Services are background processes which keep running waiting for a response, so if you don’t use the application it still runs and slows PC speed. The average user doesn’t need many running.

1. Click the Start button
2. Type msconfig in the Start Search box, hit enter
3. Click the Services tab
4. Uncheck the unneeded startup items (examples below)
   Desktop

Desktop Window Manager Session Manager - Provides DesktopWindow Manager startup and maintenance services. Uncheck to disable.

Diagnostic Policy Service - Enables problem detection, troubleshooting and resolution for Windows components. Uncheck to disable.

Diagnostic Service Host - Same as above
Diagnostic System Host - Same as above

Offline Files - The Offline Files service performs maintenance
activities on the Offline Files cache. Uncheck to disable.

Terminal Services - Allows users to connect interactively to a remote computer. Remote Desktop and Terminal Server depend on this service. If you don’t use either of these, then you can disable the service. Uncheck to disable.

Windows Error Reporting Service - Allows errors to be reported when programs stop working or responding and allows existing solutions to be delivered. Uncheck to disable.

After you are finished, click Apply then click OK to save changes.

Now, there’s a lot of talk about the new User Account Control policy in Vista, and all I can say is that it annoys the heck out of 99% of users and slows down normal computer usage. To turn it off, the easiest way is to:

Click the Start (Windows) button Select the Control Panel Type in ‘UAC‘ into the search bar It’ll bring up a search result of ‘Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off’ Just follow the prompts from there

Much better, eh? You might say ‘but what’s that got to do with speed?’ It prompts you at least a couple times an hour and then takes several seconds to figure itself out. Without these annoying prompts, your productivity goes up, so therefore it’s a speed enhancer.

You may have a bunch of software packages on your hard drive that are no longer needed, or they were gratuitously installed when you downloaded some other package. Toolbars, file-sharing programs, free email enhancers, online shopping “companions” and download managers are notorious for this practice. These uninvited guests can put a big drag on your startup time, cause web pages to load slowly, and generally bog down your computer.

If you’re unsure about some programs, do a web search to learn about the ones that you need to keep.

Indexing Services is a small little program that uses large amounts of memory and can often make a computer endlessly loud and noisy. This system process indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer. It does this so that when you do a search for something on your computer, it will search faster by scanning the index lists. If you don’t search your computer often, this system service is completely unnecessary. To disable do the following:

Click Start button Select the Control Panel Double-click Add/Remove Programs Click the Add/Remove Window Components icon on the left side of the window This may take a few seconds to load. Be patient. Look for the “Indexing Services” component in the list Uncheck the Indexing Services Click Next Click Finish

Both Windows and application programs tend to leave temporary files lying around on your hard drive, taking up space. A hard drive that is close to being “full” can cause Windows to slow down or interfere with efficient disk access and virtual memory operations.

If you surf the web a lot, your temporary internet files folder can become quite large, causing Internet Explorer to slow down or malfunction. Cleaning up unneeded files, scanning for disk errors and defragmenting the hard drive can help to restore some zip to your system. Try to run once a month for peak performance.

Double-click the My Computer icon. Right-click on the C: drive Select Properties Click the Disk Cleanup button (to the bottomright of the Capacity pie graph) Select / check Temporary Internet Files and Recycle Bin Click OK

Page file size is not constant by default. Due to this, the operating system has to resize the file each time more space is required. This is a performance overhead. All you have to do is to set the file size to a reasonable limit. Read the rest of this entry »