Speeding up an old XP computer!

DEBTMONKEY1A

Will check it out....I feel SO stupid for misunderstanding the tutorial re: deleting services.msc.....printer decided not to work so after 2 hours of swearing (!) I enabled the service for printer spooling & re-booted-all is fine now!

esuhl

Another XP service you might want to disable is Indexing. It runs all the time keeping an index of the files on your PC so that searches run quickly. If you're happy to boost the speed of your PC slightly at the cost of having file searches take longer, it's well worth disabling.

http://lifehacker.com/031440/turn-off-indexing-and-speed-up-windows-xp

Also, I've never found a use for the System Restore service. It seems to slow down the PC and it's never fixed any issues I've ever had. And it seems to leave the PC in an undefined state -- you can't see what changes a "system restore" actually does and you don't have any fine control over the process. But I get the impression that some people use it, so... up to you!

bsod

disabling avast and firewall services is why the antivirus and firewall stopped working

see default column to undo the rest of the damage, otherwise you will be forever unearthing the strange symptoms of a stopped service.

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

you can disable windows update now, it will just add to the boot delay, and zonealarm might start to !!!! you off after a while

system restore and shadow copies are very useful when something or someone has just !!!!ed up a machine, and you're faced with a pained expression at the mention of backups. The service has to be running of course for it to be of any use.

DEBTMONKEY1A

You live & learn! Still, pc is super quick & now has zonealarm firewall, 360 virus and & cleanmem only running. Hardly any CPU use, memory use low, commit charge 1000/3600. In relation to the indexing file-disabled ages ago. I'll deffo make a restore point every 2 days & check the above link out-thanks!

DEBTMONKEY1A

The 'viper' link is fab! Seem to remember using it ages & aages ago. It creates a '1 click' regedit icon that saves the tiresome 'go to services.msc & disable this etc'....it would not work at 1st but shut up other programmes down & it worked in seconds!!!! Re-booted it & all the 'services.msc' that slow system are disabled-the ones you need are enabled or on automatic. The 1 click is the 'safe' option-on the site there is a 'tweaked' version & 'supertweaked' (for the advanced & nerds only lol!)....but if you want this you have to manually alter services.msc which takes ages.

Again-thanks all for your help. I'm particularly impressed with the freeware 'clean mem' (advised in the tutorial for those with 1.5gb ram or less)-it's 'set & forget' & it checks cahe/memory every 15 mins & if needed frees them up.