Let's call it "Increase Speed For Dummies"

The majority of this tutorial will focus on maintaining a low amount of RAM usage and regulating RAM intensive programs.
______________________

Get Rid of Unused Programs:
Delete the useless junk thats on your computer when you get it...(IE: AOL, AT&T, Dell Updates.....)

Say "Bye-Bye" to personal customization:
That huge colorful background of yours, just eats up ram because its constantly refreshed. Get rid of it. Replace it with either a solid color background OR make a picture in Paint that is 1pixel by 1pixel, choose a color, set as a background and stretch it.

Get rid of all theme programs and the windows XP theme. Switch everything to "Classic" view.

Uncheck "View My Active Desktop as a Webpage" option.

You may even want to go as far as reducing your resolution to like 800X600

Disable the crap like "Mouse Tails", animation, etc...

TIP: When your doing something, only keep open what your working with. Running photoshop with Fruity Loops isnt the wisest of moves when you have a slow comp.

Increase Startup Time:
Go to start->click "run"->type "msconfig"
Go to the "Startup" tab and uncheck everything that you know isn't absolutely necessary.

Say goodbye to networking, if you can:
Disable file and printer sharing if you can, this helps squeeze a few more MB of ram.

Disable "Drive Indexing":
Go to My Computer, and right click on it. Uncheck the box that says "Allow indexing service....."
Indexing normally monitors all the files on your computer...RAM intensive. Make sure you apply it to all folders and subfolders.

Disable "System Restore Service":
Look in your help file or do a google search for exact instructions on how to do so. If your computer ever really gets messed up, it may not be even able to get to System Restore. Your better off reformatting clean.

Remove Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop Sharing( For WinXP Pro Users:
Look in the help file or do a google search)

Adjust the Page File to a respectable level. Google search for exact details. Pagefiele is like ram, execpt its on your HD. Try limiting the amount of it to save some HD space. I recomend that you do NOT disable it. Some games do not work without it.


This guide is not complete, hence the part one title. Add on some more tips if you know them. Im planning one on increasing your internet browsing and download speed.


MSCONFIG.
~Part 1~
Step1:Run>msconfig
Step2: go to "services" tab. click "hide all Microsoft Services"
Step3: no whatever you see here, uncheck it. all of it.
Step4: click the "startup" tab. once again uncheck everything. unless u want it to open on windows startup.
Step5: Click "OK"

~Part 2~
Step1:
Start>Run>services.msc
STEP2:
once that opens. just enable/disable/manual everything as u see here. unless for some reason you feel it absolutely necessary to keep ine. who knows why but whatever.
*Note* You might not have all of these and you might have some that arent there.

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/2024/services6lf0tz.png

You can also check out this guys site where he goes into detail about some things.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm

Step3:
so once you've done the above. go here and get system mechanic. install it etc etc
Ima try getting a working link for the program or you can buy it, it costs about 70 us $

Step4:
Once its installed. Click "Fix" > "Fix Registry Problems" > "Fix, Clean, and Optimize the Registry"

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/3355/registry0er.jpg

Step5:
itll scan your computer. once its finished click the drop down arrow on "Remove" and then go "Remove All Entries". alternatively click "Ctrl+D"

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4788/remove5au.jpg

Step6:
once ur done with that. its time to defrag your registry. i didnt even know this was possible but apparently it is. so here we go.
Fix > Fix Registry Problems > Compact and Defrag the Registry.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/3355/registry0er.jpg

now set it to Defrag on Start up. restart ur computer.
itll show a screen with some jibberish saying its defragging. once its done windows will load normally.

Step7: Start>Prgrams>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter.
defrag your HD.

-Waff3n over and out

 

Cool, I'm gonna start doing that right away. Probably it's why my DOS programs are running so slow.

 

thanx, this sped everything up a bit more, awesome guide

 

Nice guide, helped me some. Stickied.

 

This helped me speed my computer up alittle thx...

 

thx my comp is a lil faster now

 

VN guide!

 

this is a nice guide, but im glad i dont need it

2g crossair ram
amd 3400x2
atix850 pro

all of witch i nicely put into my pretty custom case

 

hey where is the link for system mechanic?

 

nvm i found a link... http://www.download.com/System-Mechanic/3000-2094_4-10631376.html?tag=lst-0-1

 

thank you for given me a trojan lol im so pissed..lol i kinda think its funny though

 

All this probably only saves about 30mb RAM. I dont know about you but I wouldn't give up the style and sleekness of my desktop for a little extra juice. Everyone can just easily buy more memory. I can go to a computer shop now and get a 256mb RAM stick for around $25. And what's that? Your allowance? All I'm saying is that it's not worth all that work because we're too cheap to go and buy it ourselves or, with today's technology, buy it online and have it shipped to our front door in a matter of days

 

nice guide

 

thanx, this sped everything up a bit more, awesome guide

 

good guide although it wouldn't save that much ram but the guide itself is very detailed

 

Yea Pretty Nice im starting to notice a slight increase but noting amazing,

 

Nice guild.. My computer is now a little faster then normal.

 

Worked for me but changed back because i liked look but still have a few things changed.

 

ty for al tips , computer way faster now

 

about half of this i knew but the other half is great thanks