While these are likely not all the performance tips, they
are the ones that have made significant differences on my system. Cleaning the TEMP Directory Cleaning the TEMP DirectoryOne thing that is often overlooked, and can have a negative
affect on your computer's performance, These are easy to clean and slightly different in Win9x and Windows2000 or WindowsXP Windows98
Windows2000 / WindowsXP
Increasing MemoryIf you have Windows95 with only 16-32 megs of memory, you
will see a significant increase in performance if you go to at least 64
megs. You also need to be aware of the memory requirements of the applications you are using. Office2000 requires a lot more memory than Office97 to get similar performance. Also, the maximum useful memory for Windows95 is 64 megs. It doesn't do well with memory over that and may actually reduce your performance. Windows98 has removed that bottleneck. . For Windows2000 I recommend at least 256 megs of memory. I tried it with only 128 megs and noticed quite a difference between Win98 and Windows2000. I currently have 384 megs and am quite pleased with the performance. Get a Faster Hard DriveThere are hard drives that spin at
7200 RPMs rather than the more common 5400 RPMs. Defrag the Hard DriveI do this fairly frequently. Once a month or so. There are a few things I do first to make sure I don't waste time defragging unnecessary files.
File System SettingsIf you have 64 megs or more of memory you increase the performance of your system.
If you have Win95 SR1, and you do not see a performance increase, occasionally the NameCache and PathCache values are written to the registry incorrectly for the Network Server. To fix the problem:
No New Floppy DetectWhile you are in that section, click on the Floppy Disk
tab and uncheck Search for new floppy disks... Increasing Disk Performance
DMAIn the Device Manager, go to the settings your Hard Drives and CD ROMs. If any of them will allow a DMA box to be checked, you can try it. I've seen it decrease my CPU utilization. For setting DMA in Windows2000 go to Windows2000 Tips CONFIG.SYS & AUTOEXEC.BAT FilesMake sure you don't have any unnecessary device drivers or programs here. Windows95 has most you will need already built into the OS. Removing Unnecessary Programs from Starting AutomaticallyMany programs add portions of themselves starting
automatically on every login. One easy way to tell is by looking at how many icons are in your system tray. If you have a large number, perhaps unnecessary resources are being allocated them as well as increasing your boot time. Typical examples are Microsoft Office, Office FindFast, Real Player, ATI Video setting etc. You can remove them in one of three main ways:
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