Optimizing Your Pc, Part One (windows Xp)

THE PERPOUS OF THIS TUTORIAL IM GOING TO WRITE IS TO LEARN AS WELL AS EDUCATE ,I WOULD APRECEATE ANY ADDITIONS OR CORRECTIONS TO IT,IM ASSUMING MOST OF YOU HAVE ALOT OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WINDOWS ,THIS IS WRITTEN SPISIFICALLY ABOUT WINDOWS XP ,CAUSE THAT IS WHAT I HAVE MAINLY USED LEARNING EVERYTHING BELOW(THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT WRITING ANYTHING OF THIS NATURE,I WILL ADD TO IT AS I LEARN MORE OR ,REMEMBER WHAT I LEARNED LOL)



TO START WITH FIRST THING IVE LEARNED ABOUT OPTIMIZING MY P.C. (600MGZ DURON MACHINE) WAS PROPERLY INSTALLING WINDOWS , MOST OF YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO FORMAT WITH WINDOWS SO ILL START A FEW STEPS FORWARD ,AFTER INSTALLING WINDOWS FIRST THING TO DO IS DEFRAG ,THEN FIND A ISP THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SET UP A INTERNET CONNECTION MANUALLY (HAVENT TRIED UPDATEING WITH (CABLE ,DSL ECT)YET(any isp with software you have to install will cause your computer to get a runtime error)since i mentioned that let me point out something important ,WHE I UPDATE AFTER REFORMATING ,WHICH I HAVE DONE A MILLION TIMES ON THIS COMPUTER(FINALLY PERFECTED THE SETUP ON MY COMP THOUGH :D ALOT OF TIMES IF YOU HAVE AN OLDER MACHINE YOU WILL GET AN ERROR WHILE DOWNLOADING ,WHAT I DO IS LOG OFF AND REBOOT BEFORE THE MINUTE IS UP THAT WAY IT SAVES WHAT I HAVE DOWNLOADED SOFAR ,I USALLY HAVE TO REBOOT 10 TIMES DURING UPDATEING ,THE NEXT STEP AFTER UPDAING IS DEFRAGING AGAIN ,THEN ADDING ALL YOUR PROGRAMS AFTER ADDING ALL YOUR PROGRAMS DEFRAG AGAIN (OR IF YOU HAVE THE TIME AND PATENCE YOU CAN DEFRAGE BETWEEN EACH UPDATE ,PROGRAM ,FILE ECT, YOU ADD TO YOUR HARDRIVE) (THE REASON FOR DEFRAGING SO MUCH IS TO TRY AND GET ALL THE FILES NEAR EACHOTHER ON THE HARDRIVE ,SO IF EXPESHALLY YOU HAVE AN OLDER COMPUTER THE LESS TIME YOU COMPUTER SPENDS SEARCHING FOR A FILE THE LESS THE DEMAND ON THE PROSSCESSER HENCE YOUR COMPUTER RUNS SMOOTER AND FASTER)THE FINAL STEP IN THIS PHASE FOR ME USUALLY IS ADDING ALL MY FILES WHICH I USALLY JUST ADD THEM AND DEFRAG A FINAL TIME ,IM GONNA ADD MORE TO THIS AND IT IWLL BE A WORK IN PROGRESS AS I REWORK THINGS,
HERE IT IS FOR WHAT ITS WORTH I HOPE YOU FIND IT HELPFUL AGAIN I WELCOEM ANY SUGGESSTIONS THE WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL AS THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT WRITING ANYHTING OF THIS NATURE ,


FOR WHAT THIS IS WORTH HERE IT IS THANK YOU
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First thing, are you serious?
Next, do not capatalize everything
Add spacing
Use the spell checker next to the submit button
Why all the re-booting and defraging?
How long does it take you to set this all up? I am curious

last time i did it it took me 14 hrs straight but that was because i was using i dial up connection for the updating ,but im very serious about this cause it works for me my computer screams for what it is ,im going to go back and edit it and add suggestions as well as stuff i remember or learn along the way

First off, this doesn't feel like a tutorial. Perhaps good advice for some but I don't see it as a tutorial. Hence, it's move to General Chit Chat.

Second, if I may suggest: write it up in Notepad and then cut'n'paste it into a post if you have issues with posting due to being on a dialup.

Third, avoid using capitals. It's evident you could since there is a line without caps. The formatting is really hard to read when it's all caps and there are no spaces between paragraphs.

Fourth, use a spellchecker. Many word processing programs do come with them and even AO has it's own spellchecker for posts.

Lastly, I'm sure this works. But this is a lot of extra work when you think about it and then the question becomes how much time do I have to sacrifice between optimization and actual usage. If you have to defrag between every change/addition you make to a system then perhaps it's time to upgrade the system itself. Especially XP. Now, my experience with XP Pro is that it's a very stable (a rare experience for me) as an OS and has few issues with files being discontiguous.

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a rare experience for me

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She isn't kidding. Whenever someone says the word "windows" you can almost hear her eyesroll and hands flail in the air.

(just kidding, don't ban me)

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AO has it's own spellchecker

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And if i ain't mistaken that SpellCheckerwas implemented so we could understand what NFG was saying???

Anyhow not a bad little Tip though, although the "Tutorial" Needs a little more work i found it very informative, so i'm gonna give some kudos to him as i feel that although there where some errors in it, i think that he has put some effort into it.

Just remember that
If at first you don't succeed, then try again

cheers
F2B

I've found some of the best way to optimize XP is to set for performance.

Right click on my computer, properties, advanced, performance, check adjust for best performance.

That will take away all the stupid flashy graphics and delays in the start menu and everything else you click on.
(makes it look/act more like 2k)

I do believe in defragging. However, I will do it after the system has been installed and all programs are installed and configured. There is no need to do it several times. You're just wasting time.

With XP, memory is key. I reccommend 512MB.

Then, for a week, monitor how much memory you actually use (don't turn off or reboot for a week). You should put the system under as much stress as possible. Not just word processing, but everything else too. Watching DVDs, playing video games, burning CDs, all at the same time if you want.

ctrl-alt-del, task manager, performance tab. look at the peak commit charge.

If you are under the max ammount of memory you have, then remove the page file.

XP WILL use the page file no matter how much memory you have. This will slow your PC down.

So, if you have enough memory... FORCE it to use the memory an not swap it out constantly to the page file.

Right click on my computer, properties, advanced, performance, advanced, virtual memory, no page file, set, apply.

Also, don't forget the obvious: Kill services that you don't need.

Remove all that you can from starting up. (common startup locations)

Make cache sizes small and do a disk clean up frequently.

That has kept me running pretty damn quick.

Phish: If you get shut down all unnecessary services (including themes and other eye candy) you can get performance that's equal to 2k on 64 megs of RAM and better on 128. I personally run XP (blazingly fast) on 256 megs. And even then I have no problems playing memory intensive games (UT2003 and Rise of Nations).

Another small tip: Don't run windows update everytime you reinstall. Next time you do, download each update manually. Just click on the "Read More..." link below the update. 9 times out of 10 you get a link to download and save it just like a normal file. After you download all downloadable updates, install them and get the few updates (< 20 megs) that you can't directly download.

Cheers,
cgkanchi

cgk, why not, instead of downloading manually, just uncheck the updates you don't need and leave checked the ones you do need?