Microsoft is almost ready with its latest Operating System, one of those its latest Operating System is Microsoft Vista but which very disappointingly didn’t do well in the PC market due to its poor performance. And most recently we got to add one more operating system to our computer directory is Windows 7 which is thought to have very good performance. But user still cannot upgrade their operating system to the new ones because of their humble attachment to windows XP which has been with us since from long time, most of the people are still happy with Windows XP.

So, if you are not willing to change or upgrade your operating system with the new one then boost up your favorite windows XP. Here is some simple tips and tricks to boost up your Windows XP performance.

Defragment your hard drive:
The easiest things we can do to our operating system are defragmenting hard drive regularly, which helps to boost up the XP’s speed.

What defragment does?
It is because when you delete some data or file from the hard drive then the place from where you delete your files or data remains blank unoccupied by other files or data. There may be some scattered data in your hard drive which degrades the performance of the Windows XP. So, when you defragment your hard drive all scattered data or files at multiple locations are organized in proper way, making it faster to retrieve files. This helps the operating system run faster and search files faster than before.

How to Defragment hard drive?
To defragment your hard drives follow the following steps:
1. Click start button and then programmes.
2. Click Accessories.
3. Click system tools.
4. Click Disk Defragmenter.

When you click to Disk Defragmenter then you see the disk defragmenter page, there you will see the names of you drive like C, D, E, F whatever you have, click one and defragment it or before defragmenting you can also analyze it but it is not so important. So do it one by one and defragment all the drives. This may take some time when you starts the defragment but don’t worry about it, this will boost up your windows XP speed. This process should be done at least twice in a month.

Disable Windows Index Service:

By default windows XP indexes its files on local and network drives to speed up the files search process. This process degrades the speed\performance of the operating system because it indexes the files continuously but some services are there which we don’t use regularly so it is better to disable the process.

How to disable the unnecessary Index Service?
To disable the Unnecessary Index Service follow the following steps:
1. Click start button.
2. Click control panel.
3. Click performance and maintenance.
4. Click Administrative tools.
5. Click services.

Now, you can see the services of your system which is running by default, select the one which is not necessary to you and disable it.

Removed unused Fonts:
When you start your system you may experience some delaying in loading XP, this may be due to too many fonts installed. Your windows XP boot-up time may increase or applicants that font previews may take longer time to render all the fonts.

How to remove unused fonts?
To remove the unused Windows XP fonts do the following steps:
1. Click start and then click Run.
2. Now type “ %windir%\fonts” and then click OK.
3. Now select the font and delete it as you wish.
4. when you press the delete button you may be getting a sentence like “ Are you sure you want to delete these fonts?” prompt, click yes.

If you have less number of fonts installed in your system then the programmes like Microsoft Office and other graphics will load faster than before.

Use XP Powertoys:
If you sometimes want to add some extra programmes for your system to boost up the speed then think about the powertoys, these are some of the good programmes for your windows XP that the developers work after the product has been released.

Here you can see some of the interesting powertoys which can add to your windows XP are: Sync Toy, ClearType Tuner, Virtual Desktop Manager, Alt-Tab Replacement, Tweak UI, Webcam Timershot and CD Slide Show Generator.

Sync Toy can help users copy, move and synchronous files from different devices such as digital cameras, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders and PDAs.

The Virtual desktop manager helps user to manage up to the four desktops from the windows taskbar. This power toy is quite similar to the Spaces in Apple OS Leopord. This programmes helps in segregating different types of applications and switch between them.

Remove unwanted start-up programmes:
There may be so many programmes installed in your system since over a period of time that hog on the system resources. Such type of programmes run automatically when you boot up your system which turns your PC performance degrades. So it is better remove this programme as they reduce the speed of startup and consume lots of system memory.

There are also be some other unwanted programmes like spyware, Trojan, Viruses and horses may get installed automatically to the start locations on your system. So always check your system after booting up process and if you found something like then disable it or delete it from your system.

To remove unwanted startup programmes-
1. Click start button.
2. Click run.
3. Type ‘msconfig’ and hit OK.

This will take you to system configuration utility page, there you will see startup button at the end, Click that one you will find the list, select the one which you don’t want and click to apply and it is done.

Windows XP’s Disk Cleanup:
The Windows XP utility helps the user to free up some space in the disk. The Disk clean up process searches the files and analyzing the drive which are of no use any more, if it found anything unnecessary files in the hard drive it removes automatically.

To start the Disk clean up process follows the following steps:
1. Click the start button.
2. Click the programmes.
3. Click Accessories.
4. Click system tools.
5. Click Disk clean up.

After clicking the disk clean up option you will then ask to select the drive, select the one and starts the process. Windows XP users can use Disk clean up to remove the downloaded programmes files, temporary internet files, remove windows temporary files, remove optional windows components and remove installed programmes that are no longer in use.