PC Help Guide

Here are a few hints and tweaks for you to perform to speed up your Windows XP machine;

Disk Cleanup

You should try and run a disk cleanup at least once a month;

• Open my computer
• Right click on your c:drive
• Select properties
• Click disk cleanup

Increase RAM

I have seen some older XP computers with such low RAM I don’t know how they are even running, if you find your computer running slow then you should try increase your RAM.

To find out how much RAM your computer has just do this;

• Right click on my computer
• Click properties
• On this screen it will show you your total RAM

Check Your Computer for Spyware/Adware/Malware

These dangerous computer nasties can dramatically slow down your PC to the stage where I have seen older XP computer almost unusable.

To scan your computer for any of these just click the following link and run the software – scan for adware/malware/spyware

MSCONFIG

This is a very handy tool on a Windows based machine so you should get used to using it, here you can make your bootup speed increase heaps.

When your computer boots up it also tries opening programs you have installed, what you need to do is to make sure your PC doesn’t try open these on boot – do this through MSCONFIG.

• Click start then run
• Type msconfig in the run box
• The msconfig box will appear
• Click the startup tab
• You will see here it shows a large list of all the programs your computer is starting up a bootup
• Just go though and uncheck the software you don’t need at startup
• Click apply and OK
• Your boot should be much faster now

Update Your Drivers

Having outdated drivers or drivers with errors can make the running of programs and applications on your computer turn into a nightmare, half of them won’t start at all and the other half will take a week to open.

You should run a scan of your drivers and update them immediately so your programs and applications will run fast and smoothly.

Click the following link and run the software to start the driver scan – scan and update your drivers

Get Microsoft Updates

It might sound obvious, but I’m amazed at how many people still do now download all of the updates and service packs.

They are very useful to your XP machine and will make it run better.