Re: Is Windows XP a bit of a dog (speed-wise)?

Tom Kreutz wrote:
> I'm running a Dell Optiplex GX240, 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 512K cache,
> with 1 GB of RAM. I've been happily using Windows 2000 for three
> years, but recently my machine was hacked, and the IT folks just
> installed Windows XP.
> I find that every part of the GUI appears to have slowed down
> considerably. Menus and windows visibly take time to open (it is
> still relatively fast, but not instantaneous as before).
>
> Is this typical of XP?

Typical? Perhaps at default settings - not optimized.

You can turn off almost all of Windows XPs "prettifications" and fancy
sliding/fading tricks - speeding up everything. Using nothing more than
Microsoft's TweakUI PowerToy and the built in performance - your machine
should run faster (seemingly) than Windows 2000 did.

Control Panel --> System --> Advanced tab --> Performance section,
Settings button. Then choose "adjust for best performance" and you
now have a Windows 2000/98 look which turned off many of the annoying
"prettifications" in one swift action. You can play with the last
three checkboxes to get more of an XP look without many of the
other annoyances. You could also grab and install/mess with one
(or more) of the Microsoft Powertoys - TweakUI in particular:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

In TweakUI, be sure to look for "Menu Show Delay" tweak.. But that is not
the only one.

Remember - Windows XP is Windows 2000 - next revision. It was made to look
like it does to be more user friendly to those used to Windows 9x/ME - as
there was going to be no alternative/continuance of the 9x line.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
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