How to speed up your old slow Windows PC
Just go to computer shop and get a memory upgrade and your system will run faster. But if you can get the same speed after cleaning out your system, you don’t have to get a new memory stick.
First of all, you need to clean your prefetch folder. What is a prefetch folder? Prefecth folder is used to make your system faster.
The applications and program components are prefetched so that when you load them to memory; it appears to be very quick.
During XP boot, XP will prefetch portions of the files that you use the most.
But this folder also can slow down your computer because the copy of a portion of a program still remains in the prefetch folder, although you use it only one time. It is a waste of memory to load the program that you don’t even want to use.
The solution is to periodically clean your prefetch folder. To get to the folder, just click Start => Run => type prefetch => Enter. A folder will be opened, and be happy to delete all the content of your folder. This content of this folder is regenerated again during boot.
And if you want to get rid of this prefetch folder, you can disable this function using System registry. How to get to system registry? Click Start => Run => type Regedit => Enter.
When the Registry Editor Dialog box opens, navigate to this value:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
Your registry window should appear like below (Click to enlarge)
On the right side pane, look for the key named EnablePrefetcher. The value of this key represents how Prefetch will operate. Set the value data to 0 and you’re done. Before you boot your computer, run a scandisk and defrag. After that, you have to wear your seat belt because your window will go at the maximum speed. Happy speeding!
Source : WindowsNetworking.com
150% WRONG! That is not how the Windows XP Prefetching works. Clearing the folder and setting the value to 0 will REDUCE performance:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html
You make me think that why there are many tweaks to improve Windows XP. Are the Microsoft engineers not smart enough? By the way, thanks for sharing. In Internet, something can be spread very easily.
really nice…everyone should implement this kind of method…
..Actually,i’ve writting an article on how to speed up your old pc too at my blog..
Indeed, as Andrew posted, deleting the prefetch files will not improve Windows Xp’s speed. Installing the extra RAM stick didn’t sound like a bad idea at all
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Right! RAM stick becomes cheaper and cheaper. 2GB RAM for Windows XP is more than enough