Comments on: Top 25 XP Super Tweaks

By: Paul Thompson

Paul Thompson — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:36:02 +0000

For those of you who change the size of you pagefile, note that after doing so and defragging you notice you are still fragmented, you must then defrag your pagefile. You can find page defragger here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx

By: FK

FK — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:53:52 +0000

i am reinstalling windows xp and my screen is stuck at "set aol as your default internet program" DO you know what to do? My contract is up with Gateway…Thanks.

By: ntopics

ntopics — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:01:19 +0000

These are great tips.
Its always easier to work from
good tips.

thanks from tony

By: Larry Miller

Larry Miller — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:55:28 +0000

Warning – contains some bad advice.

5. Use a registry cleaner:
Regular cleaning of the registry will do virtually nothing for performance. In the hands of an inxperienced user a registry cleaner can be dangerous. There is no way a program can reliably determine if a registry entry is safe to delete.

13. QOS:
Windows does not reserve any portion of bandwidth as described. This is a rather well known myth.

15 Stop unwanted services:
Do not stop the following services:
Automatc Updates
Event Log
System Restore
Task Scheduler
The descriptions of these services provided by Microsoft is NOT complete, they do more than stated. Stopping any of the above services can have serious consequences. The saving in resources are very small.

18. Adjust the paging file:
Most experts would agree that you CAN disable the pagefile with 1GB of RAM. But that doesn't mean it is a good idea. The pagefile is not merely a means of avoiding out of memory errors. The pagefile was designed to improve performance.

Before trying any performance tweaks consult a reliable and responsible quide such as:
http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html
The site is not mine but I highly recommend it.

Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:18:03 +0000

Service Pack 3 ? It sure would be nice if Microsoft could come out with an operating system that doesn't have a bunch of holes that constantly need patching. By the time they get finished it will be as large and as much of a ram hog as Vista. They did the same thing to Windows 2000 Pro. I guess they figure if they irritate XP users enough with screw-ups like SP3, that we will be more than happy to pay some extra money and upgrade to another bunch of problems known as Vista. When is Vista SP2 due out?

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:56:31 +0000

I used the chkdsk command in the run box and I believe that it kept me from running defrag. It would tell me somethink like the drive was busy. I think that GOD fixed this, as things are back to normal. chkdsk magically ran one day when I booted up. I booted up many times before as I was told to do by instructions in DOS. It did not happen. It would appear that the correct command to use in the run box is chkdsk /f.

I have XP ho(me). Dell. 80G. 512RAM.

Thanx for your list.

JayR

By: Scot

Scot — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:17:05 +0000

I am a competent computer user. Completed coursework for the MCSE, but never took the exams.

SP3 was and is a problem. Not for everyone, but for enough people to indicate that the release was poorly written and not satisfactorily tested.

Whether you are an advanced computer whiz or a complete novice, a recommended patch from a major software operating system manufacturer should work. Period. End of discussion.

The fact that so many people are having trouble with it over such a wide variety of platforms is an indication that Microsoft #$%lk))! the whole thing up.

The IT guys at the office, all rather gifted, are avoiding it like the plague. They are also firmly in the "We've tried Vista and we're not touching it with a mile-long pole," camp.

Perhaps they are biased. They did give me (marketing director) and my marketing specialists a pair of IMacs, which we may be giving up because they certainly have some marked shortcomings as well.

I tried SP3 and got stuck with and endless restart cycle. My fault? Pretty sure it's not. So to suggest that the numerous issues with SP3 are somehow all conclusively user-based errors is simply silly.

By: paige

paige — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:54:56 +0000

Ok folks, here's another one I need help with.

I disabled the Task Scheduler and realized that my Webroot Spyware scan (daily)was negatively effected.

First I tried to "Activate" from the Webroot program and it didn't work. Next,I went back in (servicesmsc)and enabled Task Scheduler – nothing. Task Scheduler is enabled but my Webroot Spyware is not acknowledging this.

Any suggestions??

Thanks!

By: S Curtis

S Curtis — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:31:39 +0000

Thanx. I'm slowly learning all this stuff. Fun, but frustrating. The last real problem I had was a malware problem. I used MS malware removal tool to get rid of it.
Anyway, it seems I can't visit your site without learning.
Thanx.

By: R Chasin

R Chasin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:25:30 +0000

Re:William Chapman comments.

I am fully aware of the "multiplicity of problems caused by SP3." The AMD problem was caused by HP installing an image of the OS made from an Intel based system. My guess is most of the other problems have been caused by people not taking proper care of their computers, or screwing around with them in some way, not the service pack. I have been building and repairing computers for nearly 10 years now and almost all of the problems I have had to repair involved user error. If my car dies because I didn't maintain it I have no one to blame but myself. There is nothing wrong with the service pack. In fact, as others here have noted, the computers I have installed it on are performing even better than they were before the upgrade.