[iaavagent]

DaVo or anyone.
Lets say one cleans up as you suggest. How do you confirm the amount of free hdd space you have? As an ex., a 40 gig hdd {you only get 371/4 gigs}. so you click on properties of C drive and it shows free space of 31 1/4 gigs, indicating that you have used or are using 6 gigs of hdd space.
Then you open C drive and click on properties of all shown on the C drive and the total only comes to lets say 4 gigs. Where is the other 2 gigs? Are these 2 gigs taken up by xp os. or what? Thanks

[Big-K]

The recycle bin takes up an alloted amount of hd space(that can be changed if desired) for one.

[iaavagent]

Thats true on the recycle bin however if it's empty or not it's amount is included in your total of C drive amount. Thanks

[yaddablah]

I'll have to agree with foxfire on the tuneup utilities... i think it screwed up my comp a little and had to do a system restore but this was during a lot of problems w/ my computer viruses and whatnot.. but when i system restored some of the downloaded program files were damaged and some not able to repair. some of them were retrieved from the system so no way to get those back which i don't see how you can download from your own system but all that crap is beyond me. i'm a little hesitant to use reg cleaner but everythings worth a try. later

[levi675]

I have a few background virus/adware and maintenance progs running. Did a lot of installing/uninstalling before I got what I like that drain a lot of power:
ZoneAlarm
AdAware Ad-watch monitoring: Prompts you to verify registry changes
Norton Antivirus
Diskeeper 8.0
SpamInspector for Outlook/Outlook Express (Integrated toolbar)
Avant Browser (IE type browser with multiple windows and pop-up blocker)

[levi675]

Oops! DON'T drain alot of power

[Hail B'lore]

One of the best and most simple methods that have worked for me in the case of our customers was :-

1)MSCONFIG(in case of Win XP,go to statup tab,select disable all,click apply,Close)

2)Increase Virtual Memory(right click on My Computer/go to properties/advanced tab/settings under performance/advanced tab again/change under Virtual memory/put a bullet against custom size/change the values to 1.5 times the RAM in the system eg:-minimum size should be 500MB and maximum size 1500MB/click apply and OK to close all open windows.

3)Visual Effects adjusted to system performance(Go to Start/Control panel/system/Advanced/Under performance click settings/Under visual effects choose Adjust for best performance.

4)Modify "waitokillservicetimeout"
Click Start/Run and Type Regedit in the open dialog box.
The Registry Editor Window appears.
Click the plus (+) sign next to the following folder names:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SYSTEM
CurrentControlSet
Highlight the "Control" Folder.
Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" on the right hand side
Right click on it and select Modify.
Set it a value lower than 2000 (For example: 200)

5)Also u could try deleting Normal.dot files
Go to safe mode,right click on the My Computer icon/select search/type in "Normal.dot" (without the quotes) and if it does locate any files/select the files/shift+Delete

U can restart the system after all these steps are done or individually restart after every one of those steps

Believe this really helps speed ur PC(Win XP systems only) and I'm assuming that u have taken care of the H/W possiblities.This is out of sheer experience...

[iaavagent]

I gotta ask! what does H/W stand for? Thanks!

[yaddablah]

gotta say i think H/W means hardware but in a students mind such as mine it means the dreaded homework

[sleekluxury]

I got the "Guide to Internet Security" don't forget...lol

http://forums.techguy.org/t202013/s.html

[sleekluxury]

The guide also has things you can do that can improve your computer's performance.

[Big-K]

SLeek, how bout we combine my file and your internet security file into one txt file to reccomend to people and put for download somewhere?

[NyTechie]

Thank you so much - I knew about the first three tips but the last one I will definitly try