XP Pro .......S...L...O...W...!

[DonnyEMU]

I personally recommend the free home version with free automatic updates of avast anti-virus. Besides being free it doesn't install services or processes that slow down the machine.. download it at http://www.avast.com

I also recommend with XP that you continue to defrag your drive WEEKLY. You can set this to happen automatically.

Personally I have ran both XP 64-bit and Vista 32-bit and 64 bit and I never have problems. As I watch people here complain etc, I wonder why I never have any of these kinds pf problems on my machines. I simply know the hardware and software well and I guess I am doing all the right things. I must be so lucky ;-)

I would suggest if you are setting up the machine to automatically do the right maintenance (defrag, etc.) that you probably will never notice any issues at all..

I don't trust norton or mcaffee, they want to control your machine more than the Virus folks do anymore and they do things that violate architectural standards without checking with Microsoft first.

Also, on XP if you notice a slow down it is very likely that you have been infected with some Malware that's running in the background. Have you checked out your machine with windows defender or Lavasoft's Ad-aware.. I'd almost make a bet with you that if you ran ad-aware your PC would be running faster the moment after you ran it.

[Fester]

Darrin wrote:

motorollin wrote:
2. Choose an efficient anti-virus solution - i.e. NOT Norton

Agreed.  I was having performance problems with my laptop until I removed McAfee Security Suite and replaced it with the free Virus Checker "AVG".  The speed increase was amazing.  I don't know what McAfee was doing in the background, but it was cripling my machine.

Same experience here. I tried Norton, McAfee, and PC-Tools products. The one that I like best is AVG. Run Panda's TotalScan once in a while...

[gdanko]

Any suggestions from all you smart people out there, that I might try before starting over?

Try Ubuntu. It works and doesn't bog your computer down.

[amigakid]

Run msconfig and stop any uneccesary programs from runing on startup.  Empty out your prefetch folder, defrag your system, scan for adware and spyware and then see if that helps.  If not I have more you can try.  As far as trying Mac OS or Linux as some suggest if your not used to them I would pass.  Mac OSX is ok, but I find it lacking in areas and Linux is great but you run into compatability problems if you ause your comp for more than just the normal browsing and stuff.  Cheers

[HopperJF]

Munchkin wrote:

Don't install to many fonts. Windows scans through the fonts all the time. The worst software to use with many installed fonts is IE, it scans through for just about every webpage you visit..

Don't use IE, use Firefox.

Agreed, and set a default font for web pages in the Options, this will make things a lot quicker.

[LoadWB]

Somebody queue up Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's "Every OS Sucks"

[ACK_h8r]

Nearly all of the recommendations here are just way over the top and are for the paranoid, the only thing the OP needs is to use common sense while using his computer. Instead of installing tons of system hogging software that will come back and haunt him.

Sorry op but if you listen to these guys your machine will end up screwed and need fresh installing again. Reminds me of the {bleep}s who recommend codec packs.

[jmbattle]

Use nLite.

Cheers,
James
x

[gdanko]

Hmmm why do you all make excuses for Windows? The only way to get these guys to improve the product is to force them. How do you force them? You stop using it until it has improved.

All this stuff about using this browser or changing that font is nonsense. I don't have to do that in Linux or OS X. They work well almost all the time. There's no reason for Windows to be the mess it is.

Stop complaining about it or stop using it.

[DonnyEMU]

Not true I used XP x64 and Vista x64 over a year now.. The point of an x64 processor is that it's also a 32 bit processor. There are no compatiblity issues in the apps. Some people have had missing driver issues, but all Win32 apps seem to work..

Quoting the WWW.PCSTATS.COM article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1665

"These three sets of benchmarks conform to the AMD Athlon 64 processor's three modes of operation: 'Legacy mode' (for 32 bit operating systems and apps), 'Compatibility mode' (for 64 bit OS with 32-bit apps) and '64-bit mode' (true 64-bit OS/applications)."



Please note that even though this is AMD64 info, Core 2 Duo's 64-bit processor works similarly..

By the way, I can't wait for someone to start slamming compatibility, because I use no less than five 64-bit windows machines daily. I am ready for it, with the response article because I have no problems with anything. I even run win 16-bit apps via the Free Virtual PC..

[PPC]

Speedup 1 is use a 'hardware' firewall on a ethernet/adsl router,speedup 2 is if you use McAffey set it up that it only scans incoming files from the network/internet

I've installed McAffey on my own pc (Athlon XP2600+ @ 2Ghz with 1,5 GB RAM) running on server 2003, i have no problems whatsoever, my windows machine is pretty responsive for such an old machine, i even run a wamp and FTP server on it no problems at all.
Ok, comapared to a fast A4000 with CSPPC&SCSI 3 UW etc, it's always slow :-P

just like other people said in the msconfig there is speed to gain, disable all services you do not need (i do not have a printer so i killed the printer spooler for example also the help function, it's worthless anyway)
You can also disable: error reporting service,event log,if you have an nvidia card also disable nvidia display driver service,remote registry (nice&safe also) and some other functions.

[DrDekker]

From my own personal experiences I've found Norton and Mc Affee to severely slow down my PC's and cause all sorts of other issues too.
TrendMicro PCillin is probably the best of the commercial products.  Of the freebies, I think AVG does a great job.  Couple this with Comodo (firewall) and Lavasoft's Adaware - you've got yourself a pretty good line of defence without having your resources bogged down.
I've never done a defrag - but I'm sure to do one soon as it'll improve preformance.
Regarding Firefox - I've never suffered so much in the way of slowdowns, connection problems and viral infection as when I used this software.  Once I'd gotten rid of this bit of junk and re-installed IE 7, my system was up and running again as normal.

Considering I've installed over a hundred programs/applications, have 80Gb boot HD crammed to 75Gb, plus around 400Gb of data storage on tap - it boots up pretty swiftly (30-40 seconds).

Compared to my accelerated A1200 with 814mB HD 'crammed' with a dozen apps/programs/games (ooh - about 20Mb's worth) - my PC's boot time is cr4p.  Oh how I hate Microsoft products and PC's in general! :crazy:

[ShadesOfGrey]

DISCLAIMER: The process described in the second paragraph is not a panacea!!!

Following the some of the other suggestions here, clean out your system of unwanted/unneeded software.  Find yourself a good registry cleaner and scrub your registry well.  You can oogle one.   For the most part any one is as good as another...  So long as it isn't laden with malware.  Anyway, the page defrag tool from Sysinternals is a good idea, just make sure your swap file isn't variable in size (i.e. managed by windows).  Setting a fixed size insures you swap file won't (well, shouldn't) fragment.

After that's done, if you're still not satisfied with your system's performance, you can try a repair install.  It blows out (for the most part) the System hive of the registry while retaining the user hive(s), while retaining the registry info for your installed apps.  However, you'll have to apply all the service packs/hotfixes not included on your Windows CD...  That is unless you slipstream them , nLite will help with that (also make sure you do this).  

Please keep in mind that this process can also introduce a few idiosyncrasies and may require some tweaking afterward.    I've done this a couple times with both 2k and XP and it has improved performance somewhat.  But as I said in the disclaimer, it's not a panacea.  If your performance problems stem from 'third party' software (i.e. not Microsoft's core OS files), this process will probably not improve things much.  

[motrucker]

Just for yet another two cent worth - If you are using Norton, that will slow you more than any other single program. Use AVG, it's better, and does NOT bog down the machine.
Spyware is another problem. Use Spyware Blaster, and Spybot Search & destroy. These two programs can help keep you running up to speed. TweakNow RegCleaner is about the best Registry cleaner I have found - & it's free.
Other than that, just watch what you install.
I'm running XP home/ SP2 on a Biostar mobo, with an old AMD 3200 64 CPU, with 2Gb RAM, 256Mb ATI 850 graphics card - and it is faster than you would believe.

[jmbattle]

Yes, nLite and the RyanVM update packs can transform XP into a very stable, efficient OS.

Cheers,
James
x

[stopthegop]

XP "Stable and Efficient"??  


Stable is a relative term.  The Queen Mary is also stable.  But to suggest that XP (or the Queen Mary) is 'efficient' is a perversion of the language.  I'm trying to think of something (anything) more inefficient than XP..  The only thing that comes to mind is... Vista.