There are still a great many XP computers being used today due to the reliability and security updates this operating system has received. These aging PCs do however need some TLC and maintenance in order to keep them running well. In this article, we’ll show how to speed up Windows XP using Microsoft utilities and some third-party applications.

Start with optimizing your hard drive. Run the Disk Defragmenter utility to rearrange file fragments on the disk in such a way to improve access times for applications and OS programs. Next, run the Disk Cleanup utility to clear down cached files, cookies and temporary application documents in order to clear up some space on the drive. Finally, run the disk checking utility every few months to identify and repair any bad sectors on the hard drive.

Your registry file can become corrupted and non-optimized over time so it is well worth investing in a registry cleaner to tweak and repair this essential system file. You could also use an online computer fix tool like Reimage to automate this process of repairs and also pull down updated DLL files for you.

Open the performance options tool (Control Panel, system, advanced tab) and try modifying some of the visual effects settings and memory allocation settings, all of which will speed up Windows XP. In this dialog you can also increase the page file size which will help allocate more virtual memory to the OS.

Run Windows update service to get the latest device drivers and OS programs, which will always include bug fixes along with performance tweaks.

Use the task manager to identify applications or background services which are using up a comparatively large amount of RAM memory. Make a decision on whether to disable them, replace them with a competitor’s better-performing utility or check to see if there are program updates which may resolve performance issues.

Once you know how to speed up Windows XP using regular maintenance, you should really try running these tasks on a scheduled basis. In addition, the one major hardware upgrade you can make that can improve poor performance is to add more RAM memory. At the moment, chip prices are quite cheap so this is an economic route to take.

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