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How To Improve Windows XP Performance
By Dave Taylor
Expert Author
Article Date: 2009-02-06
I'm running on an old clunker of a PC and find that all the visual bells and whistles in Windows XP
are really slowing things down. I don't need fancy window zooming or anything else, I just need the fastest computer I can create. How do I turn off all these effects?
Dave's Answer:
This is what I call "the demo problem" because I feel like some of the whiz-bang features that we find in modern operating systems are there purely to look cool, to make the system look good when someone's watching what you're doing. I mean, really, do we need three different kind of window-open-zoom features?
What's nice with Windows XP is that it's relatively straightforward to turn this feature off, though WinXP has the problem of whether you use "classic" or "new" mode with your Start Menu. I'll show both.
First, off, click on Start --> Control Panels and if you're using the newer view, you'll see this:
You want to click on "Performance and Maintenance" and now you'll see:
Click on "Adjust visual effects" and ...
Oh, wait, I want to show you the classic path there first:
Now click on the "System" icon then on the "Advanced" tab and:
Jeez, it's still complex, but don't panic, you want to simply choose "Settings" under "Performance" (as shown) and you'll end up in the same place:
However you've gotten here, you can see that you just need to choose "best performance" and just about all the visual effects should be disabled and, hopefully, your computer will go a bit faster.
Comments
About the Author:
Dave Taylor is known as an expert on both business and technology issues.
Holder of an MSEd and MBA, author of twenty books and founder of four
startups, he also runs a marketing company and consults with firms
seeking the best approach to working with weblogs and social networks. Dave
is an award-winning speaker and frequent guest on radio and podcast
programs.
AskDaveTaylor.com
http://www.intuitive.com/blog/
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