Timeslips & Windows XP Services

There are some steps which you can try to boost your Windows XP PC/Laptop's speed & performance:

1) Removing Startup items

Click Start, point to Programs, click Startup, and then right-click each item in Startup and select Delete. Your Startup folder should be empty



2) Remove unnecessary programs from Add & remove programs list

Click Start, point to Settings, and click Control Panel. Double-click Add or Remove Programs icon.

Scroll through the list of installed programs, and remove the one you don’t need. Be sure about the programs those you don't need.

3) Setting PC/Laptop for best performance

Right-click My Computer and select Properties.
Switch to Advanced tab and click the Settings button under Performance subsection. Performance Options window will open.
Select Adjust For Best Performance option and click OK button.

This may degrade the looks but will increase the performance of PC/Laptop.



4) Right-click My Computer and select Manage. Computer Management window will open. Maximize Computer Management window.
Click plus sign next to Services and Applications, click Services, and switch to Standard tab on the right.

Disable the following services one by one:

Alerter
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
ClipBook
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Help and Support (switch to Manual)
Indexing Service
Messenger
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
Performance Logs and Alerts
QoS RSVP
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Telnet
Upload Manager
WebClient
Wireless Zero Configuration (don’t disable if using wireless network/Internet connection)

To disable the service, search the service name in the list of services & double-click on it. Change Startup Type for the service, selecting Disabled from Startup type dropdown box and clicking OK button.

Restart the computer.

5) Run CCleaner regularly.

Download CCleaner application from here. Install it.

Run it time to time to run your PC smoothly.



6) Defragment hard drive (may take up to 30 minutes or more than that)
Click Start, select Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and click Disk Defragmenter.

When Disk Defragmenter window opens, select a drive in the top portion of the window, and click Defragment button.

1. Defragment your computer hard disk using free tools like SmartDefrag.
2. You should also defragment your Windows pagefile and registry.
3. Clean up hard drive disk space being taken up by temporary files, the recycle bin, hibernation and more. You can also use a tool like TreeSize to determine what is taking up space on your hard drive.
4. Load up Windows faster by using Startup Delayer, a free program that will speed up the boot time of Windows by delaying the startup of programs.
5. Speaking of startup programs, many of them are useless and can be turned off. Use the MSCONFIG utility to disable startup programs.
6. By default, the size of the paging file is controlled by Windows, which can cause defragmentation. Also, the paging file should be on a different hard drive or partition than the boot partition. Read here on the rules for best paging file performance.
7. In Windows XP and Vista, the Windows Search indexing service is turned on for all local hard drives. Turning off indexing is a simple way to increase performance.
8. If you don’t care about all the fancy visual effects in Windows, you can turn them off by going to Performance Options.
9. You can optimize the Windows boot time using a free program called Bootvis from Microsoft.
10. Clean your registry by removing broken shortcuts, missing shared DLLs, invalid paths, invalid installer references and more. Read about the 10 best and free registry cleaners.
11. One of the main reasons why PC’s are slow is because of spyware. There are many programs to remove spyware including Ad-Aware, Giant Antispyware, SUPERAntiSpyware, and more.
12. If you have a deeper spyware infection that is very hard to remove, you can use HijackThis to remove spyware.
13. Remove unwanted pre-installed software (aka junk software) from your new PC using PC Decrapifier.
14. Disable unnecessary Windows services, settings, and programs that slow down your computer.
15. Tweak Windows XP and tweak Windows Vista settings using free programs
16. Disable UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista
17. Tweak your mouse settings so that you can copy and paste faster, scroll faster, navigate quickly while browsing and more. Read here to learn how to tweak your mouse.
18. Delete temporary and unused files on your computer using a free program like CCleaner. It can also fix issues with your registry.
19. Delete your Internet browsing history, temporary Internet files, cookies to free up disk space.
20. Clean out the Windows prefetch folder to improve performance.
21. Disable the XP boot logo to speed up Windows boot time.
22. Reduce the number of fonts that your computer has to load up on startup.
23. Force Windows to unload DLLs from memory to free up RAM.
24. Run DOS programs in separate memory spaces for better performance.
25. Turn off system restore only if you regularly backup your Windows machine using third party software.
26. Move or change the location of your My Documents folder so that it is on a separate partition or hard drive.
27. Turn off default disk performance monitors on Windows XP to increase performance.
28. Speed up boot time by disabling unused ports on your Windows machine.
29. Use Process Lasso to speed up your computer by allowing it to make sure that no one process can completely overtake the CPU.
30. Make icons appear faster while browsing in My Computer by disabling search for network files and printers.
31. Speed up browsing of pictures and videos in Windows Vista by disabling the Vista thumbnails cache.
32. Edit the right-click context menu in Windows XP and Vista and remove unnecessary items to increase display speed.
33. Use the Windows Performance Toolkit and the trace logs to speed up Windows boot time.
34. Speed up your Internet browsing by using an external DNS server such as OpenDNS.
35. Improve Vista performance by using ReadyBoost, a new feature whereby Vista can use the free space on your USB drive as a caching mechanism.
36. If you have a slow Internet connection, you can browse web pages faster using a service called Finch, which converts it into simple text.
37. Use Vista Services Optimizer to disable unnecessary services in Vista safely.
38. Also, check out my list of web accelerators, which are programs that try to prefetch and cache the sites you are going to visit.
39. Speed up Mozilla Firefox by tweaking the configuration settings and by installing an add-on called FasterFox.
40. Learn how to build your own computer with the fastest parts and best hardware.
41. Use a program called TeraCopy to speed up file copying in Windows XP and Vista.
42. Disable automatic Last Access Timestamp to speed up Windows XP.
43. Speed up the Start Menu in Vista by hacking the MenuShowDelay key in the registry.
44. Increase the FileSystem memory cache in Vista to utilize a system with a large amount of RAM.
45. Install more RAM if you are running XP with less than 512 MB or Vista with less than 1 GB of RAM.
46. Shut down XP faster by reducing the wait time to kill hung applications.
47. Make sure that you have selected “Adjust for best performance” on the Performance tab in System Properties.
48. If you are reinstalling Windows, make sure that you partition your hard drives correctly to maximize performance.
49. Use Altiris software virtualization to install all of your programs into a virtual layer that does not affect the registry or system files.
50. Create and install virtual machines for free and install junk program, games, etc into the virtual machines instead of the host operating system. Check out Sun openxVM.
51. Do not clear your paging file during shutdown unless it is needed for security purposes. Clearing the paging file slows down shutdown.
52. If your XP or Vista computer is not using NFTS, make sure you convert your FAT disk to the NTFS file system.
53. Update all of your drivers in Windows, including chipset and motherboard drivers to their latest versions.
54. Every once in a while run the built-in Windows Disk Cleanup utility.
55. Enable DMA mode in Windows XP for IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers in Device Manager.
56. Remove unnecessary or old programs from the Add/Remove dialog of the Control Panel.
57. Use a program click memtest86 or Prime95 to check for bad memory on your PC.
58. Determine your BIOS version and check the manufactures website to see if you need to update your BIOS.
59. Every once in a while, clean your mouse, keyboard and computer fans of dust and other buildup.
60. Replace a slow hard drive with a faster 7200 RPM drive, SATA drive, or SAS drive.
61. Changing from Master/Slave to Cable Select on your hard drive configuration can significantly decrease your boot time.
62. Perform a virus scan on your computer regularly. If you don’t want to install virus protection, use some of the free online virus scanners.
63. Remove extra toolbars from your Windows taskbar and from your Internet browser.
64. Disable the Windows Vista Sidebar if you’re not really using it for anything important. All those gadgets take up memory and processing power.
65. If you have a SATA drive and you’re running Windows Vista, you can speed up your PC by enabling the advanced write caching features.
66. Learn how to use keyboard shortcuts for Windows, Microsoft Word, Outlook, or create your own keyboard shortcuts.
67. Turn off the Aero visual effects in Windows Vista to increase computer performance.
68. If you are technically savvy and don’t mind taking a few risks, you can try to overclock your processor.
69. Speed up the Send To menu in Explorer by typing “sendto” in the Run dialog box and deleting unnecessary items.
70. Make sure to download all the latest Windows Updates, Service Packs, and hot fixes as they “normally” help your computer work better.
71. Make sure that there are no bad sectors or other errors on your hard drive by using the ScanDisk orchkdsk utility.
72. If you are not using some of the hardware on your computer, i.e. floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, USB ports, IR ports, Firewire, etc, then go into your BIOS and disable them so that they do not use any power and do not have to be loaded during boot up.
73. If you have never used the Recent Documents feature in Windows, then disable it completely as a long list can affect PC performance.
74. One basic tweak that can help in performance is to disable error reporting in Windows XP
75. If you don’t care about a pretty interface, you should use the Windows Classic theme under Display Properties.
76. Disable short filenames if you are using NTFS by running the following command: fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 1. It will speed up the file creation process.
77. If you have lots of files in a single folder, it can slow down Explorer. It’s best to create multiple folders and spread out the files between the folders.
78. If you have files that are generally large, you might want to consider increasing the cluster size on NTFS to 16K or even 32K instead of 4K. This will help speed up opening of files.

1. Defragment your computer hard disk using free tools like SmartDefrag.
2. You should also defragment your Windows pagefile and registry.
3. Clean up hard drive disk space being taken up by temporary files, the recycle bin, hibernation and more. You can also use a tool like TreeSize to determine what is taking up space on your hard drive.
4. Load up Windows faster by using Startup Delayer, a free program that will speed up the boot time of Windows by delaying the startup of programs.
5. Speaking of startup programs, many of them are useless and can be turned off. Use the MSCONFIG utility to disable startup programs.
6. By default, the size of the paging file is controlled by Windows, which can cause defragmentation. Also, the paging file should be on a different hard drive or partition than the boot partition. Read here on the rules for best paging file performance.
7. In Windows XP and Vista, the Windows Search indexing service is turned on for all local hard drives. Turning off indexing is a simple way to increase performance.
8. If you don’t care about all the fancy visual effects in Windows, you can turn them off by going to Performance Options.
9. You can optimize the Windows boot time using a free program called Bootvis from Microsoft.
10. Clean your registry by removing broken shortcuts, missing shared DLLs, invalid paths, invalid installer references and more. Read about the 10 best and free registry cleaners.
11. One of the main reasons why PC’s are slow is because of spyware. There are many programs to remove spyware including Ad-Aware, Giant Antispyware, SUPERAntiSpyware, and more.
12. If you have a deeper spyware infection that is very hard to remove, you can use HijackThis to remove spyware.
13. Remove unwanted pre-installed software (aka junk software) from your new PC using PC Decrapifier.
14. Disable unnecessary Windows services, settings, and programs that slow down your computer.
15. Tweak Windows XP and tweak Windows Vista settings using free programs
16. Disable UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista
17. Tweak your mouse settings so that you can copy and paste faster, scroll faster, navigate quickly while browsing and more. Read here to learn how to tweak your mouse.
18. Delete temporary and unused files on your computer using a free program like CCleaner. It can also fix issues with your registry.
19. Delete your Internet browsing history, temporary Internet files, cookies to free up disk space.
20. Clean out the Windows prefetch folder to improve performance.
21. Disable the XP boot logo to speed up Windows boot time.
22. Reduce the number of fonts that your computer has to load up on startup.
23. Force Windows to unload DLLs from memory to free up RAM.
24. Run DOS programs in separate memory spaces for better performance.
25. Turn off system restore only if you regularly backup your Windows machine using third party software.
26. Move or change the location of your My Documents folder so that it is on a separate partition or hard drive.
27. Turn off default disk performance monitors on Windows XP to increase performance.
28. Speed up boot time by disabling unused ports on your Windows machine.
29. Use Process Lasso to speed up your computer by allowing it to make sure that no one process can completely overtake the CPU.
30. Make icons appear faster while browsing in My Computer by disabling search for network files and printers.
31. Speed up browsing of pictures and videos in Windows Vista by disabling the Vista thumbnails cache.
32. Edit the right-click context menu in Windows XP and Vista and remove unnecessary items to increase display speed.
33. Use the Windows Performance Toolkit and the trace logs to speed up Windows boot time.
34. Speed up your Internet browsing by using an external DNS server such as OpenDNS.
35. Improve Vista performance by using ReadyBoost, a new feature whereby Vista can use the free space on your USB drive as a caching mechanism.
36. If you have a slow Internet connection, you can browse web pages faster using a service called Finch, which converts it into simple text.
37. Use Vista Services Optimizer to disable unnecessary services in Vista safely.
38. Also, check out my list of web accelerators, which are programs that try to prefetch and cache the sites you are going to visit.
39. Speed up Mozilla Firefox by tweaking the configuration settings and by installing an add-on called FasterFox.
40. Learn how to build your own computer with the fastest parts and best hardware.
41. Use a program called TeraCopy to speed up file copying in Windows XP and Vista.
42. Disable automatic Last Access Timestamp to speed up Windows XP.
43. Speed up the Start Menu in Vista by hacking the MenuShowDelay key in the registry.
44. Increase the FileSystem memory cache in Vista to utilize a system with a large amount of RAM.
45. Install more RAM if you are running XP with less than 512 MB or Vista with less than 1 GB of RAM.
46. Shut down XP faster by reducing the wait time to kill hung applications.
47. Make sure that you have selected “Adjust for best performance” on the Performance tab in System Properties.
48. If you are reinstalling Windows, make sure that you partition your hard drives correctly to maximize performance.
49. Use Altiris software virtualization to install all of your programs into a virtual layer that does not affect the registry or system files.
50. Create and install virtual machines for free and install junk program, games, etc into the virtual machines instead of the host operating system. Check out Sun openxVM.

If you are using Windows XP, and have tried to use the avatars or effects on a Logitech 4000 (and most other Logitech cameras) and the green arrow is 'grayed out', this is what is wrong:

Some of those 'speed up your computer' programs tend to disable un-needed services which run in the background of Windows.

Unfortunately, Logitech software needs one of these services to run in order for the avatars and effects to work correctly. Even Logitech themselves don't know why it needs this service running, but it does!

Keep in mind, this is a tip for Windows XP!

To make sure the needed service is running:

1. Click 'START', and go into 'CONTROL PANEL'



2. Once in control panel, click on 'Administrative Tools':




3. In Administrative tools, click on 'Services':



4. Scroll down to the 'Terminal Services'. (the screenshot shows Indexing Service):



5. If you see that 'Terminal Services' is disabled, that's your problem!

6. Highlight 'Terminal Services' and right click on it. Choose 'Properties'.

7. Change the 'Startup Type' to 'Automatic'.



8. Click 'Apply', then 'OK'.

9. Close out of the services menus.

Restart computer, and enjoy your avatars!