Improve Performance in Windows XP: Windows XP Tips and Tricks

Windows XP does not come configured for the best performance. There are many things you can do to increase the performance of your Windows XP machine. I'm going to go over some of these tips and tricks to help you configure your operating system the way you like it. Hopefully you find these tips helpful and enjoy using your computer more then before.

Removing Windows Messenger:

Windows Messenger is a pesky little program that is always running and taking up memory. If you are like me and you don't use this program it can be easily removed. You will not find the program in the add/remove section of the control panel, so you may be wondering how to remove it. If you go to the start button and click on run, type in the command "RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove", this will effectively remove Windows Messenger from Windows XP. This should free up some memory and processor power since the Windows Messenger service will no longer be running and the program will be gone.

Speeding up the Start Menu:

The start menu in Windows XP can be slow on some systems. This can be because of low system resources, but you don't have to live with it. There is a tweak you can do to speedup the start menus response time. Open the registry editor by going to start, run and entering regedit and navigate to key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ MenuShowDelay . Change the value (default may be 400) to 5, 50 or even 0. This should speed the start menu up. If you don't care for shadowy effects, you can further speed things up by going to the Display Properties Window and from there to appearance and click the Advanced button and remove the check next to Show menu shadow. This should greatly improve the performance of the start menu in Windows XP.

Slow Shutdown Times:

Are you plagued by show shutdown times in Windows XP? Constantly waiting for 5 minutes after hitting the shutdown button? There is relief for this pain in the butt. Open Registry by going to START-RUN and typing REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP and look for AutoEndTasks. On my computer the default value is 0. Change it to 1. You can reduce the time it takes for Windows XP to issue the kill directive to all active/hung applications. In doing this the only thing that you should make sure of is that HungAppTimeout is greater than WaitToKillAppTimeout. Change the values of WaitToKillAppTimeout to say 3500 (since default value for HungAppTimeout 5000 and for WaitToKillAppTimeout is 20000). Windows XP should now shutdown much faster.

These tips are just a primer for what you can do in Windows XP to improve performance. There are a lot of good resources online on websites and forums. As always, backup your important files before editing the registry and have fun.