Windows XP - Hard Drive Space - Performance
All PC's will run a bit faster if there is plenty of room on the main ''C'' hard drive. Fifty percent free space would be nice but you really need to keep at least 20% free to avoid noticeable performance degradation. Here are a few ideas to help clear up space for you; First reduce the space allocated for ''System Restore''. This is nice tool but it tends to use up too much drive space if left on default settings. Right click ''My Computer'' > ''Properties'' > ''System Restore'' > ''C'' drive > ''Settings'' > set the slider to about 5% but no more than 2000 MB. Next, if you have a drive or partition other than ''C'' we'll move your Virtual Memory to a secondary drive. This must be an internal drive or partition, not a USB or Firewire drive. Click the ''Advanced'' tab then under ''Performance'' > ''Settings'' > ''Advanced'' tab > under ''Virtual Memory'' > ''Change'' > select a drive other than ''C'' > click ''Custom size'' > enter ''1024'' in the ''Initial size'' box and 2048 in the ''Maximum size'' box > click ''Set''. Select your ''C'' drive > click ''No paging file'' > click ''Set'' > click ''OK'' > click ''OK'' > click ''OK'' again. Then restart your PC. When your PC comes back to life, right click ''My Computer'' > ''Manage'' > ''Disk Defragmenter'' > ''C'' > ''Defragment''. You can also help the cause by removing extra users (and the files) thru the control panel and reducing your browser cache to as little as 20MB - here's a helpful link at Microsoft.
Posted by John at 2:46:14 PM in PC Maintenance (8) |
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