In writing, on the one hand, the author considers that Win9X/2000 operating system has been released for many years, and the corresponding optimization techniques have also been reported by many media. Everyone should be familiar with it, even if they are not familiar with it, it is easy to find more concentrated information in this area. On the other hand, considering that WinXP, as the latest mainstream Microsoft desktop operating system, is superior to its predecessors in both vision and function, but problems such as excessive consumption and resource occupation have also troubled many users. Therefore, in the writing process of this article, the optimization method will be introduced with WinXP as the core, and the differences of Win98/2000 operating system in this part will be compared after each part. If there are any omissions in the classification of WinXP optimization methods, the classification shall be introduced and sorted out.
Prepare an article
Not all machines can enjoy the speed of WinXP. If it is a newly installed WinXP system, according to Microsoft official standards, your machine must meet the following standards:
The CPU frequency is 300MHz or higher.
It is recommended to use 128MB or higher memory.
The available hard disk space should be at least1.5gb..
The display must support a resolution of more than 800×600.
Of course, Microsoft's words have always been discounted. The above configuration can only ensure that WinXP barely runs. In fact, if your CPU and memory configuration are just qualified, I suggest you give up the idea of upgrading. I recommend using at least 256MB of memory, and users with CPU above P ⅲ 600 MHz (Celeron 800MHz) can try to consider whether to upgrade. Of course, if you want the system and the software running on it to perform most of the functions, it is recommended to upgrade the memory to 384MB and the CPU to Celeron 1GHz (or P Ⅲ 800 MHz). Of course, hard disk performance is also a consideration. In addition, Microsoft's 1.5GB hard disk space refers to the space occupied by a brand-new WinXP without any application software. In fact, with the subsequent use, 1.5GB is absolutely not enough. Therefore, it is recommended to set aside at least 4GB of hard disk space in the system partition before installing WinXP. Of course, if the hard disk is as small as 2.7GB in the system partition as the "poor author", you must move all the application software and all the TEMP folders to other partitions according to the following operation methods.
For the installation of application software, whether it is WinXP or Win98/2000, it is recommended to install it in a non-system partition for unified management, which can greatly increase the stability of the system partition. Many users often need to update or replace various applications, and some advanced users frequently try some unstable applications. These are easy to produce a large number of file fragments in the system partition, which is not conducive to the backup and recovery of the system partition. In addition, most users' system partitions are relatively small, so it is very nervous to cope with the growing scale of WinXP, so it is not recommended to install the operating system and all application software in the same partition.
Supplementary notes to Win98/2000:
Compared with WinXP, the requirements of Win98/2000 for the system can be described as pediatrics. Especially Win98, most computers above Pentium level can run easily. As for Win2000, it is actually most suitable to run on the operating systems of many middle-aged computers. The middle age here refers to the machine with a main frequency of 500 MHz ~ 800 MHz and a memory of 64 MB ~ 256 MB. It seems that this kind of machine is somewhat deficient in running WinXP now, so Win2000 is the best choice. Don't think that Win2000 is stability. In fact, almost all entertainment software can run well under Win2000, especially after the SP3 patch, the security and operability of Win2000 have been best reflected.
Surgical items
First, streamline the system partition.
1. Clean up junk files and junk key values.
The so-called junk file/junk key value refers to the file/registry information generated during the installation and operation of the system or software, which has not been deleted after being deleted or finished. Most of these files are cleaned with some special optimization software, unless you want to commit suicide. The recommended software here includes Super Rabbit Magic Settings and Windows Optimizer. These two softwares are designed to be very user-friendly and easy to operate. Take the Windows optimizer as an example. Here, you only need to select registration information cleaning and junk file cleaning in system cleaning and maintenance (Figure 1).
Some software will leave its own installation directory and some registry key values after normal uninstallation, which may optimize the software and be ignored during scanning. Please confirm that it has been deleted, and then find the installation directory of those software and delete it; Then click Start → Run, enter "Regedit" and enter the registry editor, select the menu "Edit → Search", enter the name of the software or company, find those useless key values (Figure 2), and press Del to delete.
2. Delete the parts that are forced to be installed by the system.
Some systems have unnecessary attachments, but they cannot be deleted even by "Add/Delete Files" in the control panel. At this point, you can open "Windows\inf\sysoc.inf" with a text editor (such as Notepad), use the Find/Replace function, enter ",hide" (followed by "hide" between two English commas) in the search box, set the "Replace with" box to ","(Figure 3), and choose to save all. When you enter the Add/Remove program, you will see several options in Add/Remove Windows components, so that you can delete those useless attachments.
3. Turn off system restore and system hibernation.
System restore is indeed a good system security scheme, but it takes up a lot of resources and hard disk space. If you don't install some inferior software every three days and the hardware resources are not rich, I suggest turning it off as appropriate. Right-click "My Computer", select "Properties", find the "System Restore" option, and check the "Turn off system restore on all drives" option (Figure 4). If you are really uneasy, you can choose to turn off the system monitoring of all non-system disks, just select a disk letter and click the "Settings" button. In the pop-up dialog box, select "Turn off system restore on this drive" (Figure 5) and confirm.
System hibernation is a default power management strategy, which can put the system into sleep to save power when it is not used for a long time, but it is also a function that takes up a lot of hard disks, because it will take up disk space equal to physical memory on the system partition. I suggest that if you don't use the computer for a long time, you can turn off the main power without using the hibernation function: enter the control panel, select the power option, enter the "hibernation" page, and check "Enable hibernation" (Figure 6).
4. Supplementary explanation of WIN 98/2000
The deletion of junk files/key values in Win98/2000 is as convenient as that in WinXP, and useless Windows attachments can also be deleted in the same way. System hibernation and system recovery are new functions of WinXP, which need not be modified under 98 and 2000.
Second, the sorting of system disk files.
1. partition format suggestion and disk arrangement
For newly installed computers, you need to choose the partition format according to your own situation. Here I will briefly talk about the NTFS format. NTFS format is a more advanced and safer disk format supported by NT kernel operating system than FAT32. Compared with FAT32, the cluster size in NTFS does not depend on the size of disk or partition. Reducing the cluster size can not only reduce the waste of disk space, but also reduce file fragmentation. On the other hand, NTFS supports file encryption management function, which can provide users with a higher level of security. So I strongly recommend that users who use WinXP change the partition to NTFS format. However, unless you use third-party software, Win98 cannot recognize NTFS format. Therefore, if users want to make partitions common in Win98 and WinXP/2000, they can format the system partition of the latter as NTFS, and keep the other partitions in FAT32 format as appropriate.
After the computer is used for a period of time, it will inevitably produce file fragments, so it depends on whether it is necessary to tidy up the disk. The so-called disk defragmentation is to try to allocate a file to a continuous cluster (see insert). Disks can be detected or sorted directly through the disk management tool of WinXP, but first of all, it should be noted that the partitions to be sorted must have at least 7% unused space before sorting. The usage of this tool is as follows: Click the Start menu, find all programs → Accessories → System Tools → Disk Defragmenter in turn, select the disk to be defragmented in the pop-up main interface, and then click Analyze, the computer will analyze the selected disk and display the analysis results (Figure 7), and then choose whether to defragment it according to the suggestions. It should be noted that when optimizing the system, this step should be placed in the last step of disk file related processing (including the first step of slimming and the subsequent adjustment file writing) to avoid duplication of work.
2. Transfer the storage location of the write file to the system area.
In order to reduce the file fragmentation in the system partition and speed up the access to system files, when optimizing the system, it should be adjusted to write fewer files to the system disk. We can transfer the storage location of some files written in the system partition to other partitions, including virtual memory page files, temporary folders and "My Documents".
Let's first look at how to transfer virtual memory page files. Right-click "My Computer" and select "Properties" to enter the "Advanced" page in the system properties, click the settings in the "Performance" box to pop up the performance options window, enter the "Advanced" page, click the virtual memory change button above (Figure 8), and select the system area of WinXP to see the default selection of the system. It is not recommended to customize the virtual memory page file size here, because WinXP has been well managed in this respect. However, it can be moved to another partition. On the one hand, it can prevent the disk fragmentation in the system partition from increasing due to its size change, on the other hand, it can release more space in the system partition. Write down the default settings of the system in Figure 8, then change the settings on the system partition to "No Page File", click the transfer destination partition, select "Custom Size", and fill in the values just recorded.
Temporary files are divided into IE temporary files, system temporary files and burning temporary files. Because these three files, especially the files in the first two directories, are deleted most frequently among all files, and they are all residual junk files, so it is very easy to produce disk fragments. So moving them to other partitions is the best way. Open the Internet option in Control Panel, click Settings in the temporary Internet file on the General page, click Move Folder in the pop-up window (Figure 9), and then set the partition directory to move to. Of course, you can also set the size of IE temporary folder yourself here. Right-click "My Computer" and select "Properties" to enter the "Advanced" page in system properties, select environment variables, and change the values of "TMP" and "TEMP" in variables to directories in other partitions. If you use WinXP's burning function, the system partition will still burn temporary files all the time. Enter the resource manager, select the letter of the burner, and click the "Properties" item in the right mouse button menu. Under the Recording tab, the temporary folder can be placed on another drive (Figure 10).
The next thing to deal with is my certificate, which is actually a way to speed up the operation. Most people will store their own dedicated documents on a separate disk, and the default storage path of many softwares is the user's My Documents folder. It's best to switch paths back and forth every time: right-click My Documents, and you can change the default saving path of the target folder to other directories in the property settings (as shown in the figure)
3. Supplementary explanation of WIN 98/2000
This part is not much different from WinXP except burning temporary folders. Win98, the only file format is FAT32. Nowadays, there are very few users using the FAT 16 format. If this happens to you, you can use the disk converter in the system tool to convert it into FAT32. There are essential differences between Win98 and WinXP in the choice of defragmentation tools. Friends who have used the disk defragmentation tool that comes with Win98 must not compliment its speed, so here are two methods. One is to choose a third-party disk defragmentation tool, such as Vopt (Figure12); Another method is to transform a defragmentation tool that comes with Win98: Click "Settings" before defragmentation and check the item "Reorder program files". As for the setting of TEMP directory, Win98 also has different methods. It should be noted that this can be achieved by loading "setTemp=…" in Autoexec.bat, which can only control the Temporary writing of DOS programs into folders, and the temp folder of Windows programs needs to be moved by modifying the registry. Open the Registry Editor, expand HKEY _ Local _ Machine \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version \ Resource Manager \ Volume Cache \ Temporary File, change the folder key value to the location to be transferred, and then restart the system.
Third, streamline the system.
1. Search and cancel the startup program with the system.
The MSConfig program under Win98 has been improved in WinXP, and all the places (the "start" item in the start menu, the automatic startup program indicated in the registry, etc. ) are all concentrated in one place and can be modified together. Just enter "msconfig" in the run dialog box of the start menu and press Enter to enter the system configuration utility, and enter the Start page, where you can view all kinds of randomly started programs (Figure 14), carefully check whether there are any programs to close, and check the check box in front. It should be noted that many softwares have the option of removing self-startup. If you turn it off here, sometimes you just need to run the software and it will start by itself, so be sure to look for the self-start setting of the software.
2. Turn off unnecessary services
WinXP will automatically load some commonly used services when it starts, but many ordinary users don't need it. So we can manually control whether to load these services to achieve the purpose of improving speed. In the Control Panel, select Administrative Tools → Services. After opening, you will see the service list (Figure 15). Some services have been started and some have not. Right-click the service you want to configure, and then click Properties. Select "Automatic", "Manual" or "Disabled" on the "General" option, where "Automatic" means that the service will be started automatically every time the system is started; "Manual" means that WinXP will not automatically start the service, but can selectively start it when the program needs it; Disabled means that starting the service is not allowed.
Some services are necessary for WinXP and cannot be shut down, otherwise the system will crash. As for the functions of various services, we can view them by double-clicking the service or pointing the mouse at the service name. The following table lists the services installed by default in Windows, which can be turned off according to specific needs (see the table below).
3. Balance between performance and appearance
Right-click "My Computer", select "Properties", enter the "Advanced" page in the system properties, and click the settings in the "Performance" box to open the performance options window (figure 16). The visual effect options vary from person to person, so you can try the differences yourself. If the visual effect is good, the system performance will be relatively reduced. Whether the desktop color depth is 32-bit or 16-bit has little effect on the system performance, because more than 90% of the graphics cards are running 32-bit true color, and the desktop environment speed is almost the same as that of 16-bit.
4. Right-click menu to lose weight
The right-click menu is not static, and some useless commands should be deleted. Sometimes after we uninstall an application normally, we still leave some unnecessary items in the right-click menu, and we also need to delete them. These items are generally stored in "HKEY _ Class _ Root \ * \ Shellex \ Context Menu Handler" under Registry Manager; If an item is valid only for folders, it will be stored in HKEY _ Class _ Root \ Directory \ Shell, HKEY _ Class _ Root \ Directory \ Shell \ Context Menu Handler, HKEY _ Class _ Root \ Folder \ Shell and HKEY _ Class _ Root \ Folder \ Shell. If the system is used for a long time, the "New" item in the right-click menu will be too long. You can also delete unnecessary new templates by modifying the registry. However, it is easier to modify with software, such as TweakUI (figure 17, download reference /soft/5728.htm).
5. Reduce log file records
When the program goes wrong, not many people will carefully check the error reporting option, so turn it off. It is also an advanced menu in system properties. Click the error reporting option at the bottom to open the error reporting window. Select the first "Disable Error Reporting" and select the sub-item "Notify me when a serious error occurs" (Figure 18).
You also need to set the debugger Dr.Watson. Just click Start → Run, enter "drwtsn32" and press Enter to open the debugger Dr.Watson and delete everything except "Dump all thread contexts" (Figure 19). Otherwise, once a program goes wrong, the hard disk will ring for a long time and take up a lot of space. If you have encountered this situation before, please search the system disk for the user.dmp file and delete it, which may save tens of MB of space. This is the scene of the wrong program, which is only useful for programmers to analyze errors.
6. Turn off automatic updates
For people who can't access the Internet or seldom access it, there is no need for automatic updating at all. For those who are diligent in updating, it seems that the response is too slow. Turning off the phone is a matter of course. Right-click "My Computer" and select "Properties" to enter the "Automatic Update" page, and cancel the option to keep my computer up to date (Figure 20). If necessary, we can upgrade manually through Start → All Programs → "Windows Update". Of course, if you want to turn off the AutomaticUpdate function completely, please refer to "automatic update" in disabling services above.
7. Turn off the compressed folder function
WinXP has built-in compressed folder function, which allows you to browse Zip files as folders. However, the system needs to use some resources to realize this function. For users who use WinZip or WinRAR, disabling this feature can improve system performance. The implementation method is simple. Enter "regsvr32/uzipfldr.dll" in the run box of the start menu, cancel the registration of zipfldr.dll, and then reset the file association of Zip in WinZip or WinRAR.
8. Supplementary explanation of WIN 98/2000
Because the MSConfig command was removed in Win2000 (Microsoft was scolded a lot for this, and finally repented in WinXP), some programs not listed in the startup items can only be modified directly in the registry. Click "Start", select "Run", type "regedit" to enable the Registry Manager, find "HKEY _ Current _ User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version \ Run" and "HKEY _ Local _ Machine \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version \ Run", and delete the following.
Most services of Win2000 are the same as those of WinXP, which can be modified by referring to table 1. Please refer to Table 2 for different services.
The system configuration program MSConfig under Win98 is somewhat simple and imperfect compared with that under WinXP, but it also has its own characteristics. Simple and imperfect, because some automatic programs are registered in the registry, but they can't be seen here, so they need to be deleted directly in the registry. Its characteristic is that Win98 keeps the files of Autoexec.bat and Config.sys in DOS, so the system configurator also provides a page for configuring these two files (Figure 2 1), which can be selected according to your own situation.
In addition, in the system page of Win98 system properties, open performance, and then open the file system item in the advanced settings bar. On the hard disk page, you can set the purpose of the computer, select the network server, and adjust the pre-reading to all (Figure 22). On the "floppy disk" page, check "Search for a new floppy disk drive every time you start the computer" to get better system performance.
Fourth, deeply adjust the system performance.
1. Reduce the waiting time when the program goes wrong.
Enter the Registry Editor and find HKEY _ Current _ User \ Control Panel \ Desktop, where HungAppTimeout value indicates the time when the system requires the user to manually end the suspended task, and the default value is 5000. In some special cases, reducing this value can reduce the response delay of the system. Of course, if some software runs slowly on your system, setting this key value too small may make XP mistakenly think that the running software has been suspended. If you encounter such a situation, you can gradually increase the HungAppTimeout value. It is suggested to increase 1000 every time until XP no longer mistook the running software for "stopping responding".
2. Speed up the display of the start menu.
Enter the Registry Editor and decrease the value of MenuShowDelay in HKEY _ Current _ User \ Control Panel \ Desktop. The default value is 400, which can be set to 50. If the value is set too small, such as 0, the submenu will be displayed immediately when the mouse pointer passes through the menu, which will interfere with the user's selection operation.
4.XP prefetcher modification
WinXP comes with a service called Prefetcher, which is used to manage the program initialization process when Windows starts, and the specified program can be loaded quickly in future use. By default, the prefetcher is on, but its performance can be further improved. Enter the registry editor and find the HKEY _ local _ machine \ system \ currentcontrolset \ control \ sessionmanager \ memorymanagement \ prefetch parameter, one of which has a key value called EnablePrefetcher, and in most cases its value is 3. You can try different values at will until you find the one that suits your machine best.
5. Open the network card with 20% bandwidth.
By default, WinXP reserves 20% of the network card bandwidth. If you are using broadband, you need to remove this restriction. The method is as follows: log in as an administrator, enter gpedit.msc in the run box of the start menu, enter the group policy configuration window, and then expand computer configuration → management template → network → "QoS packet scheduler" on the left, then double-click on the window on the right to limit the reserved bandwidth and select the enable option. It should be noted that this operation is not supported by Home Edition, and this restriction cannot be lifted.
6. Accelerate the speed of watching * * * in the local area network.
If you often have to wait for a long window to display the shared directories of network neighbors on the local area network, you will find how important this optimization is. Usually, when WinXP connects to another computer, it checks all scheduled tasks on the other computer. We need to get rid of this process. Enter the Registry Editor and find HKEY _ Local _ Machine \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version \ Resource Manager \ Remote Computer \ Namespace in the Registry. Delete the key under it {d6277990-4c6a-11cf-8d87-00aa0060f5bf}. Try again, is it much faster?
7. Skills of starting the machine quickly
Right-click "My Computer", select "Properties", open the advanced menu of system properties, click the "Settings" menu of "Startup and Fault Recovery", and then click the edit button of system startup to pop up "/fastafter last multi () disk () rdisk () partition () \ Windows =" Microsoft Windows XP Professional "in the window.
8. Optimize the motherboard system CMOS/RealTimeClock.
This optimization is a bit annoying. Right-click "My Computer", select "Properties", open the hardware menu in the system properties, find the SystemCMOS/RealTimeClock in the device manager, and write down its IRQ number (Figure 25). Then open the Registry Editor and find HKEY _ Local _ Machine \ System \ Current Control Set \ Control \ Priority Control in the Registry. Build a DWORD double-byte value named IRQ*Priority here (where the * sign is the IRQ number just now), and then set its value to 1. After restarting, you will find that the performance of the motherboard has improved.
9. Use the L2Cache of CPU to speed up the overall efficiency.
Open the registry editor, enter HKEY _ local _ machine \ system \ current control set \ control \ session manager \ memory management, and change the numerical data of SecondLevelDataCache to the same decimal value as CPUL2Cache. For example, the L2Cache of P4 1.6GA is 5 12kB, and the numerical data is changed to decimal value of 5 12.
10.Win98/2000 supplementary explanation Due to the design defects of Win2000 and Win98, users sometimes need to turn on the DMA mode of hard disk and optical drive by themselves. The opening mode is as follows:
Under 2000, enter the system options in the control panel and select Hardware → Device Manager. Open "IDEATA/ATAPI controller", enter "main IDE channel" or "secondary IDE channel" and select "advanced settings". If Win2000 does not automatically detect that the current transmission mode is not DMA, you can select "DMA" in the "transmission mode" of the corresponding device (Figure 26). Right-click "My Computer" under Win98 and select "Properties". Select hard disk properties in Device Manager and check DMA.
Because Win2000 and WinXP have the same kernel, most optimization methods of WinXP are applicable to 2000. Let's briefly introduce the optimization of Win98.
(1) optimization methods, such as speeding up the menu display, reducing the waiting time when the program goes wrong, and speeding up the viewing speed of * * * in the local area network, are all the same as WinXP, but sometimes you need to create your own key values.
(2) The floppy disk is written in the background.
In Win98, you can write a disk similar to linux in the background, that is, remember to write the disk operation and write the disk when the system is idle. Enter the Registry Editor and expand HKEY _ Local _ Machine \ System \ Current Control Set \ Service \ Class \ FDC key value. The following key value of 0000 refers to the first floppy drive, and 000 1 refers to the second floppy drive. Create a new DWORD value under the key value of the floppy drive to be modified, rename it ForeFifo, and the value is 0.
(3) increase the hard disk cache
Open HKEY _ local _ machine \ system \ current control set \ control \ file system, where NameCache is file name cache, 32MB system suggests 800000, and 64MB system suggests 0F00000；; PathCache is the cache path, with the recommended value of 008000 for 32MB system and 0F0000 for 64MB system.