Greetings readers.
You’ve seen the commercial – I’m a Mac, I’m a PC. Well, I’m a Mac…frankly, a Mac user since 1991. I do own a Toshiba Satellite laptop loaded with Vista that I bought brand new some years ago for family usage. Since my wife’s work VPN operates on XP, I ended up buying her a very reliable, but used Dell laptop which fits the bill, functionally, for what she needs to do.
Over the years, I’ve been increasingly frustrated with Vista on this laptop, because it works sooooo slowly. Enter stage left, my super computer geek coworker with some great, but common information to share about getting better performance out of a Windows Vista or XP machine. While I know about streamlining the Mac OS to do this, I never gave thought on how to similarly do this for Windows. That being said, I thought I’d share the information with you, should you care to try the same process I will finally embark on this weekend.
Windows XP Setup
— to get some decent speed from Windows.
Clean-up, after Installation,
1. Remove the Trial and Extra Software that is part of a (e.g., Toshiba) Recovery Disk
(Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Software)
All AOL stuff
Google Desktop
Google Toolbar
Microsoft Office (30-day trial version)
Microsoft Works
Yahoo Music Engine
Any other trial software
2. Disable unused Windows components
(Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Software, left-column Remove Windows Components)
MSN (microsoft network)
Messenger (microsofts built-in)
Outlook or Outlook Express (e-mail)
Expand Accessories, remove Internet Games
(you get about 10% to 15% speed-up on WinXP)
3. Update Internet Exporer and Media Player from Windows site
4. Get the latest WinXP Service Pack (SP3 is old from Jan 2008)
5. Free Software to download and install
Microsoft Security Essentials (anti-virus)\
Windows Defender (anti-spyware)
Firefox web browser (safer and faster than Internet Explorer)
Open Office
Adobe Reader
Adobe Flash
Adobe Shockwave
VLC Player (the DVD player that includes foreign DVD formats)
Windows dot-Net Framework 3.5
Paint.Net (requires .Net Framework, free photoshop program)
Google Picasa (maybe, if you want a photo organizer)
6. Check-out Blackviper’s website about turning off unnecessary Services
(Start, Programs, Administration Tool, Services
Or Start Settings, Admnistration Tools, Services)
Hope you find this helpful!
peace,
F!
a great tool to use to unistall not only trial software but any other unwanted applications is a free but powerful applications call “Revo Unistaller” {http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html} There is a pro application and a free one. (I use the free one)
Hey, thanks for the info. I’m a Mac-head too, and my daughter’s bloated Vista laptop is a pain lately; but I’ll give it a shot..
Thanks for the read! We Mac heads know what’s up.