How to increase your computer speed (part 3)

Posted by The Technocrat | Filed under Geeky

So far, we have Cleaned off spyware and viruses and
Turned off some of the pretty features in Windows XP. In this next installment, we take it up a notch and turn off some other features in XP that most people don’t need (but some may want).

Firewall
Windows comes with a basic firewall. If you don’t know how your home network is set up, then leave it on. If you have purchased an external firewall for your home network, then you can use that firewall instead of the one built into windows. Familiarize yourself with the web interface of your network firewall, and learn how to operate your network-based firewall before you turn the windows-based one off. By making your network firewall do the work of protecting you, your machine has more time to do other things.

This step is critical, so this entry will be short. Learn how to configure your router’s firewall before you turn off the Windows firewall, and understand what you are doing.

Computer browsing
Windows Xp ‘remembers’ a lot of things in an attempt to have them readily available the next time you use them. In addition, XP automatically tries to guess what you’re going to do next, and busys itself with loading up any imaginable command you might give it on a given screen.

Unfortunately, what ends up happening is that the machine tries to remember so much information, that finding what you want takes longer than just getting the data. You can tell Windows XP to not bother trying to remember some of this information by clicking ‘My computer’ > ‘tools’ > ‘folder options’ > and selecting the ‘view’ tab. Turn off ‘Automatically search for network folders and printers’ and check \Do not cache thumbnails’.

We’re starting to get into the nitty-gritty here, so we’ll save some more for next time when we look at registry settings and some services we might be able to turn off. Until next time, happy computing!

Comments (3) | December 19th, 2005

3 Responses to “How to increase your computer speed (part 3)”

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    September 1, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    Great articles & Nice a site….

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    March 10, 2010 at 4:15 am

    This particular is definitely really good stuff. Thanks

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