Remove Malware. Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's consent. It is commonly taken to include Trojan horses, viruses, worms, adware and spyware. Malware can compromise system integrity and personal privacy and decrease system performance.

No single anti-virus or anti-spyware application can reliably remove all malware, it is not unusual to utilize several security products to ensure its complete removal. Trend Micro offers a free online virus and spyware removal service at the House Call site. Ad-aware and Windows Defender are free utilities that can remove and protect from most known spyware components.

Update Windows. Windows Update is a web-based software update service for downloading critical system updates, security fixes, patches, drivers and service packs.

Users should either enable Automatic Update, start > Control Panel > System > Automatic Updates, or regularly perform manual updates by visiting the Windows Update site or clicking start > Help and Support, and selecting Keep your computer up-to-date with Windows Update. Follow the links to install all critical Windows updates. It may be necessary to reboot after certain updates and some updates must be installed individually.

XP users should have Service Pack 2 installed. SP2 includes bug fixes and security enhancements that provide better protection against malware and hackers.

Increase Free Disk Space. Unnecessary data files and programs waste space and reduce performance. The most common ways of increasing free disk space are:

• run the Disk Cleanup utility: click start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup, and select a drive to clean. Disk Cleanup will show a list of of files that can be deleted. The More Options tab offers additional choices.

• reduce the Recycle Bin size: the default Recycle Bin size is 10% of hard drive capacity, a waste of space that should be reduced. To adjust the Maximum Recycle Bin Size, right-click the Recycle Bin, click Properties, and set the Maximum size of Recycle Bin (percent of drive). One or two percent is adequate on larger drives.

• configure System Restore: System Restore creates periodic snapshots of critical system files and saves them as a restore point. These backup collections can be used to recover from common system failures by restoring the system to a previous working state.

  By default system restore reserves 12% of each logical drive for restore point storage. This can be reduced by reconfiguring the number of drives that are monitored and the amount of drive space reserved for them. Click start > Settings > Control Panel > System > System Restore tab, highlight each partition then select Settings, under Drive Space Usage and adjust the slider so System Restore is using a maximum of 800 MB of disk space per partition and select OK. Turn off monitoring on all drives that do not have system files or applications.

• evaluate Hibernation: the hibernation feature enables the system to restore its state after powering down by writing RAM contents to the systemdrive\Hiberfil.sys file. If the Windows loader finds a Hiberfil.sys file on the systemdrive root the information is read back into memory and the computer resumes where it left off without going through a full startup sequence.

  Hibernation can be useful for notebooks with limited battery capacity but is usually unnecessary on desktop systems. To disable Hibernation and recover an amount of drive space equal to the size of installed RAM: r.c. the desktop, select Properties > Screen Saver, click Power in the Monitor Power section, select the Hibernation tab and uncheck Enable Hibernation.

Defragment files. Files are are divided into smaller units on the hard drive that can become scattered through normal use. This file fragmentation can increase the time required to read and write drive data.

Periodic defragmentation can improve performance by resequencing fragmented file clusters. To defragment, close all running applications, disable any screen saver and click start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. Select the drive to defragment and click Defragment. It can be convenient to use the Scheduled Task Wizard to automate the defragmentation process. See How to Automate Disk Defragmenter Using Task Scheduler Tool in Windows XP in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for instructions.

The Sysinternals Page File Defragmenter should be used to defragment several system files that are not processed by Disk Defragmenter.

Eliminate Unnecessary Startup Applications. Unnecessary startup applications can reduce system performance and stability. Common offenders include: Adobe Gamma Loader, Fast Find, Office Startup, qttask (Quicktime), System Agent, Real Player, and AOL.

The number of icons in the Notification Area and the number of processes in the status line of the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) are good measures of the number of startup applications. More than 8 icons or a procsss count greater than 50 suggest a thorough review should be initiated.

Background applications can be disabled via several methods, the most common are:

• inspect the Startup folder, start > All Programs > Startup, and delete unnecessary application shortcuts.

• evaluate each application in the Notification Area. Unnecessary applications should be removed or disabled. Many applications have 'launch on startup' or 'run in System Tray' checkboxes that are accessible by right-clicking the application's icon.

• run the System Configuration Utility, start > Run…, Open: msconfig. Click the Startup tab and uncheck unnecessary Startup Items.

• the Sysinternals Autoruns utility. This utility has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, showing what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login and the order they are processed.

Eliminate Unnecessary Windows Services. XP comes with a number of services enabled by default that many consider superfluous. Unnecessary services can reduce system performance, compromise security and consume memory.

These service startup types are acceptable for most systems:

• Alerter - Disabled
• Clipbook - Disabled
• Computer Browser - Disabled if not networked
• Distributed Link Tracking Client - Disabled
• Error Reporting - Disabled
• Fast User Switching - Manual / Disabled on single user system
• IPSEC Services - Manual
• Messenger - Disabled
• Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing - Disabled
• Network DDE - Disabled
• Network DDE DSDM - Disabledd
• Portable Media Serial Number - Manual / Disabled if DRM music devices are not used
• Remote Desktop Help Session Manager -Manual / Disabled if RDP is never used
• Remote Registry - Disabled
• Routing and Remote Access - Disabled
• Secondary Logon - Manual
• SSDP Discovery Service - Disabled
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper - Disabled if not networked
• Telnet (xp pro) - Disabled
• Terminal Services - Manual / Disabled on single user system
• Uninterruptible Power Supply - Manual if no UPS
• Upload Manager - Disabled
• Wireless Zero Configuration - Disabled if a third-party wireless client manager is used

To change the startup type, open the Services console, start > Run… > Open: services.msc. If Started, stop, then modify the Startup Type of these services by double clicking the service, and selecting the desired Startup Type from the drop-down menu on the General tab.

Disable the Indexing Service. The Indexing Service creates a catalog of the contents and properties of documents on local and shared network drives. The service, Cidaemon.exe, usually generates a susbstantial increase in CPU utilization, disk read activity, and swap file use.

To disable the service, open the Administrative Tools Control Panel Applet, select Computer Management, expand the Services and Applications list, right click Indexing Service, select All Tasks > Tune Performance, and select Never Used to disable the service on all drives.

Indexing can be disabled on individual drives by unchecking the Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast drive searching checkbox on the General tab of the drive properties window.

Adjust Visual Effects settings. Windows provides several options to set visual effects, these include enabling all of the settings (for best appearance), or none of the settings (for best computer performance). The effects settings can be customized to improve performance while retaining the more helpful effects. To customize the visual effects click start > Control Panel > System > Advanced tab, click Settings in the Performance section, select the Visual Effects tab, click Custom: and uncheck:

• Animate windows when minimizing or maximizing
• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade or slide ToolTips into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show window contents while dragging
• Slide open combo boxes
• Slide taskbar buttons
• Smooth-scroll list boxes