[Precursors]

like the title says, im looking for a good program to tweak winxp. id consider myself a power user and very knowledgeable in the ways of the pc. is there something out there that would cater to someone like me? any and all help in this matter would be much apperciated.

freeware preferible, but not necessary.

 

[Proto]

I don't want to sound rude, but people who are really knowledgeable wouldn't ask such questions

Power user in respect to what? What type of applications do you refer to? Optimizing your connection? Graphic Card? OS? If then what OS do you use etc...

If you are a Windows XP user (which I suspect you do....) you might want to pay a visit to tweakxp... appart from that you don't provide enough information :/

 

[Precursors]

sorry, didnt mean to come off boasting. i didnt want to sound too noobish. i thought i might get a better response. and yes, a power user would already know, and i do, to some degree.

ive tried several tweaking programs:

winguides tweaks
x-setup pro
tweak all
tweak xp pro
tweak ui
tuneup utilities
xplite
nlite

but is there a more accepted tweaking program that lets you fully customize xp, in and out? or did i already hit one im my list?

 

[KanedA]

it's better to sound nobiish than bit as lam0r... (no offence)

x-setup pro should be fine if you ask me

 

[Esturk]

The best way I've found to tweak any OS is to have the right hardware. What are your computer specs Precursors? I don't have to tweak anything to get amazingly fast performance. The only thing I really do is an ad-aware scan and a defragment once a day.

 

[scottlc]

The best way I've found to tweak any OS is to have the right hardware. What are your computer specs Precursors? I don't have to tweak anything to get amazingly fast performance. The only thing I really do is an ad-aware scan and a defragment once a day.

Defragmenting once per day shouldn't be necessary.

 

[Snake785]

I never defrag but still get good performance. Anyways, nLite I think is an amazing program to make a custom XP install CD with most of the bloat gone. That the only one I use and I get excellent performance in Windows, even after having Windows installled for a few months

 

[scottlc]

I never defrag but still get good performance. Anyways, nLite I think is an amazing program to make a custom XP install CD with most of the bloat gone. That the only one I use and I get excellent performance in Windows, even after having Windows installled for a few months

In a modern multitasking operating system disk defragmentation doesn't become much of an issue. Since different areas of the hard disk are being read at one time, the heads have to jump around anyway. The operating system reduces this unnecessary jumping by reordering the read operations before executing them.

 

[Esturk]

Why not defrag? It takes about 5 seconds out of my day to do it. Why wait until your disk is horribly fragged?

 

[MaZa]

Why not defrag? It takes about 5 seconds out of my day to do it. Why wait until your disk is horribly fragged?

Indeed. If it gets badly defragged, it can easily take 5 hours to make it clean again. Sometimes it might to to the point that defragger cannot even defrag partition completely. (i have two partitions in that condition. :lol: ) Defragging improves loading speed dramatically.

 

[FLaRe85]

If you're using NTFS, you shouldn't have to defrag but maybe once per month due to the fragmentation resistance built into the file system format. I could see maybe doing it once a week if you do a lot adding/deleting files, but once per day sounds like overkill imo.

 

[Kane]

I need to do it ninja often because of the torrents I use

 

[MaZa]

Thanks to torrents those two partitions of mine are messed up also. :lol: Beyond repair, except formating. And both are NTFS.

 

[Kane]

I download to a seperate partition and copy accross in a hope to alliviate fragmentation. Works to some extent....

 

[MaZa]

So do i, but the source (where i download my stuff) is already so badly fragmented that it takes aeons to copy them to clear partition. :lol: Not that it matters much anymore - i format my whole computer, except critical-to-life stuff like my anime, once i get new graphics card.

 

[Esturk]

If you're using NTFS, you shouldn't have to defrag but maybe once per month due to the fragmentation resistance built into the file system format. I could see maybe doing it once a week if you do a lot adding/deleting files, but once per day sounds like overkill imo.

I use Diskeeper and at the end of the day there's quite a bit of red. I don't think the resistance is that great. Like I said, it takes me like 5 seconds to do it everyday and I don't think that's overkill.

 

[Precursors]

What are your computer specs Precursors?

AMD athlon xp 2.2ghz - cpu
asus nforce 2 -mother board
radeon 9800 pro - video card
40GB maxtor 2mb cache - os hard drive
160GB maxtor 8mb cache - backup/storage/pagefile/internet cache
RICOH DVD+RW MP5240A - main CD/DVD drive
ASUS CD-S480/AH - slave CD drive

...nLite I think is an amazing program to make a custom XP install CD with most of the bloat gone. That the only one I use and I get excellent performance in Windows, even after having Windows installled for a few months

i agree. this program is where i first learned how to slipstream sp2 with my windows home. but i perfered to remove the excess junk with "xplite". to me, it was easier and the end result was the same, no bloat. =]

i keep my pagefile and internet cache off the hard drive with windows on it(its on my storage hard drive). ive heard you get a small increase in performace. i defrag about once a week. only because im trying out new programs and such.

i thank you all for taking the time to help me out. it is well apperciated.

it's better to sound nobiish than bit as lam0r... (no offence)

x-setup pro should be fine if you ask me

i will retry this out, its been a while since i messed with it. maybe i didnt give it enought time on my system. again, thanks.