XP Performance Degrades

[Lori]

Does anyone know how to improve the performance of an XP Pro machine?
Running on a P4 with 512MB RAM. Current on service packs and updates. All
disk maintenance has been ran. Programs still open and respond slowly,
especially if the system has been idle. Thanks!

 

[Kip Kniskern]

A lot depends on what else you are running. What's in the background?
Utilities (Norton, etc) running background defrags, virus checks, etc?
Start by looking at msconfig (Start>Run>msconfig>startup) to see what's
loading at startup, and see if disabling unnecessary progs. speeds things
up.

XP itself shouldn't (and doesn't) slow down by itself.

kip

 

[BC]

A lot depends on what else you are running. What's in the background?
Utilities (Norton, etc) running background defrags, virus checks, etc?
Start by looking at msconfig (Start>Run>msconfig>startup) to see what's
loading at startup, and see if disabling unnecessary progs. speeds things
up.

XP itself shouldn't (and doesn't) slow down by itself.

kip

Actually, I've been noticing that XP seems to get very sluggish in
a couple of months of use. It seems much slower than Win98 and
noticeably slower than Win2K, which it's derived from, on identical
or similar hardware platforms. There are many more sneaky background
processes running as opposed to the previous Windows versions, which
would explain its overall slowness, but not it slowing down. Try
running a Spyware removal program like Ad-Aware (www.lavasoftusa.com)
and then do a general cleanup and defrag -- this link has a step by
step: http://thepcyoubuy.com/scandiskXP.htm

-BC