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Windows XP has a lot of great features, which has made it one of Microsoft’s most popular operating systems ever. There are, however, a number of things you can still do in Windows XP to tweak it and get even more out of it.

Here are a few of the hidden tweaks in Windows XP you may not know about.

Speed Up Your Interface

Windows XP’s interface is a lot nicer looking than its predecessor and those visual effects take up some of your performance. Here’s how you can set your interface to the Windows Classic settings, which will boost your overall performance:

• Right click on My Computer and choose Properties
• Click on the Advanced Tab
• Click on the Settings button under Performance
• Click on Adjust for best performance
• Click Apply, OK and then Ok

Turn Off System Sounds

While the sounds in Windows may be nice, they take up resources to use. Here’s how to disable them.

• Go to the Control Panel and double click on Sounds and Audio Drivers
• Click on the Sounds Tab
• Save your current scheme
• In the drop down menu choose No Sounds
• Click Apply and then OK

Return To The Classic Start Menu

The new Start Menu is a bit heavy and clumsy but you have the option to return to the older Start Menu, which will free up system resources and it’s easier to organize.

• Right click on Start
• Choose Properties
• Choose Classic Start Menu and click Customize
• Click Sort to alphabetize the menu

There are a large number of other tweaks on the web as well as programs designed to make use of just about every possible setting you can change in Windows. You can find a lot of these programs online for free just by doing a search for them. No matter how you go about it, Windows XP tweaks are the way to get the most from your PC.

Windows XP Advanced Tweaks

A little something before we delve into the advanced XP tweaks. These tips and tweaks are strictly for people who understand this passage:

“There are 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

If you don’t get it, you may want to just read this to get an idea of the various tweaks that can be done to XP. Not knowing what you are doing may cause you to corrupt your system. If you have knowledge of XP and want to perform the tweaks, you need to back up your registry first.

Back Up The Registry

Backing up the registry is a safe way to ensure your system can be restored if for any reason your tweaking has caused a problem. For safety reasons, if you don’t know how to back up the registry, it is wise to take your system to someone who does know.

The tweaks below are intended for people running on NTFS, most people are. However, if you are not, do not attempt the tweaks as it can cause serious damage to your registry.

Set CPU Priority

You can add a registry entry to your system to set the priority of the CPU to focus on the foreground application no matter what. This will increase the performance of the application you are running.

Open up notepad and copy and paste the following:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]
“Win32PrioritySeparation”=dword:00000026

Now save the file as priority_sep.reg and then right click on the file and choose to add it to the registry.

End Tasks Faster & Speed Up Menu Display

These tweaks can increase the reaction time for your menus and close down running programs faster than normally. This can increase your performance and the responsiveness of Windows.

Open up notepad and copy and paste the following:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
“ForegroundLockTimeout”=dword:00000000
“HungAppTimeout”=”4000″
“MenuShowDelay”=”200″
“WaitToKillAppTimeout”=”5000″

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
“WaitToKillServiceTimeout”=”5000″

Now save the file as app_menu_speed.reg and then right click on the file and choose to add it to the registry.

These advanced Windows XP tweaks will have your system running better in no time. Again, if you are not familiar with the registry, you can take your system to a computer repair shop to have them make the changes for you.