Speed up Windows

Cast your mind back to when you first switched on your new PC and you will most likely remember Windows booting at lightning speed and applications loading in what felt like an instant.

However, if left to their own devices, it doesn’t take long for both XP and Vista to become lethargic; programs take an age to load, remnants from applications that supposedly uninstalled themselves start to clog up the system, and boot times slow to a crawl.

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way. In this feature, we will show you how to breathe new life into both Windows XP and Vista without resorting to buying new hardware or, worse, a new computer.

As you will soon discover, there is a lot of software available to help you out, but with a bit of insider knowledge you can get tinkering without the need to spend any money.

Housekeeping
Before we look at software applications and advanced tweaking techniques, it is worth recapping some of the simpler ways to keep Windows running smoothly. One of the best ways to reduce clutter and improve performance is to uninstall applications you no longer use.

Many will have components that run in the background as soon as you boot into Windows, taking up valuable system resources without you being any the wiser.

Head to Control Panel and click on ‘Uninstall a program’ (Vista) or ‘Add/Remove Programs’ (XP) to see which applications are currently installed.

Unfortunately, even if a program’s uninstall wizard tells you everything has been removed, there is a chance some traces will still remain, with background services and rogue Registry entries being among the most common.

We will explain how to deal with problems such as this a little later. As well as removing old applications, it is sensible to make regular use of your web browser’s own housekeeping utilities, which will remove items such as temporary internet files­ – the reclaimed disk space will certainly be useful if you’re running low on storage.

Windows tools
Both XP and Vista have utilities that, if run regularly, will give performance a boost. One is Disk Defragmenter, which aims to speed up access times by reorganising how data is stored on your hard disk.

In Vista, you can schedule Disk Defragmenter to run daily, weekly or monthly. However, in XP you have to set it up using the Schedule Task Wizard (found in Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks).