1. Computer is running slow, what  are the causes?

  • Not enough hard disk space.
  • Left over programs and bad files.
  • Data Corruption.
  • Missing Windows updates / Outdated drivers.
  • Computer is overheating.
  • Corrupt OS.
  • Bad Hardware

       2.  Regaining computer hard disk drive space.

  • Run the Disk Cleanup option (98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista and 7 users)
  • Uninstall old programs or games no longer used
  • Disable System Restore
  • Disable hibernation
  • Clean up temporary files
  • Delete *.chk files

        3.  Windows restarts without warning.

  • Software issue or error. (Disable automatic restart)
  • Hardware issue or error (Check Ram and other expansion cards)
  • Heat related issue (Check Processor and SMPS for overheating)
  • Computer virus. (Run Antivirus scan)
  • Issue with operating system. (Reinstall Windows)

        4. Windows freezes or stops responding frequently.

  • Software related issue. (Uninstall the software that is freezing your PC while opening)
  • Driver related issue. (Bad video Driver may lockup your PC while opening a heavy Multimedia application. Check device manager and verify that no "Other Devices" are listed and no device has any "exclamation" mark or "red X."
  • Heat related issue. (Check CPU)
  • Hardware issue. (Check HDD for Bad media and check all the connections are firm and tight)
  • Serious issue with Windows (reinstall)
  • Hardware failure. (If after reinstalling your operating system, or during the installation of your operating system, your computer turns off abnormally, it is very likely that other hardware is failing in the computer. Often this is RAM, CPU, Motherboard, or Power Supply)

       5. Not a valid Win32 application

  • File is corrupt, bad, or missing.
  • File is not designed for your version of Windows.
  • File is a virus, worm, or other malware file.
  • Hardware incompatibility.

      6. Windows computer boots up slow

      7. NTLDR is Missing.

  • Insert the Windows XP bootable CD into the computer.

  • When prompted to press any key to boot from the CD, press any key.

  • Once in the Windows XP setup menu press the "R" key to repair Windows.

  • Log into your Windows installation by pressing the "1" key and pressing enter.

  • You will then be prompted for your administrator password, enter that password.

  • Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. In the below example we are copying these files from the CD-ROM drive letter, which in this case is "e." This letter may be different on your computer.
    copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
    copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

  • Once both of these files have been successfully copied, remove the CD from the computer and reboot.

    8. Increase Windows Xp Performance

  • Convert your hard drive to NTFS. If your drive is using FAT16 or FAT32, you can gain performance by converting it to NTFS. To do so, press WinKey + R and in the window that comes up, type "CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS" (without quotes). Follow the instructions and your drive will be converted to NTFS. Bear in mind that NTFS drives can only be accessed by Windows 2000/NT/XP/Vista/7. Older versions of Windows are only compatible with FAT, FAT16 and FAT32.2
  • Remove malware from your system. Spyware comes bundled with a lot of free software found on the Internet. It can slow your machine down to a crawl. Download and installSpybot Search & Destroy[1], start your computer in Safe Mode and give your machine a full scan for spyware. 
  • Clean the registry. Cleaning the registry could also speed up Windows XP significantly as there are a lot of calls to the registry by Windows and other programs in a short period. You can get a good tool from Intel Software Partners
  • Disable the Indexing Service. The Indexing Service scans your hard drive and indexes files to help speed up searching. It runs in the background using up memory and processor time, and is generally thought to be unnecessary by most nerds and/or geeks. It can also wake you up if your hard disk is noisy and you leave your machine on at night. To disable the Indexing Service, open My Computer, right-click on the hard drive, go to Properties and click on the check box to clear the check mark next to "Allow indexing service to index this hard drive for faster searching". Click OK. It may take a while for the operation to complete.
  • Reduce Visual Effects. Windows XP can look good, but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. To optimize, go to Start, right click My Computer, and go to theAdvanced tab in the Performance area and click Settings, then choose "Adjust for best performance". If you still want to keep the look of Windows XP, you can leave the last 3 check boxes selected. It is recommended that you do uncheck these boxes when installing a big or graphics heavy program (like the Adobe programs). Sometimes unchecking these will help rendering pictures, movies or listening to music.
  • Speed up folder browsing. Go to My Computer > Tools menu > Folder Options > View tab. Uncheck "Automatically search for network folders and printers" and "Launch folders in a separate process". Click Apply, then click OK.
  • Increase computer download speed. Go to Google.com and type "tcp optimizer" into the search bar. Click the first link. Download the program and run it. Once open go to File > Backup current settings and save it. Once saved adjust your speed to what your max internet speed it suppose to be. Then click on optimal settings then apply and reboot. Then your download speed should increase.
  • Make menus load faster. Press WinKey + R and then type "regedit" and press Enter. Now find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop", double click "MenuShowDelay", reduce the number to around 100, but not too less.
  • Disable unnecessary services. Windows XP offers a lot of services and there run many programs that take up system resources and you may never need those programs. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines: Alerter, Clipbook, Computer Browser, Distributed Link Tracking Client, Indexing Service, IPSEC Services, Messenger, Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing, Portable Media Serial Number, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Procedure Call Locator, Remote Registry, Secondary Logon, Routing & Remote Access, Server, SSDP Discovery Service, Telnet, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Upload Manager, Universal Plug and Play Device Host, Windows Time, Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable the last one if you use a wireless network). To disable these services, press WinKey + R and type "services.msc", double click on the service you want to change, change the startup type to "Disable".
  • Speed up folder access by disabling Last Access Update. Press WinKey + R and type "regedt32", click through the treeview until you arrive at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem", Right click in a blank area of the window on the right and select New > DWORD Value. Call it "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate" and then double click the new value and change the value data to "1", and press Enter.
  • Improve boot times. Press WinKey + R and type in "regedt32", then press Enter. Find "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction", Select "Enable" from the list on the right, double click on it, change the value to "Y", and press Enter, and close the window. Now press WinKey + R, type in "msconfig" and click OK. Click on the Startup tab and uncheck every item you don't need. Do NOT disable entries added by antivirus and antispyware programs as doing so will make your computer more vulnerable to viruses and malware.
  • Improve swapfile performance. (Note: some people say that this only helps on Win9x and is useless for Windows NT based systems, including WinXP and Win2000). It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file. Press WinKey + R, type in "msconfig" and then press Enter. Click on the System.ini tab, and expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign. Click on New, then in the blank box type "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1". Press Enter, and restart your pc to see the changes taking place.
  • Improve your XP's shutdown speed. This tweak reduces the time that XP takes before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown. Press WinKey + R and type in "regedt32" and press Enter. Find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop", double click "WaitToKillAppTimeout" and change the value to "1000", and press Enter. Double click "HungAppTimeout", change the value to "1000". Press Enter and find "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control", double click "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" and change the value to "1000", and press Enter.
  • Remove the background image on your desktop. Right click the Desktop and click "Properties", and go to the "Desktop" tab. Change the wallpaper to "None". This will greatly speed up Windows XP. Also go to the "Settings" tab, and change "Colour quality" to "Medium (16 bit)".
  • Remove unwanted programs. Go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. Remove unwanted programs and free up some space.
     9. Speed Up Windows 7

  • Using Minimal Visual Effects

           Disabling certain (or all) visual effects can definitely enhance performance. To disable visual effects, do the following:

  1. Press Windows key and while holding it down, press Pause/Break key.
  2. In the window that appears, click on Advanced system settings in the left side pane.
  3. In the Advanced tab, under Performance Section, click on Settings
  4. In the Performance Options window (refer figure) that appears, under Visual Effects tab, disable the options that you do not need. Or simply selecting ‘Adjust for best performance‘ will disable all options.
  5. After disabling the option, click Apply and then OK.

Doing the above might make the screen less attractive. But, the performance will surely get a boost.

performance options

  • Using Minimal Sound Effects

       For disabling sound effects, do the following:

  1. Click Start. In the search box type mmsys.cpl and press Enter
  2. In the Sound window (refer figure) that appears click on Sounds tab
  3. Set the Sounds scheme to ‘No Sounds‘
  4. You could set only the essential sounds if needed in the Program Events, by selecting the specific event and then choosing the sound from the Sounds drop-down menu below.
  5. You can as well disable the "Play Windows Startup sound" option.
  6. After the settings are done, click Apply and OK.

sounds

  • Run A Trusted Anti-Virus Program

Ensure that you have a good anti-virus software loaded on your laptop/computer. This will ensure that no malware or spyware gets planted in your system. Without such protection software, there are chances of third party malware and virus being installed or stored on your system, causing harmful effects and also eating up precious space.

  • Install Only Essential Software

Ensure that you install only that software which you need. If you install any trial software and find out that you don’t really need it, uninstall and delete it immediately. Else, they might hog precious disk space, RAM and processor cycles. If you’ve installed a software, which you are unable to get rid of, and which is hampering the normal functioning of your laptop, then you might have to format your hard drive. Be aware that formatting your hard drive might wipe out all your data. Therefore it is best you take a back-up before going ahead with formatting.

  • Disable Or Make Unneeded Services Manual

Some processes and services, which might not really be necessary, are by default made to start automatically once the system starts up. They will consume RAM as well as the processor’s attention, slowing down other important tasks. It is best to disable them. For this, do the following:

  1. Click Start. In the search box type services.msc and press Enter
  2. Go to Services & Applications > Services. You’ll see the Services window (refer figure).
  3. Right-click on a service that you wish to set to manual or disable. If the service is already started, Stop it first.
  4. Once the service is stopped, again right-click on it and select Properties.
  5. In the Startup type, you can either set the service to Manual, if you would be using it later, orDisable it, if not needed.
  6. Once done, you can close the window.

services

  • Disabling Unwanted Start-Up Programs To Speed Up System Start-Up

Some programs are set to start during system start-up. These might slow down the start-up process. Programs that are not really needed during start-up can be disabled. For this, do the following:

  1. Click Start. In the search box type msconfig and press Enter.
  2. In the System Configuration window (refer figure), go to Startup.
  3. Uncheck the box next to those processes that are not important for start-up. This will disable them.
  4. Once you’ve disabled the processes, click Apply and OK.

system configuration

Hard Drive Related

  • Clean Up The Hard Drive

Remove unwanted files, like temp files, downloaded program files, recycle bin, etc. You could useDisk Cleanup option to do this, as follows:

  1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
  2. The system will first calculate how much space can be freed up this way. In the Disk Cleanupwindow (refer figure) that appears, select the files in that need to be deleted under the Files to delete list.
  3. For deleting ‘System Restore‘ and ‘Shadow copy‘ files, click "Clean up system files" and then on "More Options" tab
  4. Finally click OK. You’ll be prompted again before the deletion. Click Yes.

  • Enable Write Caching

This is an option which allows the OS to flush changed data to the hard disk when the system is idle, so that performance is not affected when in use. For enabling this, do the following:

  1. Press Windows key and while holding it down, press Pause/Break key.
  2. In the window that appears, click on Device Manager in the left hand pane.
  3. In the next window that appears, expand Disk drives.
  4. The drop-down list will show the hard drive. Right-click on it and select Properties.
  5. Click the Policies tab in the Device Properties window (refer figure).
  6. Check the box next to "Enable write caching on the device"
  7. You can as well check the box next to "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" and then click OK.

virtual HD

Note: However, there is one disadvantage in enabling these options – if there is a power outage or a system crash, data might be lost or corrupted. If you have a secondary power supply, like a UPS, you could go ahead with checking these options.

  • Perform Disk Defragmentation

When there is no sufficient space to store in a hard drive, the OS splits the file into parts and stores it in different areas on the hard drive. Defragmenting allows all these parts to be stored in contiguous memory locations. For defragmenting disk do the following:

  1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
  2. In the window (refer figure) that appears, click on the drive that you want to defragment and then click Analyze disk.
  3. This will estimate the time required for the process. When done click on Defragment disk.
  4. Once done you can either View Report or click Close.

disk defrag

These pretty much sum up the small things that you can do, to make a big difference to your Windows 7′s performance.


 
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