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A few weeks ago I teased a new article that would be making its way to the front page of Webarnold.net that pertained to Windows XP. So after almost a month of thinking back over my years of running Windows XP, I’ve come up with my definitive list. These are tweaks or other “power user” tips which I implement each time I reformat my workstation and start over with a fresh copy of XP SP2.

There are plenty of websites out there that list their “100 Greatest Windows XP Tips of All Time,” and I thought it was time I got on board with that trend, albeit, in a much smaller scale. So without the following warning, I present the list.

***NOTE*** Webarnold.net STRONGLY recommends that you backup your Windows Registry before making any modifications because, well, let’s face it, it’s Windows. Things go unexpectedly wrong from time to time and you want to make certain that you have a working backup of your registry. For more information or help on backing up and restoring your Windows XP registry, please visit this site.

10. Turn on clear type fonts. I don’t know why Windows XP doesn’t turn these on by default. Windows XP’s “standard” rendition of text is much harder on the eyes (As a side note, they have corrected this behavior in Windows Vista, in Vista, ClearType is enabled by default). ClearType fonts really make it easier for you to read the text on your screen. To enable ClearType fonts, do the following: Right click on your desktop and go to properties. When the properties screen appears, click on the appearance tab and then the Effects… button. Change the Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts: pull-down menu to ClearType. Click Ok, then click Ok again.
9. Use two partitions. I’ve found that using two partitions is a life saver with Windows XP. Since the operating system seems to have a half-life of around four to six months before degrading and needing a reformat, it is handy to keep a separate data partition for you to store your data on. This methodology allows one to reformat with minimal backup. To get two partitions without losing your data you’ll need a program like Partition Magic, otherwise, you can set up two partitions during Windows XP setup - however, this will erase all data on the drive.
8. Re-direct My Documents to data partition. This goes along with the previous hint. I have found that “My Documents” is a misleading label for the folder. In fact, programs of all sorts store data there from Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 to SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition. Keeping that in mind, I have always wanted to keep this folder as secure as possible. Moving it to a partition or hard drive separate from your Windows system partition means that you have one less thing to think about when it comes time to reformat and start over again. I’ve had mixed success redirecting the folder by using the default Windows XP method: right click on the My Documents folder either on your desktop or in your start menu and choose properties. You can then click on the move button to locate a folder on another drive to store the precious contents of this folder. Sometimes this has stuck, other times I’ve had to reset this option several times. However, I’ve always had success using the Tweak UI app from the Microsoft Power Toys for Windows XP.
7. Optimize your website loading times by editing your registry. By default Windows limits the number of concurrent connections to content on the web. This is especially frustrating when trying to download lots of files at one time. You may have noticed that either IE or FireFox only allows you to download two files at a time. Any files you’ve tried to download past that are queued until a current download finishes. You can change this by altering a couple of registry keys. Load up the old registry editor by clicking on the start menu and then the run feature. Type regedit in the box. First off is HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. If you don’t have them already, you’ll need to add two values under this key: MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server, and MaxConnectionsPerServer. They should be DWORD values and you can set their Value Data to 20 (with a base of Hexadecimal). You’ll also want to look under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings for the same values and set them the same way. Once you have done this, restart your computer. You will (hopefully) see an improvement in website loading times.
6. Add/Remove Windows Components control panel from within the Add/Remove Programs control panel, the button for it is on the left hand side. Typical components I uninstall from a new Windows XP setup include: MSN Explorer, Windows Messenger, and Outlook Express.
5. Disable unnecessary Windows Services. This particular activity can really help free up some system resources and increase your machine’s performance. Once again, Windows XP installs quite a few services by default, many of which you don’t actually need to have running automatically. To view the status of services on your computer, open your start menu and choose Run. In the Run dialogue box type services.msc. The services configuration box will appear and let you know the status of each service on your computer. Services I disable include Remote Registry, System Restore, and Machine Debugger (among others). For a complete listing of default Windows XP services and their uses, please read up on The Elder Geek’s Services Guide.
4. Set program priority for your most used applications. Windows XP has the ability to set operating priority for your applications on an individual basis. For example, I like to set the priority for FireFox, Dreamweaver, and others to higher so that they are more responsive while I work in them. To set program priority, press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC, and you will see the Windows Task Manager appear. Click over to the processes tab and then click on the view menu, then select select columns. Place a check mark next to Base Priority then click Ok. Back in the task manager now, you should see another column called Base Priority. You can now right click on any process running here and chose set priority from the menu that appears.
3. Modify your registry to automatically close unresponsive programs upon shutdown. Don’t you hate when you try to restart and you get several error messages telling you that Windows can’t shutdown until you end these five unresponsive programs? I sure do. Tweak this Windows XP registry entry to force all of these unresponsive programs to close themselves upon a shutdown or restart command. Open up regedit and search for the following key: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Under this key, look for the value AutoEndTasks and change its value from 0 to 1. That’s all there is to it. Restart to make this change go into effect.
2. Optimize your Windows pagefile usage. The first step to this tip is to make sure that your pagefile is not set to be stored on the system volume (the same hard drive or parition that Windows is installed on). To do this, right click on your My Computer icon and choose properties. Click on the advanced tab and then under the performance heading, click on the settings button. Once again, click the advanced tab and under the virtual memory heading, click change. Here you can select another drive or partition (preferably a second hard drive, but not necessary) and create a static sized pagefile on it by setting the custom initial and maximum sizes to the same number, at least 1.5 times the amount of actual RAM in your machine. Then you can hightlight the entry in the box for the C: drive and click no pagefile. You’ll have to restart your computer for the changes to take affect.
1. Control what starts with Windows using MSCONFIG. This is perhaps the single largest factor in how fast your computer responds upon startup. At work I’ve seen computers that start and operate at a crawl because there are just too many services or other programs starting up with Windows. At some point or another you just have to say “Enough is enough!” Click on your start menu and select run. In the run dialogue box, type msconfig. Click on the startup tab and survey the list of items starting with your windows. If things have gotten real bad on your computer, you may wish to click the disable all button (be forewarned, this could cause legitimate programs to stop functioning properly), save, and restart. However, if you are doing alright but looking for any performance gains you can glean from Windows XP, then go through your list of items that are checked. If you don’t recognize something, Google it, you’ll typically find an answer as to what that particular item is doing in startup and whether or not it’s required. I typically keep this list to under ten items, and my machine starts up speedily as ever.

Well folks, that is it. Webarnold’s top ten list for Windows XP tips and tweaks. There are hundreds more out there if you run a Google search on the subject matter - many of them are great advice.

I know I mentioned it at the start of the article but it is worth mentioning again here - PLEASE MAKE SURE TO HAVE TESTED, WORKING BACKUPS OF ALL YOUR IMPORTANT DATA, YOUR REGISTRY, AND ANY PROGRAMS IN THE EVENT SOMETHING GOES WRONG.

Come back soon as Webarnold takes another dive into Windows XP to look at several other aspects of the Windows platform that has run many of our lives for the past five years. As always, your feedback and discussion on the tips presented here are welcome in the comments section.

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