Chapter 11: Optimizing Performance

Overview

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to:

• Monitor performance using Task Manager and System Monitor.

• Reduce the time it takes for Windows XP to start up.

• Set up Windows XP to maximize application performance.

• Get the most out of your hard disk.

• Tweak Windows XP’s virtual memory settings for optimum performance.

We often wonder why our workaday computer chores seem to take just as long as they ever did, despite the fact that our hardware is, generally speaking, bigger, better, and faster than ever. The answer to this apparent riddle is related to Parkinson’s Law of Data, which states that data expands to fill the space available for storage. On a more general level, Parkinson’s Law could be restated as follows: The increase in software system requirements is directly proportional to the increase in hardware system capabilities. A slick new chip is released that promises a 30-percent speed boost; software designers, seeing the new chip gain wide acceptance, add extra features to their already bloated code to take advantage of the higher performance level; then another new chip is released, followed by another software upgrade—and the cycle continues relentlessly as these twin engines of computer progress lurch codependently into the future.

So how do you break out of the performance deadlock created by the immovable object of software-code bloat meeting the irresistible force of hardware advancement? By optimizing your system to minimize the effects of overgrown applications and maximize the native capabilities of your hardware. Learning how to optimize memory, applications, and hard disks is the key to unleashing your system’s performance potential, and that’s exactly what we’ll show you how to do in this chapter.