Tweak Win ME (WME)

[novice_pc_user]

Hi! Everyone.

I have a friend using a home-built computer; running WinMe on a Celeron 500 CPU with a 2.5 GB hard drive (partitioned into C=1.5GB & D=1.0GB) & 256 RAM. Hard drive is not compressed and System Restore is already disabled.

Problem is that computer response is very slow. And I'm no computer guru so I'm asking this question to you all. Any suggestions to make her computer run faster??? Thanks in advance.

[BertImmenschuh]

Run scandisk to check for corrupted files, use Internet Explorer, Tools, Internet Options, and empty the History. Go the C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files folder and empty it. Empty the Recycle Bin. Defrag the hard drive/s. Empty the Temp folder of any .tmp files and any with the tilde ~ in the name.

Now for the good part. Get a can of dry compressed air, open the computer [outdoors if you value your hide] and blow out all the dust and lint. Pay attention the the CPU fan if it has one and blow out the power supply. Heat does a lot of things but in a computer, it is not good.

[homeflash]

I suggested that you increased your swap space. That makes a big difference if you have less than 100 mb in your swap space.

p.s. check virus.

[patyson]

Try this;
Make Your Win98 Computer a "Powerful PC!
As you Win98 users know, you can set the "Typical Role of your PC" in the Control Panels System applet. The usual tweak is to set it to "Network Server" for increased file-system performance. However you can add one more choice: "Powerful PC" which will give your file-system an even further boost. "Powerful PC" sets VFAT (the Virtual File Allocation Table in RAM) so that it will remember about twice as many files and folders as the "Network Server" setting. Sound like something you'd like to try? Well then, back up you Registry and read on:
Close all your running programs.
Highlight the text below and press Ctrl+C to copy it.
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\FS Templates\Powerful]
@="Powerful PC"
"NameCache"=hex:a0,0f,00,00
"PathCache"=hex:80,00,00,00
Launch Notepad or your favorite plain text editor and paste it into a new file called PowerPC.reg. Make sure everything one the line that starts with "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE....\Powerful]" is on one line. Also make sure that there is one carriage return after the last character in the text you paste.
Close your text editor and find your new REG file. Right click the file and select Merge from the context menu.
Reboot and then go to the Control Panel. Launch the System applet, click the Performance tab and then click the File System... button.
Note the small window with the drop down menu. By default it will be set as Desktop Computer. As stated above, normally you will have two other options: Mobile or docking system and Network server.
You should now have a third alternative to the default called Powerful PC. If you check this option you may see a significant performance increase under certain circumstances. If you don't like the results simply change back to Desktop computer or whatever your previous setting was. Each time you make a change you'll be prompted to reboot. Do so.
For those of you as may be interested, here's an explanation of what this REG file does:
"NameCache"=hex:a0,0f,00,00
The a0,0f,00,00 means 0FA0hex (yes, it is stored backwards) or 4000 decimal. VFAT allocates memory to record the last 4000 files accessed.

"PathCache"=hex:80,00,00,00
The 80,00,00,00 means 0080hex or 128 decimal. VFAT allocates memory to record the last 128 folders accessed. This setting will use about 80K of memory.

The Network Server setting will record the last 2729 files, and 64 folders, and will use about 40K. (0AA9 hex - A9,0A,00,00 in the registry, and 0040 hex - 40,00,00,00 in the registry)
Enjoy!