10 Registry Editing Tricks To Increase Your Windows XP performance

Everyone gets exasperated when their computer is slow. However, There are a number of editing tricks you can do with the Windows Registry that will improve the performance of Personal computers, especially Windows Pro and Home XP.

Before you attempt to use the registry editor utility, make sure you backup your system.

Ok, here’s a few registry editing tricks to you can use to help increase your Windows performance:

Trick No 1: Removal of unused fonts, program and protocols

Take stock of the programs that you use on a daily basis. Remove or uninstall those that are not required. You may keep your favorite fonts and remove the rest. After all, if you are using them and these can be loaded at anytime, there is no point in cluttering up your hard disk. Remove temporary files. These will be located in the C:\Windows\temp or C:\TEMP, c:\windows\prefetch directories. Also remove Network protocols like NetBEUI or IPX. Removal will free disk space and your personal computer will work faster.

Trick No 2: dll files that a program has used are not unloaded by Windows.

These will be available if you restart a program. So unload these dll files, use Regedit. Run Regedit and set the DWORD value as ‘AlwaysUnloadDLL and set to 1’.

Trick No 3: You change the way Windows XP uses memory in three ways.

Stop the XP from paging data from RAM onto the hard drive by disabling the paging executive. Change the value of the key to 1 from 0. Changing the value of the LargeSystemCache to 1 from 0 will help free up memory. Speed for Large file transfers can be improved by setting it between 8 and 16 megabytes.

Trick No 4: Use Regedit and adjust the network bandwidth reserved for various programs.

Create REG_DWORD key “DisableTaskOffload”. This should be set to 0.

Trick No 5: Shorten the menu delay by using Regedit.

Run regedit, edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Control Panel / Desktop / MenuShowDelay . The value is generally set to 400. Changing this to 100 will help speed up the process.

Trick No 6: Sometimes, after you install Norton Anti Virus, you may not be able to access your XP.

In such situation, use Regedit. Run regedit and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters. Edit the IRPStackSize by giving it a value of 15 and then reboot. This should solve the problem.

Trick No 7: Unwanted entries in the Startup (MSCONFIG) should be removed.

Run regedit. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig\services
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig\startupfolder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\shared Tools\MSConfig\startupreg

Trick No 8: You can turn off Fax viewer and Windows Picture from appearing by default.

Run Regedit and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT / SystemFileAssociations / image / ShellEx / ContextMenuHandlers and delete ‘ShellImagePreview’.

Trick No 9: Turn off balloon tips.

Run regedit. Go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. Create a DWORD value ‘EnableBalloonTips; and give it a value of ‘O’

Trick No 10: If you are the only person using your XP, you can reduce log in time by configuring your XP for automatic log in.

These are only a few tips to improve your system’s performance. As you read and explore the registry and come across specific problems, you can change the settings for speeding up the performance of your XP. Take care to take a backup before attempting any change.