent piece of software for doing this job is SiSoft
Sandra which can be found in the Downloads File Archive!
|
|
|
|
14. Refresh the Taskbar without
restarting: If you in
some way change the taskbar, either in Regedit or elsewhere, you can refresh
the task bar without restarting. Hold down Ctrl Alt Del,
and double click on Explorer. Say Yes to close Explorer, but no
to closing Windows. This will refresh the Taskbar and system tray.
|
|
|
|
15. Quick CD Eject: Instead of pushing the button on your drive,
right-click your CD drive letter in My Computer and click on Eject.
This will also remove any icons that have become associated with the CD
drive.
|
|
|
|
16. Start Up Programs: Windows can be slowed down when programs
run on start up. To eliminate this, check your Start up folder.
You can access it from the start menu: Start, Programs, Start
Up. Another way to eliminate programs from loading even before
Windows actually starts is by doing the following: Click on Start,
then Run. Type msconfig. It will take quite a long
time for this program to load, but when you finally see it on your screen,
explore the different tabs. They all have to do with how quickly your
PC boots, so select what you want, and uncheck what you don't want!
|
|
|
|
17. Fonts: When Windows starts, it loads every single font in the
Fonts folder. Therefore, the more fonts you have, the slower the
booting process. To get rid of unwanted fonts, simply go to the Fonts
folder under c:\windows and remove whatever you don't want. Fonts that
have a red letter 'A' as their icon are system fonts, so don't delete them.
|
|
|
|
18. Stretching Wallpapers: Don't "stretch" your wallpaper
in Windows 98 since it actually slows Windows down when you drag icons around
on the desktop.
|
|
|
|
19. RAM Matters: If you have less than 32MB then you should seriously
think of upgrading it to at least 64MB. Windows runs much more smoothly
with 64MB or higher and tends to use less hard disk space for virtual memory.
|
|
|
|
20. Partitioning: A very nice little thing you can do to boost system
performance. By partitioning your hard drive, splitting one physical
drive into several logical ones, you can gain several advantages. 1. If
you get a virus or you accidentally format a drive, not all will be
lost. 2. By placing the swap file (Win386.swp) on a separate drive, The
swap file will be less fragmented and thus, faster. 3. Place Windows on a
separate drive and whenever you need to reinstall it, you rest assured that
your data is safe on a separate drive. Partitioning can be done using a
few programs such as FDisk which comes with DOS. However, FDisk formats
everything on the hard disk before partitioning. Alternatively, you can use
Partition Magic from Power Quest to partition your hard disk without losing
your data.
|
“IF
YOU LIKE IT THAN SHARE IT”
From
: Amit Kothari
