Tips to increase performance of a Windows computer

Question

What are some general guidelines to increase the speed/performance of my Windows machine?

Answer 1

Buy more RAM ;-)

Answer 2

Remove or replace your anti-virus/firewall software. ;-)

Check out Jeff's oldish blog post.

And nothing cripples your PC's performance quite like anti-virus software. This isn't terribly surprising if you consider what anti-virus software has to do: examine every single byte of data that passes through your computer for evidence of malicious activity.

This suggestion naturally comes with a huge disclaimer, but most anti-virus "solutions" are real performance killers, and replicate protection typically added as part of the OS or additional hardware

As an example: If you're using Windows Vista or Windows XP, and you access the Internet through a wired ADSL router, then the router itself will have a firewall, AND your OS will have a firewall. That's probably twice as much protection as you need, BEFORE you add a third-party firewall to the dance...

Answer 3

Uninstall programs you don't use anymore.

Use Autoruns to find out what programs are starting automatically and disable them.

Answer 4

Use only fast tools, which will give the perceived impression that the system is fast.

• Google Chrome or Opera as the browser
• Total Commander for file management
• Total Commander file viewer for text files view
• Notepad++ or something similar for text files editing
• foobar2000 for music playback (the best there is)
• pidgin for instant messaging
• Foxit Reader / SumatraPDF for PDF viewing
• VLC for movie playback
• clamwin for antivirus (no realtime scanning, no process monitoring)
• IrfanView for image viewing

As suggested:

• manage open services, I recommend Service Commander
• monitor open processes and hard disk activity, either with Windows task manager, or with Process Explorer
• don't use "integrate with Windows shell" option on any installed application, this will slow down any Windows Explorer tasks
• manage startup applications

Other tips:

• don't use any tool that labels itself: cleanup installed apps, optimize registry, scans for performance; including any symantec tools
• don't use background hard disk defragmentation software (unless proven that is really good)
• disable system restore feature
• delete files directly, don't use recycle bin
• if you use iTunes, strip of the monitoring features
• be careful with any Adobe software

Answer 5

Having recently purchased an Intel X25-M solid state drive recently, I can highly recommend it (so does Linus Torvalds). Solid state drives tend to be a mixed bag, though; take care to read reviews ahead of time.

Some links of interest:

• AnandTech on SSDs
• the Intel X25-M "long term performance" issue
• and the eventual response from Intel
• in addition, if you're up for that sort of thing, there have been a few discussions of TRIM support in both the Engineering Windows 7 blog and on the linux-kernel mailing list (summarized on lwn.net), which relates to the long-term performance of these drives
• the MMOG "EVE Online" recently upgraded to SSDs across the board (can't find the article at the moment, but see highscalability or the RamSan success story page)

This was one of the biggest speed boosts I've perceived in the last decade or so. It's costly at the moment, and there are a number of caveats, but highly recommended, especially if just for an OS drive (multimedia files and other large data elsewhere).

Answer 6

Process Monitor can be quite enlightening, it can help you track down those nasty services and process that are heavy on disk and registry activity.

Answer 7

Don't try new software on your machine - keep yours clean.

Answer 8

Disable most of the graphics options.

This is what I always do on Windows XP:

In Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance/ Adjust visual effects.

I uncheck all but the last four options. It runs better.

Answer 9

I would go into msconfig and disable anything you do not need from the Startup and Services tabs. You will see significant improvements immediately in your loading times.

You can access msconfig by going to Start, Run, and typing in msconfig.

Answer 10

Over years of experience, this is what I have learnt about keeping windows running smooth and fast -- minimise the programs you install.

Windows is prone to slow down the more programs you install -- programs are added in startup, registry keys are added and not deleted when the program is uninstalled, files are left behind etc. So over time, windows slows down. At this point there is only one option -- do a clean install of windows.

But, to avoid this state, there are a few things you can do:

1. Run non-essential programs or programs that you are going to use only once on a virtual machine (use virtualbox, which is free and open-source, install windows on it).
2. Programs like adobe acrobat, photoshop, your camera software etc. are better installed in the virtual machine
3. Run a registry and hard disk cleaner regularly. Use something like TuneUp Utilities, which is pretty good.
4. Defragment your hard drives (and check them for errors) regularly. Tuneup Utilities, if you have it, takes care of this too.
5. Usually, the antivirus you have also tends to slow down the computer. Use a good, and reasonably fast antivirus (my preference is for Kaspersky)
6. Remove unwanted programs from startup -- both in startup programs and msconfig
7. Make non-essential services 'delayed-start' (Windows Vista and up only) for a faster startup

Answer 11

• Run with a minimized interface (on XP for example, use the classic windows interface)
• Don't load anything in the background that you don't consider a critical app (like anti-virus)
• Defragment your hard drive
• Leave enough free space on your hard drive so that utilities can operate
• Use lightweight alternatives to the OS's utilities (media player, internet explorer)

Answer 12

Uninstall your AntiVirus.

Answer 13

Run a virus/malware/spyware scan to make sure there's nothing on there that you don't know about, chewing up CPU time and RAM. To make it boot faster, you should look into what is running on startup. I recommend CCleaner.

Answer 14

Make sure that there is no spyware or anything running in the background by running AdAware or similar software. When cleaning out computers for my mom's friends I have found that that is definitely the most common reason for the computer being slow.

Answer 15

For OS-level I/O performance in Windows Vista, you may want to consider some tips from ExtremeTech.

• ensuring write caching for disks
• disable space checking
• remove legacy DOS 8.3 support

Answer 16

I improved the performance of my desktop computer (in some operations like hibernating) by a factor of 3 by resetting the disk to DMA mode when it had gone into PIO mode. There's a script to do this and some instrucions here: http://winhlp.com/node/10

Answer 17

Kill daemons. ITunesService, PnkBstr, vmware daemons. Sometimes I will just end these processes without changing the startup settings so my machine will run faster for the day.

Answer 18

If you cannot afford SCSI/SAS disks, use a 10K rpm Western Digital Velociraptor as your primary system disk. Store data and other less important programs on a regular 7200 rpm disk.

Answer 19

More RAM and a multi-core CPU seems to help a lot. Also it might help to run for example CCleaner and a Defrag once in a while. Another thing might be a faster hard-drive for your os and installed programs.

Another thing is to use a piece of Anti-Virus software that doesn't strangle your computer. Personally I like ESET NOD32 for that reason.

To see what is making your computer run slow (if anything) I really like the new Resource Monitor of Windows 7. If you have earlier versions of windows you always have the SysInternals Process Explorer. (I never really liked it that much to be honest, found it a bit unclear and a bit ugly)

Answer 20

Yes more RAM will help to speed it up but some of the main things are:

• Run msconfig.sys and remove all startup services and programs that you do not need when windows loads

• Turn off all graphical options of your OS

• Run Disk Cleanup to remove all temp files from all temp locations (C:\ , C:\Temp etc)

• Defrag you disks regulary

• Close done all apps in the system tray that aren't needed

• Delete shortcuts from the Startmenu > Startup folder for un-needed apps.

• Keep your C:\ as small as you need it and use it mainly for booting and installing programs only and keep you files on a separate storage drive. This will improve boot times.

Hope that helps

Answer 21

Hard to answer without knowing more, but typically the speed of a computer is influenced by a lot of things:

• Available memory
• Speed of disks
• Speed of cpu

Now, as you don't want to buy new hardware, you can't directly change these values, but you can change them indirectly.

By that I mean:

• Stop running programs that occupy memory, but you don't need (or at least don't need at the moment, or all the time). This will lessen the need to swap out programs to disk. Additionally, this will free up cpu resources for the tasks you want to run faster.
• Defragment disks

Additionally, if you require a particular task to run faster, for instance converting images or video, then perhaps just switching software would help as well, since various types of software is optimized differently. Perhaps another program might run faster than what you're currently using, on your hardware.

Also, though I have no experience with it, some articles on the web indicate that Windows 7 might run better on hardware than even Windows XP, so perhaps that would be viable as well? But then you'd probably have to buy Windows 7 to take full advantage of it, so again you'd have to get rid of some money in the process.

Answer 22

Reinstall the operating system regularly.

Answer 23

Don't install servers as services, or have them stopped when not used.

Answer 24

• if the hardware spec is the problem, a RAM upgrade gets you the best performance boost in relation to cost
• if you do not have much free disk space, add a bigger hard disk
• uninstall any programs that you do not need
• make sure you defragment your disks
• clear your temp directories
• clear your recycle bin
• run CCleaner: this does lots of clearing up for you (including removing temp files)

With Windows, re-installing is the easiest way of getting a speed up (if you don't mind losing all of your installed applications/files - or backing them up first). This gives you a clean machine to start from.

Answer 25

Cool your computer properly. Many computers are slow because they are overheated.

Change the fans (they collect dust and become less effective). Clean the dust inside. Don't put the computer under the direct sun light. Turn on air conditioning. Buy a cooling stand for a laptop.

Answer 26

• Place your swap file on a secondary hard drive (some harddrive other than where Windows/most of your programs are installed)

Answer 27

On my current XP installation, I've tried not to install apps where possible, preferring to use portable, no-install versions instead. Seems to be working well at 14 months and counting.

Answer 28

Reinstall Windows, which shouldn't be too much of a hassle if you've backed up:

• all your drivers if need essential updates from Windows and what now;
• all your most important application installers;
• all your (important) files to a secondary hard drive;
• have most of the applications ready that were mentioned in this post ;-)

That way you only need a couple of hours work to get the system properly installed, but it will mostly run faster than trying to tweak things afterwards. One of the largest advantages of installing everything new again is that you often leave away applications which you turned out not to be using. Reducing clutter and a lot of the stuff that causes Windows to slow down in the first place. By applying the tips you read in the other answers you can further trim down Windows.

The easiest thing to do then is make an image/backup which you can easily restore when you want to get back to your "faster" setup, however I find reinstalling often a better idea, since it makes me choose what to keep and what to throw away more.

Answer 29

• Get rid of any extra processes that are running in the background that you do not need.

• Make sure you are not being crippled by malware that may be using up valuable resources sending information back to its makers.

• Defragmenting your hard drive (NOT RECOMMENDED FOR SOLID STATE DRIVES) should make reads and writes faster.

Answer 30

Remove windows and install linux. Joking...

sadly for me... the only real thing that always worked was format and reinstall