BASIC MAINTENANCE

If you do a lot of downloading, uploading, play online games or basically do anything that involves updating, removing or moving files constantly. Chances are that your computer is going to become sluggish or crash at some point. You probably won’t even notice the change until it takes an instant nose dive. There are a number of things you can do to help keep your PC working right. You basically need to keep it clean.
1) Make sure your computer is spyware / adware / virus free – A lot of this junk can cause severe slowdown and if the problem ends up being related to one of these things then everything you do in this guide from here on out will be pretty much a waste of time.
2) Erase Unused Files and Programs – Get rid of files you do not use anymore it is a waste of space and it can slow you down when you defragment or clean your registry (more on that later).
3) Defraging your computer – Basically defraging organizes the information on your hard drive. Even though files are organized in folders, defraging organizes the files on the drive physically (where it is written or stored on the physical hard disk). The reason you need to defrag is because your computer just crams information in the first empty spaces it can find which means that different parts of a file can be spread all over the place. The more spread out they are the longer it will take to gather up the pieces it needs to run a program. In some cases defraging doesn’t have much of an effect, in others it can speed your computer up drastically especially if your drive is nearly full.
To Defragment Your Drive – you simply go to My Computer and right click on a drive, select properties, and then the tools tab. Select the defragment option, then select the drive you wish to defrag from the list (which may already be selected for you) and you hit defragment. Then you just wait….and this can take a very long or very short time depending on a number of factors so I suggest leaving your computer on overnight.
4) Windows Registry – This is something most people don’t even know exists…the windows registry . It is basically a place where your computer stores certain settings and information. Fixing your registry can fix a variety of problems on your computer.
This time you need to download some software to do this. The software itself is almost as simple as defragmenting. Download a Free Registry Cleaner HERE. If you wish to use a commercial cleaner then I suggest Registry Mechanic. Using one is pretty straight forward and there are guides on the Application’s Home page anyway so I won’t waste my time writing a walkthrough of procedures.
After you have done the basic maintenance above, it’s time to boost the performance of Windows XP. Take a look at this guide for tips and tricks.