Does your PC runs irritatibly slow?

Before undertaking any system changes, be sure that the basic maintenance chores are done. Also be sure that you know how to get back where you started in case changes don't work out. As a reminder here are the things that need to be done regularly:

Run up-to-date anti-virus
Run up-to-date anti-spyware
Empty “temp” files
Empty Recycle Bin
Run chkdsk and disk defragmenter
Back up your system

Windows XP loads pretty fast but there are some ways to hurry it up a bit. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff you read isn't too useful. Here are a few of the common suggestions.

A study has shown that cutting down on the number of fonts being loaded will speed things up. If you have many hundreds of fonts, you might consider removing some.

There is a lot of discussion of configuring "Prefetch" and the related subject "boot defrag". The average PC user can ignore these subjects since Windows XP basically takes care of this area on its own. However, forget the often-mentioned idea of regularly deleting the contents of the \Windows\Prefetch\ folder. In fact, deleting Prefetch will initially slow down the boot until the folder is rebuilt.

The Start menu in Windows XP contains an entry, My Recent Documents, where a list of all the recent documents that you have opened or used is kept. This provides a quick way to reopen any document. After a while the list can get quite long and it has the effect of slowing the bootup process. What isn't obvious is that the list of files that can be accessed from the My Recent Documents entry in the Start may be only the tip of the iceberg. The folder, %USERPROFILE%\Recent, where the entries are stored may have many more. This folder should be cleaned regularly. This can be done manually or automatically every time you log off. To make the cleanup automatic you can edit the Registry.

In the Registry editor Regedit, navigate to this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a DWORD value named ClearRecentDocsOnExit and give it a data value of 1.

Shortcut entries for “My Recent Documents” will still be collected during a login session but will then be cleared at logoff.