Make xp more responsive?

I installed xp on my new 1525 and the performance is better than vista but not much. What is the best way to increase the program response time?

ex: dell m1210 takes less than a second to start firefox
my laptop takes about 2-3 seconds

The problem is the xps m1210 is pretty outdated and my 1525 has way better specs.

More info.

Intel Pentium Dual Core T2370 at 1.73GHz. 2GB of ram. 120Gb at 5400 rpm. Xp with sp2.

I've also defrag every week or after I installed a new program. So my question is what is the best way to increase response time and maintain it?

 

Install Vista and wait for SuperFetch and Indexing to catch up.

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking...

Other than that... you could get a faster hard drive.

Oh yeah, there was a thread here a couple days ago about making firefox start faster. I'd just use Vista and Superfetch though... it's easier and it makes it start instantly.

 

I think what Lithus was trying to say was:

1. Use Ccleaner (clean crap and registry).
2. Run JKDefrag daily.
3. Compact your registry.
4. Use Bootvis.
4. Type 'msconfig' into run, disable unneeded start-up items.

 

Yeah...no.

Clean install Vista, install drivers, use programs. Done.

You computer is a machine to run other **** on, not an exercise in tedium.

 

Lol this guy's full of jokes. You didn't pay for XP for nothing, right? Just do what i listed and you should be good: even my pc was boggy in the beginning, FF loads instantly now.

 

Yup, exactly. Except that if your Vista disc doesn't already include SP1, you'll want to install that too. Preferably before installing any drivers. Actually Windows Update should pick up most of the drivers for you.

 

Thank you to those who actually answered my question.

How to make xp more responsive?

 

well, there is a site that contains the tweaks that really do bring back performance. usually you will find a lot of tweaks and guides for making your XP / vista faster, but most of the are just plain myths.

but the tweaks you find at http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm
are the windows tweaks that are really working.

i am doing the same tricks since some years and when i stumbled over this page i found all the performance tweaks in a nice list. even every service that comes with windows is well explained and it´s purpose revealed.

 

All of that (with exception of bootvis, because I personally don't like those programs and find them to give minimal if any improvement) is fine to do but not necessary to do more often than once per month.

You can google for registry tweaks, but most of them don't improve performance much if at all. It does usually create a placebo effect, so you may think it is faster .

The best thing you can do is go to "system properties" >> "advanced" tab >> "performance settings" and click "adjust for best performance". Then from that screen click the "advanced" tab and set both "processor scheduling" and "memory usage" to "programs". Under "virtual memory" set your page file to be set at the max number.

That's the most noticeable improvement. (Setting the virtul memory to a set high number is only so that the paging file isn't fragmented throughout the hard drive, so defrag before changing it).

 

click on first entry

 

Seriously, while you can do all the tweaks that will improve your XP, Lithus made a good point. If you let Vista Indexing and Superfetch do their job, your machine could be faster than the older XP install.

Now you can claim that you asked how to make XP more responsive, but in your first post you did ask how to make your shining new 1525 response faster. I believe the answer is provided by Lithus.

 

Defrag the HHD
anti-virus can slow down a systom
Run disk clean up
Don't have too many programs running at the same time.

Those work for me at least....