Tips to Increase the Speed of Your Windows XP System

It seems that over time that computer system you purchased not so long ago seems to run a little slower than it used to. There are times when this can be due to malware, viruses, or even spyware which has infected your system. However, this is not always the case and at times you can just make a couple of system changes and speed your computer up noticeably.

The unfortunate thing about the Windows XP Operating System is that it is continuously updating its files. Much of this is done through patching and generally happens without the user's knowledge, except in the cases where a reboot may be needed. While these updates are beneficial to your system they do tend to change the requirements for your system resources. Whenever DirectX or Windows Media Player is updated, they automatically strip away resources from your computer system and it begins to run a little slower as a result.

There are two specific services running on Windows XP which robs the system blind and even slows down Internet browsing. The first is the Hard Drive Indexing service and is constantly keeping track of the data on your hard drive in order to make it faster to search for. However, it has been my experience that the time saved in searching is not worth the system resources being used in order to index the drive. So, quite simply, I turn it off and my system start really moving at speeds I had not seen in a long time and even browsing the Internet is about five times faster than what I had before.

If you want to turn off drive indexing, do not worry because if you change your mind you can always turn it back on. The steps to turn it off are as follows:

"Start" "My Computer" Right-click the drive that you want to change, usually drive C. Now go click on "Properties" At the bottom of the Panel you will see a check box that reads "Allow Indexing Service to Index this Drive for Faster Searching" Uncheck the box. Apply to all and then if a box pops up click on "Ignore All."