Computer PERFORMANCE TWEAKS. Post your favorites!

[leftyandproud]

I think we need a thread full of tweaking tips to maximize PC performance.

I'll start with some basics.

First, make sure you PC is CLEAN of spyware and viruses.

Download Spybot Search and Destroy
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10289035.html?tag=lst-0-2

and Ad-Aware SE.
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10319876.html?tag=lst-0-2

If you don't have an antivirus program, download AVG Free.
http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1/

Make sure to UPDATE all programs and run complete scans to kill the spyware/viruses slowing your computer down. Use the "immunize" feature in Spybot to prevent a lot of bad stuff from loading on your computer in the future.

Before scanning with these programs, you may want to turn off system restore to delete old restore points that contain the spyware/viruses.
After you clean the system out, turn it back on.

Next, defragment your hard drive.
Start, programs, accessories, system tools, defragment.

To speed things up overall, get rid of the flashy XP themes and move back to Windows classic style. Do this by going to start, control panel, appearance and display. Click the desktop tab and change your theme to Windows classic. Hit apply and exit.

Now right click on your new "my computer" icon on the desktop, choose properties, advanced, performance options. Click "adjust for best performance", leaving everything blank except the "drop shadows" and "font smoothing" boxes. Hit apply and exit.

Next go to control panel again, choose folder options, go to "view" tab, and untick "automatically search for network printers". Apply and exit.

One more thing you can do is visit www.blackviper.com and print out a copy of his XP Service Pack 2 configuations. Most people can use his "safe" configuration without any problem. I was able to disable around 12 unneeeded services running on my computer.

For some quick registry tweaks, you can download TuneXP here:
http://www.driverheaven.net/dforce/showdoc.php?doc=txp_about

It has some easy tweaks to increase CPU performance and other things. It also has a nifty feature that can rearrange boot files for faster bootups.

To clean your registry out, I highly recommend the shareware version of Tune Up Utilities. Not only does it clean your registry of unneeded (broken) keys, but it also has a registry defragmenter to compact your registry and improve performance.
http://www.tune-up.com/

After you do all of this cleaning/optimizing, reboot your system and defragment one more time. Your system should be running nice and SMOOTH now. (worked for me!)

Now that I've got the ball rolling, please post your favorite PC trips, registry TWEAKS, or tweaking programs here. Lets help every DUer get the most out of their PC.