What's the Best way to keep system fast?

[MyglyMP2]

What is the best way to keep your windows system running fast?

[dbusguy]

defrag...just did mine last night and the difference is noticable

[Ken_ver_1_5]

tip.

Only load the things you need and use.
the less you have running in the background the faster you system will be.

[Bluvertigo]

Here are some websites:

104 Performance Tips for Windows XP
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1681

A Faster, Better Behaved Windows XP
http://users.accesscomm.ca/gbraun/wxp/

[Frogy]

As above and run www.CCleaner.com regularly not to forget the standard viral, spyware, cleaning tools.

[Superman3332001]

If your looking for antispyware. Spybot and (believe it or not) the one from Microsoft is really good that you can get off of microsoft's website called antispy. I run all 3 of them and had great succes with them.

[MyglyMP2]

Does anyone on this board format regularly? If so how often, and if I were to reformat say every 2 months, does that mean i'd have to re-install everything, or is there someway to avoid that but still see the performance benefits? It seems like if you reformated and then installed a backed up image it would be the same performance as before, right?

[Fletch]

I Agree with the above, memory also helps, but the more tasks & processes you have running will slow down your system I use mine heavily on a day to day basis, by adding & deleting files, etc.. and I defrag once a week on the weekend and this helps.

if you reformat you will have to reinstall all of your programs and such, but it will make the HD like new, so if you want to reinstall everything I would recommend to format every so often..doing backups is a very important part...for anything to go wrong, backup programs as far as I know, will restore the data to the media, and not necessarly to the sector, like if you backup your system with a virus intact and then delete the virus and then restore from your most recent backup you will restore the virus too.

but to cut this short defragging is your best bet because it will put all of your data back in order so the system can find them faster.

hope this helps.

[Superman3332001]

I only format my hd when absolutely when I have tried everything that I can think, of. I had my hd 2 to 3 years and I formatted it 2 or 3 times. It also depends on How you format it as well. If you certain way you can wear it out.

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The box says: requires windows 98 or better So I installed Linux
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[zerocool24]

I usually do mine about every 4-8 weeks, i like the feeling of a clean install, I don't use an image as between installs i update programs, stop using some, add more, so i just re-install everything, for me the longest thing to re-install are the games, which is why usually i only have 1-2 on at a time. However using an image would save a lot of time, 10-20 minutes i am guessing is all that it would take, my complete re-install takes anywhere from 1hr30 to 2 hrs. An image would restore everything back to the way it was when you did the image.

[Dan]

Formatting usually does help to a certain extent. it CLEANS everything. I do it once a year unless I run into a major problem. I just recently got 2x250gb SATA drives. and noticed it runs faster on defrags. as i use one for backups its about 70-80% full. defragging that partition took me no more than 20min. and i've waiting up to an hour at least on my old ATA... but i think defraggin helps nonetheless do it once a month

[sharpnfuzzy]

What is the best way to keep your windows system running fast?

Don't install anything.

[Rustynut]

Buy a Mac! :vxd: :ibi:

[Aristera]

Yea, get a Mac. There is nothing worth installing that will slow down your system. :)

[Superman3332001]

Better yet switch to linux. I put it on my computer and hardly ever go back to my windows xp. LOL
__________________________________________________ _______________________
The box said: Requires windows 98 or better so i installed linux
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[Andromeda]

by Bluvertigo



Here are some websites:

104 Performance Tips for Windows XP
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1681

A Faster, Better Behaved Windows XP
http://users.accesscomm.ca/gbraun/wxp/



Great links! Just what I've been looking for..... :)