If you run an older computer there are certain services you can safely disable in Windows XP. This won’t make your computer blazingly faster by any means but it will gain you a "few extra horsepower", so to speak.
To access your running services:
- Go to Control Panel.
- Double-click the Administrative Tools icon.
- Double-click the Services icon.
This will bring up a list of all the services in your Windows XP installation.
It should look similar to this:
To disable a service…
Double-click the one you want, click Stop then choose the Startup Type to be Disabled so it will not start again.
Remember: You can re-enable any service by doing the exact reverse.
Error Reporting Service
I have never found a solid reason to keep this service running. Any error report I’ve ever received has not served to assist me whatsoever. So I disable this.
Help and Support
Do you ever use the built-in Windows XP Help and Support section? I don’t.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Remote Assistance will not work if this service is disabled. But if you never use RA you can disable it safely.
Indexing Service
The description of this service is "Indexes contents and properties of files on local and remote computers; provides rapid access to files".
What I’ve found is that this does nothing but slow down XP. If you’ve ever found that your hard drive seems to "think about stuff" for no reason whatsoever even when your computer is doing (seemingly) nothing, this is why.
In a networking environment this would be bad to disable (as it would make access slower). But if you’re just using one computer it’s 100% okay to disable this.
Themes Service
This is the service that gives XP its themed look, called "Luna". If you disable this service your XP will look almost identical to Windows 2000.
Of all the services you can disable, this will speed up Windows XP the most. Without the graphic overhead, screen draws and redraws occur much faster.
Important note: Some applications (albeit few) assume that you have Luna enabled. Without it running these apps may not look correct. But this does not happen often.
Just go here for a complete list of services that can be disabled: http://www.blackviper.com/index.html
Oh yae; XP can be made to use less resources, but for what it is I personally reckon it’s nice to have all those little extras running: I say this with confidence while running XP on a computer with an Athlon 64×2 CPU and 2GB RAM; which is not the standard of PC that everyone else runs XP on of course: However all said and done there is nothing really more enhancing than a RAM upgrade.
If your computer uses DDR2 then you’re in luck as it’s the cheapest type of memory available in today’s market; about $25/£13.75 or less for a 1 gigabyte stick. If your computer uses DDR not DDR2 then you’re less lucky; but an upgrade’s still worth it at about $55/£30 Approx. for a 1 gigabyte stick. The two are NOT interchangable; so stick to your existing type of RAM.
If your computer uses something like PC133 then I would recommend either not bothering or buying a new or newer PC: PC133 and PC100 are not so easy to get hold of these days, are older poor performance memory types, and will probably cost more than DDR; assuming that you can get a 1 gigabyte stick in either type. You can’t use DDR or DDR2 instead without changing the motherboard, so maybe it’s time to retire that old computer and use it as a boat-anchor, doorstop, or fax machine….
That’s my twopennethworth.
No mention on the terrible File and Print Sharing?