Optimize Windows XP

This registry change tells the operating system to unload DLL(dynamic link library) files every time a program is closed, most of the time whenever a program is closed the DLL's hang around in your memory in case the program is loaded again. The advantage to using this tweak is that you regain precious system memory whenever a program is closed. Included with this tutorial I added a registry file that you can simply import into your registry that would make those changes for you. Below you will find the steps necessary to accomplish this. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

Update: Please read the article below as changes were made regarding the value to use when changing registry settings and the applications affected by the change. Thanks to the users that pointed it out!

The tweak I am going to describe below increases system stability by instructing the operating system to separate processes for each instance of an application. In other words if you have three Internet Explorer windows open and one of them crashes it will allow you to close out that crashed instance of Internet Explorer without affecting the other two. I consider this to be a life saver because I run multiple instances of Internet Explorer a lot of the time as well as a performance boost that you gain from this tweak. Below you will find the steps necessary to accomplish this. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

I was searching for more ways to optimize my computers' startup/shutdown time and ran into this popular utility. Once installed it I ran it and rebooted my system, I must admit I did notice a slight speed increase when I booted. Coupled with the other tweaks I have applied to my laptop I no longer waste valuable time waiting for my computer to shut down. The following is the description for CCleaner. Any comments/suggestions are welcome. If you need any help using the software feel free to let me know via comments or the forum.

I just hate it when I click the Start menu and it takes forever to load, so I started looking around and found that by changing a single number in the registry you can essentially decrease the amount of time it takes for the menu to load. Below you will find the steps necessary to make your Start menu load faster. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

1. These tweaks require that you venture into your registry, please backup your registry.

The following instructions will allow your computer to shut down much faster. This specific change tells the operating system to shut down the services on your computer at faster rate; instead of shutting down at the default 20,000 ms, your computer will be shutting down those services in 1,000 ms, after applying this change you should see a significant difference in the amount of time it takes to shutdown your PC. Below you'll find some simple steps to speed up your computers shut down time. This is Part III of a couple of tips aimed at speeding up your PC's shutdown time. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

This is Part 2 of Speeding Up Shutdown Times. This time around instead of messing with the registry as we did last time, we are simply going to install a utility that Microsoft released in response to slow shutdown times. You just need to install the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service, which, "...helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. System processes and applications occasionally maintain connections to registry keys in the user profile after a user logs off." Download the file using the link below and install. Again this is Part II of a couple of tips aimed at speeding up your PC's shutdown time. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

Overview

One of my biggest problems at the end of the day is shutting down my laptop...it takes way too long to shut down. I've gotten it to where it's fast booting up, but the shutdown times sometimes exceed a couple of minutes. This of course is very 'painful' when I'm trying to run out of the office or just trying to put the laptop away. Below you'll find some simple steps to speed up your computers shut down time. This is Part I of a couple of tips aimed at speeding up your PC's shutdown time. As always comments/suggestions are welcome.

This optimization tweak forces your computer to use as much RAM as it can before it switches to the slower swap file which resides on your hard drive. I only recommend this tweak for computers that have 256MB of RAM or more.

"Swap file: On a hard disk, a file used to store parts of running programs that have been swapped out of memory temporarily to make room for other running programs. It may be permanent, always occupying the same amount of hard disk space even though the application that created it may not be running, or is temporary, and only created as and when needed.*"