How can i make my mom's computer faster?...

My mom's computer is the slowest computer on this planet! it's like, click something, wait 5min, and click again! She has 256 MB's of RAM, can't afford to get more cuz she lives on disability..would installing a PRO version, and removing her home edition speed it up any at all? this is a desktop PC, running windows XP...i already tried to convince her to downgrade for better speed, but she won't...she like the design..so any advice on getting it to run faster would be awesome!

Try using a program called CCleaner and defrag the harddrive.

Replying to #2

i guess i should have mentioned i format it weekly for her...the reason for this, is so that it will be atleast a little bit faster than it's average..is there a point in using those even though there's really nothing to be defragmented or deleted?

Replying to #3

Internet cache files, registry errors, and trash in the temporary folder will slow down a computer drastically.
That's what CCleaner gets rid of.

Replying to #4

hmmm...will try that when i see her Saturday.. so how does my idea sound of installing PRO on her computer? cuz i know my school's computers have the same amount of RAM, and are twice as fast..

Replying to #5

I personally wouldn't worry about installing a new version of Windows. :P
There was a computer I "fixed" a while ago and all that was wrong with it was that the temporary files and internet cache needed to be cleared. :P It was a very simple thing to do, but it increased the computer's speed drastically!

Replying to #6

hmmm...very nice...i will do that! and then I'll set Firefox to not store cache.. i was gonna upgrade her to windows 7, but she don't have enough RAM. ;-;

Replying to #7

Oh heck no. :P Windows 7 barely runs Well with 722MBs of ram. :P

Defragmenter is a tool by Pirisoft or whatever their name is. They made CCleaner as well.

disable unneeded services and programs that start up on boot. that will help. More ram would definitely help, 512MB is a realistic minimum for XP. depending on the type of ram it can be very cheap.

what about installing tiny xp?
keep the same OS just much faster

even reformatting and reinstalling basic XP would help a lot, but it takes time.

msg2009 · #11what about installing tiny xp?
keep the same OS just much faster

GREAT IDEA! found a torrent that includes MicroXP also,,,i think i'll install micro XP first, in hopes it will speed up drastically!

Replying to #12

i format/reinstall on her computer weekly, and i'm getting tired of it. T_T

If all else fails, downgrade windows. Millennium maybe.

Replying to #14

No. Windows 2000 would handle the hardware better than XP, 98SE might be going a bit far back.

personuser · #14If all else fails, downgrade windows. Millennium maybe.

i tried to have her let me downgrade to 2000, but when she saw the way it looked, she said "put it back this instant!".she likes the way XP looks...

Replying to #15

^^

XP's 'looks' are half the problem. they're chewing up resources on a computer that doesn't have enough to start with.

Replying to #17

Yeah I remember when it first came out, I turned everything to classic look to make it run faster.
I have to say though, I don't know if I could cope with windows 98/2000 now.

Replying to #18

well...I'm close to convincing her to switch to 2000...just a question first though.... does windows 2000/lower support disk drives, and USB drives? cuz I've heard it doesn't, so i wanna make sure...and also, if i set it to classic view, while i have Micro XP installed, would that do a dramatic increase in speed?

2000 does, 98SE and lower need drivers installing. Using classic view in XP would noticably improve things, especially if you disable all the window effects.