More often than not, if your computer seems to be starting slower than usual, it’s not a hardware problem, but rather a software problem. Many of the programs that you install onto your computer automatically start up with Windows XP. Most of the time you probably won’t even be using those programs, but they’re still running in the background, causing your computer to run slower. Here is how to stop these programs from slowing down your computer:
1. Click on the start menu in the bottom left hand corner of your screen
2. In the right hand column click “Run…”
3. Type “msconfig” into the text box and click “OK”
4. In the System Configuration Utility window click on the “Startup” tab
5. You will now see a list of all the programs that start up with your computer. Uncheck the programs that you don’t want to start up, click “Apply” and then “Close”
6. A window will pop up asking you to restart your computer, click “Restart”
7. Once your computer starts back up, a message will pop up telling you that you have made changes to the way Windows starts, check the box the says “Don’t show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windows starts” then click “OK”
Depending on how many programs you stopped, you should now notice a difference in how quickly Windows XP starts up.
Filed under: Computers, Microsoft, Technology Tagged: | Microsoft, Windows XP
