Will SP2 help performance?

[Sitara Lal]

I heard that SP1 is a major contributor to slowing down Win XP Pro. Will
upgrading to SP2 resolve these issues?

I have a laptop (IBM X40 with 1GB RAM) which takes forever to start up. Are
there any quick fixes to make it start more quickly?

 

[S.Sengupta]

To know more on SP2:-
http://support.microsoft.com/WindowsXPSP2
http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/productinfo/xpsp2/default.aspx

Why slow:-
How to troubleshoot by using the System Configuration utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560

regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[Rock]

I heard that SP1 is a major contributor to slowing down Win XP Pro. Will
upgrading to SP2 resolve these issues?

I have a laptop (IBM X40 with 1GB RAM) which takes forever to start up. Are
there any quick fixes to make it start more quickly?

No SP1 does not necessarily slow down a system. SP2 doesn't have to
either. There are many possible reasons for a slow startup. One option
is to do some clean boot troublehsooting.

How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=316434

 

[Ken Blake]

In

I heard that SP1 is a major contributor to slowing down Win XP
Pro.

Sorry, you heard wrong.

Will upgrading to SP2 resolve these issues?

There are no such issues to resolve.

I have a laptop (IBM X40 with 1GB RAM) which takes forever to
start
up. Are there any quick fixes to make it start more quickly?

My personal view is that the attention many people pay to how
long it takes to boot is unwarranted. Assuming that the
computer's speed is otherwise satisfactory, it may not be worth
worrying about. Most people start their computers once a day or
even less frequently. In the overall scheme of things, even a few
minutes to start up isn't very important. Personally I power on
my computer when I get up in the morning, then go get my coffee.
When I come back, it's done booting. I don't know how long it
took to boot and I don't care.



That said, there could be an issue with what programs you have
starting automatically, and you may want to stop some of them. On
each program you don't want to start automatically, check its
Options to see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you
actually choose the option not to run it, not just a "don't show
icon" option). Many can easily and best be stopped that way. If
that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and on
the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to start
automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose
of running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many
people tell you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of
these programs you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt
performance severely, but others have no effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you
should do is determine what each program is, what its value is to
you, and what the cost in performance is of its running all the
time. You can get more information about these with at
http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it
there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent
informed decision about what you want to keep and what you want
to get rid of.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

In Sitara Lal <[email protected]> typed:

Sorry, you heard wrong.

There are no such issues to resolve.

There's one generic issue that applies whenever a wad of core code is
replaced, as will typically happen with SPs. The new files will be
created at the "end" of the volume, and Defrag's file-positioning info
will be invalidated. So the system will stay slower for a while,
until new positioning info is built up from use, and C: is then
defragged. Defragging straight after installing the SP won't be as
effective, because useage hasn't indicated that the SP's new code
files are frequently in use and should be optimised.

Depends on the cause. If:
- faster when not connected to network, chase networking issues
- faster when not connected to Internet, chase ?"call home" junk
- mouse sticks and HD LED stays on, suspect sick HD
- HD LED off, loooong wait, suspect IO timeout; peripherals?
- generally slow and tedious, suspect malware/underfootware
- as above, after management; purge bloated TIF/Temp/SR, defrag

My personal view is that the attention many people pay to how
long it takes to boot is unwarranted. Assuming that the
computer's speed is otherwise satisfactory, it may not be worth
worrying about. Most people start their computers once a day or
even less frequently.

Until patching of hware installations forces a bunch of restarts :-(

<good advice on startup management snipped>

SP1 and SP2 can have capacity implications:
- SP2 limits certain network traffic capacities
- SP1 boosts max HD size beyond 137G

The first sounds terrible, but isn't usually - it's not a matter of
the number of PCs that can connect inwards, or anything as annoying as
that, and it's only likely to affect certain things, such as acting as
a server to peer-to-peer file sharing utilities. It's a safety
measure, designed to limit the volume of malware egress that a PC and
inflict on the rest of us. As a member of "the rest of us", I like.

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