How to Speed up Your system

1. Reset the icon cache

-Delete IconCache.db from your profile directory (usually C:/documents and settings/username/local settings/application data)
Windows will automatically recreate it

Use this if you're experiencing lag as you browse through your start menu or your desktop icons dissapear and reappear regularly

2. Turn off the indexing service

-Go to start, click run, and type in services.msc and hit enter. right click indexing service, click properties, and set startup type to manual.

Windows indexes all of your files - useless if you don't use the search tool that often + google desktop works much better than windows search

3. Reduce menu delay
-Go to run, type in regedit, find hkey_current_user\control panel\desktop and select MenuShowDelay. right click it and select modify and set the number to around 100 or so, or a number that suits your tastes.

Windows actually controls how fast or slow menus load, why not speed it up?


4. Speed up shutting down

-First, Open up regedit using Run from the control panel
1. Change HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP\WaitToKillAppTimeout from 20000 to 1000
2. Change HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP\HungAppTimeout from 5000 to 1000
3. Change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\CONTRO L\WaitToKillServiceTimeout from 20000 to 1000
4. Change HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP\WaitToKillAppTimeout from 20000 to 1000

This reduces the time window waits before killing apps that are not responding - you'd just close them normally anyway.


5. Convert FAT32 volumes to NTFS (Hard Drives)

NTFS is faster, more secure, and is more stable.

Steps:

1. Back up the drive's data
2. Click start and Run, type cmd and press enter to open a command prompt window
3. Type vol c: and press enter to find and note the volume label of partition.
(This assumes you're converting the C drive, replace it with the correct letter if you're converting another drive)
4. Type convert c: /fs:ntfs and press enter
5. When prompted, enter the volume you noted in step 3
6. Answer "Y" to the remaining question. The system will reboot and convert the volume.
The first reboot after conversion might take longer than usual, but this will only happen once.



6. Disable redundant 8.3 file names

1. Open regedit again
2. Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\CONTRO L\FILESYSTEM\NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreatrion to 1 and restart

8.3 filenames are only used by DOS and '95 programs. if you don't have 'em, get rid of the filenames.

7. Speed up searching by disabling ZIP file searching

1. Click start, open run, type in cmd and hit enter.

2. Type in "regsvr32c:\windows\system32\zipflrd.dll /u" and press enter. To re-enable. simply retype it without the "/u"

Searching zip files can take forever, so if you don't need it, don't use it.