Speeding up my PC

[Carole]

After having my reconditioned XP desktop for around 2 years it has started to run a bit slow opening up programmes, and sometimes it lingers for ages with half of one page showing and half of another.  Mostly seems to happen when starting a programme up.  I feel it's going to get worse if I don't do something.

I feel that I need to run some sort of process to de-clutter things, but not sure what.  Is there anything not too technical I can do?

Carole

[Mac]

nope

[Mac]

 

[Mac]

got your start menu
goto run
type msconfig
select the startup tab
untick everything not to do with your antivirus and firewall,
that should help

[Carole]

Thanks Mike, that was one I didn't know about. 

I've done a defrag and just found out about scandisk and have cleared all my cookies etc and had a clear out of no longer needed saved sites on favourites.

I have 78% available disk space so that's OK.

Carole

[Carole]

Just realised I should have posted this in PC helpline.

Forgot that was there.

Carole

[Mike]

Unfortunately Windows suffers from this problem. The best solution is an annual reformat and reinstall of the OS.

[Mac]

Unfortunately Windows suffers from this problem

The best solution is an annual reformat and reinstall of the OS.

Too true.

Mind you Carole, Is that the XP i've just set up for you?
It shouldn't be that slow if it is.

Mac.

[Carole]

No Mac, this is my desktop.

Just going through Mike's suggestion and something I found on the internet.

Carole

[Carole]

Thanks Mike,
I've done, disk frag, Mike's suggestion, and diskscan, cleared out cookies and it seems better.

Carole

[Mac]

have you set your memory paging file to a fixed size, that normally helps.

Check by going to control panel,
system
then select the advanced tab
goto performance settings
select advanced
click on virtual memory change
select custom size and set both of them to 2048
then press set.
reboot your machine.

This will stop windows recalculating the page file everytime it needs to make it bigger or smaller..

[doug]

     Look up Piriform CC Cleaner, which Duncan recommended for me, download it ..... it`s free..... sort out what you want to get rid of, and whoosh, there you go.

     Doug.

[Mike]

I think you mean Mac's suggestion, not Mikes.

[Carole]

I think you mean Mac's suggestion, not Mikes

I could have sworn it was you Mike, must be cracking up.

Carole

[Carole]

Check by going to control panel,
system
then select the advanced tab
goto performance settings
select advanced
click on virtual memory change
select custom size and set both of them to 2048
then press set.
reboot your machine.

Done, although I had to find it a slightly different way when I got to the advanced page.

Thanks
Carole