squiffythewombat

Hi Guys, This tutorial assumes you have followed tutorial one and now have XP in classic mode.

"Users of this information please note, this information is a suggestion and should be used as such, Scale models in anyway will not accept responsibility to loss of information or disruption in operation of your pc after carrying out these 'adjustments'.

If in doubt do not make any changes to anything you are unsure of."

**Prefetch Clearing**
When you load a program windows saves a little bit of information to your memory so that next time you run it, it will start that much quicker! However if you run lots of various programs or you want to free up as much memory as possible (gamers like this because more memory=faster games) then you can clear this information in the prefetch folder. I reccomend doing this anyway as whatever programs you frequently use still reappear here anyway.

1. Press windows key and E to launch explorer.
2. Double-click your hard-drive (normally c
3. Now double-click the folder called "windows"
4. Now in find a folder called "prefetch" and double click it.
5. Now press Ctrl & A (this selects everything in a folder)
6. Now press Delete.
7. Now close the explorer window.

**Hard Drive Defragmenting**
A hard-drive is much like a car engine, it requires certain maintance to make sure it runs smoothly and without hiccups. One should consider defragmenting your hard-drive much like an oil change in a car, only unlike the car this task should be performed weekly to keep your hard-drive in tip top condition.

1. Left-click the start menu
2. Navigate to Programs>Accessories>system tools>disk defragmentor. This will launch the windows defragmenting program.
3. In the middle you will see a white box with your hard-drive in it.
4. Left-Click C: (your hard-drive) so that it is highlighted blue.
5. Left-Click defragment at the bottom of the screen. This will now start the defragmention process.

This process should be done weekly. The more red stripes you see in the top bar, the more defragmented your hard-drive is. You will notice in the bottom bar that once defragmented the red stripes have been re-arranged.

**Keeping Space Free**
A hard-drive requires that it always has free space on it. There are several reasons behind this, the most common is swap files, virtual memory and object such as "system restore". The general rule of thumb is to always keep 25% of the drives capacity free. For example if you had a 100gb drive, you would want to always keep 25gbs free.

**Services**
As an operating system, XP has many tasks to perform and one way of controling aspects of these tasks is using services. However XP will run services that are usless to you unless your a business user! These can be removed in "computer management"

1. Click the start menu
2. Goto run
3. Type "services.msc"
4. Maximize the window by left clicking the small square.
5. Scroll to where you see a service called "messenger" (not this is not MSN messenger)
6. Right-click this and goto properties. This will launch a new window.
7. In the middle is a drop-down menu called "start-up type". There are three options; manual/automatic/disabled.
8. Make sure Disabled is selected!
9. Left-click Apply
10. Left-click OK

Now repeat this process for the following services;

1. Clip Book Service
2. Computer Browser Server
3. Error Reporting Service
4. Fax (if you dont send faxes turn this off)
5. IMAP CD Burning (if you use a program to burn your cds turn this off to see a time improvement-If in doubt dont touch this one)
6. Indexing Service
7. Infared Monitor (if you dont have any infra-red devices)
8. Net Logon Service
9. Remote Registray Service
10. Themes Service

Once you have turned off those services and defragmented your computer a restart is best.

NOTES
Its worth noting that if you have not defragged your computer since buying it this may take a LONG time! If your copy of XP was installed recently then it may not take so long. If you have less than 10% free on your hard-drive you might not be able to defrag in which case you need to free up some space by deleteing some files or uninstalling some programs.

As usal, any problems or comments, post away on this thread! :-)

squiffythewombat

ooo good point adzam, i totally forgot to add that!, ill add it to the other tutorial too! Ive also added it in bold at the top on this thread.

John

Some other services that can be disabled safely are:
Alerter
COM+ Event System
COM+ System Application
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Help and Support
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Network DDE
Performance Logs and Alerts
Portable Media Serial Number
QoS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Security Accounts Manager
Smart Card
Smart Card Helper
SSDP Discovery Service
System Event Notification
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service
Telnet
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Volume Shadow Copy
WebClient
Windows Time
WMI Performance Adapter

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wonwinglo

Can anyone advise me on USB Memory Sticks please ? they look useful and I notice today that Sainsburys currently have 64 MB examples in stock at £39.99 each,I understand that they go up to 1 & 2 KB.
My questions are-Is this a good price if not where is the best place to go for them ?
Will they function off an extended USB connection as my USB is on the back of this computer and I use one of those box devices with multi connections ?
Are they reliable ?
Which size would you go for ?
Thank you for any advice on these interesting devices which sound very useful,especially working between different machines.

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John

Barry that's very expensive for a memory sitck, have a look here 256MB up to 2GB you can get a 1GB and still have change I use CCL 99% of the time they are the cheapest I've found, I've never used them for mail order as they are only 20mins away from me, but they have been round for a long time and have a good reputation.

Yes it will work off your current USB.

and as for size depends what you need it for will depend on how much space you will need.

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Nigel.D

I bought one in pc world 512 meg for 29.99

wonwinglo

Thank you John & Nigel for putting me right on these,will order from the CCL people,a big saving there as well.

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squiffythewombat

The "box thing" is known as a USB Router and any usb device will work with it!

Check www.ebuyer.co.uk as they make their own branded stick and are cheap and reliable! CCL are pretty good too.

Nice load of reg entries there john, cool! Might be worth mentiong laptop users should leave smartcard on tho.

John

There's no reason why they should have this enabled, unless you have one, your not confusing it with a PCMCIA card are you? The Smart Card service manages access to a computer with a smart card, usually a credit card sized card containing a chip, they are 2 totally different things

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jankers

I really like this tread, so useful.

I sometimes use a USB pen, though only 128mb, bought some time ago. They are ideal for transfering data between machines.
Only point to mention is that a m/c running Win98 will need a driver, Win XP seems to cope with the built in software..