Speed Up XP

[Eve]

I was intending to use this tip in Eves Weekly Tips but decided to use caution and ask any of you 'experts' to comment on it first please:)

I think I originally found it in WinXP News letter and used it myself.

Many people have commented on the speed of my machine - I have no idea if this is part of the reason.

What do you think?


Speed Up Windows XP by Keeping the Operating System in Memory
One thing you can do to speed up Windows XP is to make sure that key operating system functions stay in memory. Memory (also called "RAM") is much faster than the hard disk. Perform the following steps to pep up your XP computer's performance:
Click the Start button. Click the Run command and type regedit in the Open text box. Click OK. As always, be very careful when editing the Registry.
In the Registry Editor, go to the following registry key:
HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Right click the DisablePagingExecutive entry in the right pane of the Registry editor and click Modify.
In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, type the number "1" (without the quotes) in the Value data field. Click OK.
Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer.

[Ranger Bob]

The only thing I would add is that you will need to be sure that your system has plenty of RAM. I have had this tweak on my system for a long time but I am running a 1 gig system so if someone was running only a 256 or 512 system they may need to be careful that they don't overload the system by doing this.

[Eve]

RB, I have 368 so guess thats too low?
:eek:

[Ranger Bob]

It might be but if your system seems fast enough to you then you might be fine. You might try changing back to the default to see if you notice any change and it seems much slower than try running with this fix for awhile to see how it goes. You might need to be careful of the number of applications that you allow to get started up at boot up to prevent any future problems.

Just an FYI ... On my system I can run Windows XP Pro in memory with 58 task started and still have 384 MB of RAM free. :)

[Kerry]

I don't think I really want to play around with that...where can I find how much RAM my system has?

[Eve]

Thanks RB - I seem to have only about 14 things starting according to Windows Startup Inspector. Most of the time I have about 34% Ram free (127MB ) I have FreeRam XP Pro installed and it is set to auto free if memory goes below 80%, but not to do it during significant disk use.

I will change it back to the default and see if it seems any slower.
:eek: Registry here I come. :eek:

[Eve]

where can I find how much RAM my system has?
Kerry, Right click your My Computer icon, then click Properties. System Properties will appear, and at the bottom of page on the General tab it will display your memory. :)

[Ranger Bob]

Thanks RB - I seem to have only about 14 things starting according to Windows Startup Inspector. Most of the time I have about 34% Ram free (127MB ) I have FreeRam XP Pro installed and it is set to auto free if memory goes below 80%, but not to do it during significant disk use.

I will change it back to the default and see if it seems any slower.
:eek: Registry here I come. :eek:
I don't understand why you would need something like FreeRam XP Pro since you are running Windows XP. Windows XP will release unused memory as programs are terminated.

You might want to compare what shows up in your Task Manager Processes tab against what Windows Startup Inspector is showing to get a true picture of what is actually running in the background.

[Eve]

I don't understand why you would need something like FreeRam XP Pro since you are running Windows XP. Windows XP will release unused memory as programs are terminated.
I just like to see the numbers in the tray :) Its on 180MB now. (48%)

Have changed back to the default and it is going slightly slightly slower overall.

[Kerry]

Kerry, Right click your My Computer icon, then click Properties. System Properties will appear, and at the bottom of page on the General tab it will display your memory. :)
Found it, thanks Eve!

[oftentired]

I was intending to use this tip in Eves Weekly Tips but decided to use caution and ask any of you 'experts' to comment on it first please:)

I think I originally found it in WinXP News letter and used it myself.

Many people have commented on the speed of my machine - I have no idea if this is part of the reason.

What do you think?


Speed Up Windows XP by Keeping the Operating System in Memory
One thing you can do to speed up Windows XP is to make sure that key operating system functions stay in memory. Memory (also called "RAM") is much faster than the hard disk. Perform the following steps to pep up your XP computer's performance:
Click the Start button. Click the Run command and type regedit in the Open text box. Click OK. As always, be very careful when editing the Registry.
In the Registry Editor, go to the following registry key:
HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Right click the DisablePagingExecutive entry in the right pane of the Registry editor and click Modify.
In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, type the number "1" (without the quotes) in the Value data field. Click OK.
Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer. On occasion a user will experience errors after applying this tweak. I would recommend it but suggest caution.