Tips to restore your computer...

Back Up First

Back up your computer before you run any system tools or do any troubleshooting. This is not just an over-cautious warning. Some of the steps I recommend in this column can cause pre-existing but hidden problems to surface, which may keep your computer from starting. Windows XP includes Backup, a tool that helps you protect your data.To open the Backup or Restore Wizard

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Backup.

Before I make any changes, I'm going to time my computer to see how long it takes to restart. That way I know which of the changes helps the most. My computer took about three minutes to shut down, restart, and then open my e-mail client and browser. Of course, I hope to improve the computer's overall performance, but the time it takes to restart is easiest to measure.

Clear Out Forgotten Programs

The first step in tuning up your computer's performance is to remove any unnecessary programs. I install new programs all the time. Sometimes I'm thrilled with the new program and I continue to use it. Other times, it doesn't do what I hoped, and the program sits on my computer consuming resources and hurting performance.

Follow these steps to remove unneeded programs:

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

2. Click Add or Remove Programs.

3. Scroll through the list and examine each program. Windows XP lists how often you use a program and what day you last started it. You shouldn't remove anything labeled as an Update or Hotfix, however, because they improve the security of your computer.

4. Click each program you no longer need, click the Remove button, and then follow the prompts to uninstall it.

You may have to restart your computer after removing a program. After your computer restarts, repeat the steps above to remove more programs.

Free Up Wasted Space

Removing unused programs is a great way to free up disk space, which will speed up your computer. Another way to find wasted disk space is to use the Disk Cleanup tool by following these steps:

1. Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.

2. On the General tab, click the Disk Cleanup button. Disk Cleanup will spend a few minutes examining your disk.

3. The Disk Cleanup dialog box opens. It found almost three gigs of space on my computer that it could free up!

4. Select the desired check boxes in the Files to Delete list, and then click OK. Disk Cleanup will spend several minutes clearing space.

5. If you have more than one hard disk, repeat this process for each hard disk listed in My Computer.

You can save yourself some time by automating the disk cleanup process. For more information, read the Microsoft Knowledge Basic article, How to Automate the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP.

Defragment Your Computer

I hate newspaper articles that start on the front page but continue somewhere in the middle of the newspaper. I could get through the article much faster if it was printed on consecutive pages like a magazine article. Files on your computer can either be fragmented like a newspaper, or unfragmented like a magazine. Over time, more and more files become fragmented. When a file is fragmented, it takes longer for the computer to read it because it has to skip to different sections of the hard disk—just like it takes me a few seconds to find a page in the middle of a newspaper.

You need administrator privileges to defragment a drive or volume. Although fragmentation is complicated, it's easy to defragment your computer by following these steps:

1. Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.

2. On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now. The Disk Defragmenter opens.

3. Click your first hard disk, and then click Defragment. As shown in Figure 4, Disk Defragmenter will work for at least several minutes, though it may take several hours.

4. If you have more than one hard disk, repeat this process for each hard disk listed starting at Step 3.

My laptop's files were not terribly fragmented, so defragmenting them didn't speed it up much. However, after defragmenting the hard drive on my desktop computer, Windows and other programs started about 20% faster!

Disconnect Unused Network Connections

If you've ever had a network with more than one computer, you probably found it useful to share files between the computers by mapping a network drive. Network drives allow one computer to read and write files to another computer's hard disk as if it were directly connected. I use network drives all the time, and for me, they were the most significant source of slowness.

The problem with network drives is that Windows XP will attempt to connect to the network drives when Windows starts. If the remote computers don't respond immediately, Windows will wait patiently. Additionally, some programs will attempt to connect to the network drives when you browse for files and folders. If you've ever tried to open a file and had to wait several seconds (or minutes!), it's probably because the program was trying to establish a network connection—even if the file you are opening is on your local computer.

I am not as patient as Windows, and I'd rather not wait for unused network connections to respond. To reduce this problem, disconnect any unused drives by following these steps:

1. Open My Computer.

2. On the Tools menu, click Disconnect Network Drive.

3. Select the network drives that you no longer need, and then click OK.

After I disconnected the network drives on my computer, my computer was able to restart in 1 minute, 45 seconds—about 40% faster!

Remove Autostart Programs

The next step in restoring your computer's performance is to identify any unnecessary programs that start automatically. Often, programs configure themselves to run in the background so that they appear to start quickly when needed. Some of these programs show an icon on your taskbar to let you know that they're running, while others are completely hidden. These autostart programs probably won't noticeably slow down your computer as it starts up, but they will steal away trace amounts of memory and processing time as your computer runs.

Windows XP comes with the System Configurationtool (Msconfig.exe), an excellent way to manage the startup process. To start it:

1. Click Start, click Run, type Msconfig, and then press Enter.

2. On the Startup tab, you'll see a list of all the programs and processes that are set to run when Windows XP loads.

3. Speed up your overall start time by clearing the check box next to any item you think you don't need.

4. Click Apply, and then restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

My favorite way to examine autostart programs is to use the Autoruns freeware tool from Sysinternals. Autoruns lists every program that will automatically start and allows you to quickly delete the link to the program. Many autostart entries are important parts of Windows XP, including Userinit.exe and Explorer.exe. So you should not simply delete everything that you don't recognize. Instead, you should look up each entry at Paul Collins' Startup Applications List to determine whether you want it to start automatically.

I also found a file named Wzqkpick.exe. After reading the description at The Startup Applications List, I decided I don't need to load that file automatically. I deleted the link using Autoruns by right-clicking it and then clicking Delete. This procedure works best for advanced users of Windows XP. If you aren't sure a program is unneeded—leave it!

The Startup Applications List may provide instructions for removing the startup program. If available, you should follow those instructions instead of deleting the link by using Autoruns.

How to Fix Bigger Problems

Many of the Windows XP Performance and Maintenance newsgroup users are experiencing serious, sudden performance problems. One day, their computer was fine and the next it was painfully slow. This type of problem is often caused by a computer virus or failing computer hardware. The suggestions in this article probably won't fix those types of problems. Instead, perform a virus scan on your computer. If that's not the issue, you should contact your computer vendor's technical support team for additional assistance. The troubleshooting process for this type of problem requires the knowledge to examine the computer's performance on a process-by-process basis, and usually includes a "process of elimination" phase where drivers, services, and hardware are removed/replaced one-by-one until the problem disappears. There's a very good chance that the computer won't start at all at some point in this process, so it's best to have support during the process.

Searching for "Windows XP Performance" on the Internet turns up a large number of performance tweaks. Some of these are useful, but most should not be attempted unless you understand exactly what you are doing. In particular, many of the tweaks that claim to improve your performance may only help under very specific circumstances. For example, in our own Windows XP Performance and Maintenance newsgroup, one user recommended disabling Internet Connection Firewall to solve a performance problem. Even if this did improve performance, it would leave the computer vulnerable to attacks from the Internet. I'd rather have a slightly slower computer than a hacked computer!

How to make your own theme?

Theme Name

Decide what you want to call the Theme. Create a folder in C:\Program Files\PLUS!\Themes name it what you want the name of your theme to be. This keeps everything in one place for you to keep everything organized.

Wallpaper

Chose your background picture. Make sure it is in .bmp form. Place your bitmap into your new folder you created. You might want to then change the name to the same name as you named your Theme. For example if your theme is going to be called Mountain then rename this bitmap to say Mountain.bmp. Right click on your desktop, click properties, then click on Background browse to you new folder and choose your wallpaper.

Color Scheme

Right click on your desktop, click on properties, then click on appearances. You can chose the colors and fonts you want that complements the new wallpaper. After you've picked your new colors and fonts then click on the save as and save it with the name of your new theme. Example: Mountain. Click on apply.

Cursors and Icons

I use MicroAngelo 98 and IconEasel 98 to create my cursors (creates animated cursors too) and icons. These are very good products well worth the money. If you would like to try it out there is a demo version to download click on their names above. If your not going to create your own, you can find lots of cursors and icon packages on the internet. These packages are usually free for personal use. If you use cursors or icons from these packages or from another theme make sure they are not copyrighted and rename them with your new theme name and short description. Example: Mountain wait.cur then move it to your new theme folder. This makes it much easier to put all your theme components into your theme, and for the people who download your theme to recognize which files go to which themes.

You can draw it yourself or copy and paste a piece of clipart or photo; and then fix it up with a cursor and icon software product.

Sounds

you can find these wav. files on the internet or create your own. There are products like Gold wave or Cool edit you can use to edit and manipulate wav. files. Then name them after your new theme. Example: Mountain recycle.wav. Move them to your new theme folder. The trick to deciding on your sound is choosing ones to fit each event. Don't make these too long because it gets on peoples nerves and they will download a different theme to replace yours.

Screen Savers

You need a software program to help you with this part. There are so many I couldn't even list them.

Now all you have to do is make it a theme. We are going to apply all your components to your desktop and create the theme file. Right click on your desktop, click on properties and then backgrounds choose your new bmp. file under wallpapers and click on apply (if you haven't already done so.). While your here decide if you would like it to be tiled or centered. Click on the one you decided on.

Now while your still in there go to the appearances tab and choose the scheme you saved earlier, click on apply.

Now go to the Plus! tab still in the properties window. Click on change icon and browse for your new icons that you saved in your new theme folder.

Now click on start, then settings, then control panel and select the mouse. Go to the pointers tab an go down the list and browse for each of your new cursors in your new theme folder. Click save as, naming it after your new theme, and then click on apply.

Now go to the control panel again this time select sounds. Go down the list and browse for each sound in your new theme folder. Click on save as, naming it after your new theme name, then click on apply.

Finally, go to the control panel again and select desktop themes. Click on save as, now naming your theme, then click on apply.

Startup/Shutdown Screens

If you are interested in creating Win 95/98 Startup/Shutdown screens to go with your theme you need to create or edit a picture you have in your graphic editor such as Paint shop or Photoshop and make sure this image is 320x400 pixels and saved as 256 color RGB Encoded Bitmap. Then you can put them in your theme folder and open up a utility like ZD logo animator and resave the startup screen as logo.sys and the wait screen as logow.sys and the safe to shutdown screen as logos.sys, you can also use this utility to animate your logo screens. To implement them into your desktop:

*.sys file type is usually hidden in most people's computers under Win95. You might have trouble in finding *.sys files for copying files. Go to Explorer choose View menu, then select Options... in the dialog, enable "Show all files" or use a DOS window, in which most *.sys files can be viewed normally. I usually just use the find function entering c:*sys (or whatever is your hard drive) This file is usually in c: or in c:\windows Extract the new .SYS file to a temporary directory.

Move (backup) original "start-up" logo, "LOGO.SYS" from the root directory of your boot drive, usually C:\ to another temporary directory. (If you are using a compression utility or cannot locate the logo.sys file, please see the notes below.)

Use DOS window or Explorer to copy new logo file to the root directory, renaming the new copy to "LOGO.SYS" (If you are using a compression utility, please see the notes below.) Example of DOS command: copy c:\temp_dir\xrxlogo.sys c:\logo.sys

Restart your computer and you're done!

* Note *

If you are using a compression utility on your boot drive, you must put logo.sys in the host for that drive. (For example, if drive C: is compressed and its host is the G: drive, then logo.sys should be placed in the root directory of the G: drive.)

The default logo.sys is embedded in io.sys file. If you cannot find logo.sys in your drives, including the host drive (see above), chances are Win95 is using the logo that is embedded in io.sys as your start up logo. In this case, you don't have logo.sys to backup. Simply place the new logo.sys

in the root directory of your boot (host) drive. Logo.sys in the root directory will take precedence of the one embedded in io.sys file. To get back to the original win95 logo, simply rename the logo.sys to other name.

* To restore the original win95 logo, you must save (backup) the

file in step 1. Then just copy the original logo to the

designated directory.

Thanks to Rob Chen for these instruction on installing *.sys files.

NOW YOUR DONE!! ONE FINAL STEP!!

How To Increase Computer Speed And Performance? - Great Tips & Tricks

Many computer users are worried about their computer's performance. After spending lot of bucks, still they cannot have that charm of using PC as they had expected. Here I am going to explain some major tricks which are used by many computer users which help them to take efficient use of their CPU.

These tips could be of little importance for people who are already using processors with speed more than 2400 MHz but people using computer with less speed and little older mother boards and processors will enjoy these tips. They will realize significant increase in their computer's performance.

Here are these tips:

1. Operating system choice:

You will be amazed to know that your choice of choosing right windows or operating system could play a significant role on your CPU's performance. For example if you are given 5 bricks to carry them to next apartment and then 10 bricks to do same. Think how would be your performance if compared with both situations. Obviously you would perform well when carrying only 5 bricks.

Same is the case with Microsoft windows. The lighter the windows you have, higher the performance will be shown. Now this does not mean that you should install Windows 95. Here is the order of Windows weight: Windows XP (any addition) > Windows 2000 > Windows Me > Windows 98 (the lightest one). So if you have Pentium 4 with good ram then I would recommend you to use Microsoft Windows XP. People using Pentium 3 computers could use windows 2000 or if they have ram more than 256 MB then they can use windows XP too. All other lower speed users should use windows ME or 98.

You would have to compromise between speed and quality. You can decide now which operating system you should use now.

2. Partitions:

Before starting this topic I would like to give you a simple example. Suppose in one case if 100 items are placed in a house having only 2 rooms and you are required to find item no. 89, from second room. You will have to scroll through 50 items in room two to find item 89. In other case if same 100 items are placed in house having 4 rooms and you are required to find item 89 from room 2 then you would have to scroll through only 25 items present in that room and you would spend less time.

Same is the case here for partitions. If you are having more number of partitions, it would help your windows more to find required data easily from your hard disk, when you run any file or program. I would advice you to have more partitions each having at least 5 GB memory and maximum 20 GB.

You should be very careful while partitioning your hard drive and believe me many people make mistakes when they partition hard disk and lose all of their important data. Here is a free resource Windows Setup Guide that can help you to learn about partitioning, formatting hard disks and installing windows.

3. Defragment Your Hard disks:

Your partitions become more fragmented when you create or delete folders, save new files, delete or move them and they become scattered on you hard drive and as time passes, windows become slower and slower due to time needed by the system to find required file on hard disk. You can learn more about why volumes become fragmented by using "Disk Defragmenter" Help.

My main point is that your computer becomes lazy with time. I am sure many of you have observed that after installing windows, computer become slower gradually with time. So I would strongly recommend you that you use Disk Defragmenter regularly, at least a week. I know it is quite boring process but while taking bath, lunch start it. Believe me you will feel the difference later.

4. Frequency of Changing Windows:

I would like you to compare the difference between speeds of your computer when you freshly installed windows and now. I know your answer! Obviously now you will be feeling your PC lazier than before.

This is all due to many factors such as file fragmentation; increasing of windows registry size, increase in number of files and folders in your primary partition and also because of some viruses and spy wares.

I would strongly suggest you that you should reinstall windows after formatting your primary partition at least every 3 months. That will keep your computer always efficient. Many people think that formatting hard drive is not good. That is almost a wrong illusion. Formatting your partition every 3 months and installing fresh copy of windows will considerably increase your computer's performance. Same website Windows Setup Guide could help you regarding this matter.

5. My last tip:

Finally do not save junk, programs, movies, games and almost anything you can on your windows partition that is usually C: and believe me your computer would show optimal performance for longer time and provide fewer errors.

It is better you make your "My Documents" folder in other drive than C: as well as make also Program Files folder so install everything like Microsoft office e.t.c there not in windows installation drive. Do it and feel the difference.

Always check for your programs which automatically run at startup and use your computer's significant resources. Try to disable them carefully and feel the change in performance. Here is a way to check which programs and processes start automatically when windows starts.

Go to START->Run then type "MSCONFIG" then you can see which your memory consuming programs are.

If you do not want to do anything above and want shorter way with shorter improvements then create new user account and delete previous one. You will observer a slighter change and this also removes many errors if present in windows.

If you cannot even do this then why you wasted your time by reading this article and do something else ;)

I have tried my best to show all possible ways that could help you all to improve your computer performance.