Lots of users are trying to stretch an extra year or more out of their current desktop or laptop computers. I find that it’s actually easier to get better computer performance improvements from a desktop computer than it is from a laptop computer. The reason for this is simple. Most laptop computers were designed with slower processors, stricter memory limitations, limited graphics processing abilities, and lower-volume hard disks. They were designed to conserve battery power, so their processors and video cards are typically underpowered and overburdened.

Removing Toolbars Can Help Speed Up Your Computer

Some Web applications offer you the “opportunity” to install toolbars that enable you to access the application’s functions and features from your desktop. Be warned that these toolbars and taskbars, including the Microsoft Office Task Bar, slow the performance of your computer substantially. These mini-applications run in the background at all times draining away your computer’s memory and CPU resources.

Worse, some of these add-ons contain viruses and other types of malware that will create even worse problems for your computer. Remove the toolbars and recapture your performance. In the future, avoid adding new toolbars or taskbars to your desktop. If you find that removing a toolbar is a chore, search for a software removal tool that can help.

Start and stop programs as needed, rather than configuring them to run at startup. If you don’t know what your computer is running at any given time, you can visit Programs > Startup to see what your computer runs each time you boot up. These programs each represent a drain on your system’s memory, and in some cases, an additional drain on the free space on your hard disk. If you have several programs that are configured to start up when you turn the computer on, you could experience a significant performance drain, especially when you start yet-another application.

Turn off the applications you don’t need and reconfigure your startup items to include only those programs that are absolutely needed all the time. Starting up a program doesn’t take as much time as you think it does, and you can give your computer a performance boost by starting programs manually. By the same token, you should close and exit programs you are finished with. That will enable the computer to allocate the newly available memory to something else.

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Windows 7 has received rave reviews and many users who initially doubted Microsoft’s ability to release a stable OS are now having second thoughts. Just because Redmond has issued a new OS, however, doesn’t mean that users everywhere have flocked to the new OS. Windows XP, arguably one of the most successful iterations of the Microsoft Windows line, still has a huge installed user base.

Getting More Out Of XP

Corporate rollouts of Windows 7 may be months (or more) away, so how does a user who still works on a Windows XP system get extra performance out of a slow computer?

Windows XP has a lot going for it, but it relies on older programming techniques to provide a quality user experience. With Windows XP, there was often a trade-off between how the computer performed and what the display looked like. The more “eye candy” you’re looking for, the slower your computer will perform. That’s largely because the processing tasks that are involved in the eye-catching tricks make the computer work harder and slower.

So, if you want the computer to perform better, how can you balance the OS to favor function over form? One way to recapture a little bit of performance is to rein in the way Windows XP displays its menus. Turning off visual effects like shadowing and fading will help restore some performance to XP.

To adjust Windows XP’s graphics handling, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Choose the Advanced Tab. In the top pane, labeled Performance, choose Settings.

Under the Visual Effects tab, select the checkbox labeled “Adjust for best performance.” This will eliminate all of the fancy graphics handling that Windows XP can perform. If you decide that you want the visual effects or that the switch doesn’t improve your computer’s performance enough to warrant it, you can go back into the same location and choose “Adjust for best appearance.” Whether these little visual effects really qualify as the “best” appearance is strictly a matter of personal taste, but you can decide for yourself whether the shadows and fadeouts are worth the extra processor cycles.

If you’re looking for more significant “performance economy,” consider using a registry cleaner to remove unnecessary code from the Windows registry instead.

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There are certain things you can’t change about your computer without spending some of your hard-earned cash. The processor speed is fixed; the graphics processing capabilities are fixed; the amount of memory you have installed is also fixed. You can modify all of these things, but that will require an investment. If you’re hoping to speed up your computer without having to lay out a lot of money, consider these tips.

Little Things Can Make A Difference

What You’re Doing: Keeping unneeded files and data. Over time, your file system can become overloaded with materials you no longer need. Keeping track of where these unneeded items are takes up resources and space that you could be using for other stuff.

What You Should Be Doing: Pare down your file system and archive the materials you want to keep but don’t need to keep on your hard disk. Consider transferring this kind of data to a CD or DVD.

What You’re Doing: Keeping programs you don’t use. New computers often come loaded with “demo” software that either expires after a particular period of time, or is a locked version of the full package. Software publishers have agreements with PC manufacturers that permit the manufacturers to load these programs on the computer before it ships to the end user.

What You Should Be Doing: Eliminating unnecessary programs. When you go through your computer, remove all applications that you no longer need, or have never used. Demo programs take up space and resources. Remove whatever you don’t use, or no longer use. If you like to download shareware or freeware, but decide that what you’ve downloaded doesn’t suit your needs, uninstall it right away.

What You’re Doing: Letting regular disk maintenance slip. When you delete a lot of files, your hard disk becomes fragmented, making it harder for the computer to find the necessary storage space for new files and applications.

What You Should Be Doing: Defragmenting your hard disk. After deleting so many files, defragment your hard disk using the built in Defragment tool. This tool will enable your hard disk to optimize the placement of the data that remain on your hard disk and speed up access and write times. Even after you defragment, you’re still not done!

What You Should Be Doing: Cleaning your registry. After doing some wholesale deleting and defragging, you’ll also want to clean your computer’s registry. Each time you add programs, new entries get written to your registry. Not all uninstallers are created equal, however, and useless bits of program code are often left behind. A good registry cleaner like RegCure will help clear this information out and restore performance to your computer.

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Computers age more quickly than other equipment does, partially because the computer manufacturers are always coming out with newer, better, faster and cheaper components that expand the capacity of a computer and reduce its cost at the same time. This fact, along with several habits users may adopt, can add up to a slow computer.

Eliminating Bad Habits That Can Lead To A Slow Computer

What You’re Doing: Storing files on the desktop. This sneaky little habit can cause your computer to devote extra memory to your OS on top of what it’s already devoted to the file system. Each document or other item that is stored on the desktop takes up valuable operating memory.
What You Should Be Doing: Saving your files in the file system. Microsoft creates folders like your Downloads and Document folders to help you avoid storing files on the desktop. Use these folders when you download files or create documents. If you don’t like doing that, develop a structure within your file system to save your files. Don’t store anything on the desktop!

What You’re Doing: Running the standard installation routine. When you download or install a new application, the Setup.exe file or the installer file usually has a pre-programmed installation routine that stores the application files in a particular place in the file structure. It also adds the other files (like libraries) you may need to get the application to work properly. The installer routine often enters your new application into the “startup items” file set, meaning that the new application will start automatically. It also adds the application to the Start Menu and/or Task Bar, and puts an icon on the desktop.
What You Should Be Doing: Select “Custom Install” to look at exactly what the installer plans to do. Eliminate the extras like the Start Menu add-on, the startup items entry, the desktop alias and/or the Task Bar add-on. Start programs that you won’t use every day manually. The more extras you can eliminate from the standard installation routine, the better off you’ll be.

In my next post, we’ll cover three other tips that can help you change your work habits as they relate to your slow computer. Once you’ve purchased a computer, you can’t improve your hardware performance very much – at least not without spending more money. You can correct work habits that rob your computer of operating memory and lead to a slow computer, however!

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If your computer suddenly slows to an agonizing pace, you may be tempted to think that a virus or other type of malware is the problem. You may race to perform anti-virus scans or malware scans, and start thinking about what you’ve downloaded recently. The good news is that not all computer slowdowns are the result of malware or viruses.

Don’t Jump To Conclusions

When you’re trying to diagnose a slow computer, it’s important NOT to jump to conclusions about what the problem might be. An erroneous diagnosis can produce a great deal of unnecessary work, lost time and rarely gets you to the correct solution.

It’s never a bad idea to scan your computer regularly for viruses and malware. In fact, your anti-virus and anti-malware programs should be set to update themselves automatically, and should also be set to scan your computer frequently. For computers that have a reliable and trusted anti-virus/anti-malware program running on them, a viral infection is rarely my first suspect when a slowdown occurs.

I like to look at the performance of the computer to see if there’s something specific that’s causing the computer to misbehave. I also like to know what’s running at the moment. The Task Manager can give you an instant look at which applications and processes are running. A word of caution: don’t kill a process or application simply because you don’t recognize it by name. Some necessary OS processes have strange names. Take a moment to figure out what’s consuming the CPU’s time. If a process is consuming 100% or nearly 100% of the CPU, you may want to end that particular task, though.

Perfmon is a built-in tool from Microsoft that can provide a detailed graphical look at what your CPU is doing. This is a good troubleshooting tool that can help you pinpoint trouble because you can see the impact of starting and stopping applications instantly. It will also show you the impact of even simple things, like moving the mouse cursor around the screen. Use this tool in conjunction with the Task Manager to pinpoint applications that are misbehaving or that don’t get along with other applications you may have running on your computer.

Once you locate the troubled application(s), check with the software publisher to see if an update to your software has been published. If so, apply it, and any other patches to the OS that you may have missed.

If that doesn’t resolve the issue, consider running a registry cleaner like RegCure to remove registry entries that have been left behind or replaced with newer ones.

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