12 Tips To Tune Your Windows XP Machines and Increase System Performance

• Scan for viruses – Do a complete system scan for viruses using http://housecall.trendmicro.com/.

• Scan for spyware – Download and install Windows Defender, which is free anti-spyware software from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/defender/
   
• Change the background to a solid color – Start menu > Control Panel > Display.  Click on the “Desktop” tab. Choose “None” and then choose a color from the drop-down menu on the right.  Click “Ok”.
   
• Turn off system indexing – Start menu > My Computer. Right click on your hard drive and choose “Properties” from the menu.  Make sure that “Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file searching” is NOT checked.
   
• Reduce Recycle Bin space – Right-click on the Recycle Bin. Click on ‘Empty Recycle Bin”. Right-click on the Recycle Bin.  Move the slider to 3% of drive space.
   
• Modify Display Features for Performance – Start menu > Control Panel > System. Click on the “Advanced” tab. Under “Performance”, click on “Settings”.  Click on the “Adjust for Best Performance”, then click “Ok”, and click “Ok” again.
   
• Clean your desktop – Move as many files as possible off of your desktop and into your “My Documents” folder.  Leave ONLY the Recycle Bin, “My Computer” and links to network drives on your desktop.
   
• Remove unwanted software – (a) Go to Start menu > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.  Review the list of installed software. Uninstall any software you do not regularly use  (b) Download and install the PC Decrapifier: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/download. Run this program and remove any software you do not regularly use.
   
• Update Microsoft Windows and Office applications  – Go to http://update.microsoft.com/.  (You may need to permit the Active X component to run in your browser.)  Click on “Express” to find updates. Install all updates found. Reboot if recommended.  Repeat this process until the site reports “no updates” are found.
   
• Update other applications - Go to http://secunia.com/software_inspector/.  Click “Start Now”. The site will scan and find updates for many applications.  Follow the recommendations to upgrade/update software where possible.
   
• Disk cleanup – Start menu > All programs > Accessories > System tools > Disk Cleanup. The program may take several minutes to start.  Make sure the following are NOT checked: “Office Setup Files”, “Compress Old Files”, and “Catalog files for the content indexer”.  All other boxes may be checked.  Click “Ok”, then click “Yes”.  "Analyze" and "Run Cleaner" at least once a week.
   
• Defragment your hard drive – Download and install Auslogics’ Disk Defrag program from http://tinyurl.com/2renjo. Use this to defragment your hard drive.  The program typically completes defragmenting your files much more quickly than Microsoft’s built-in defragmentation software.