1.    Eliminate unwanted startup programs. Check out the wonderful  Black Viper site on how to do this. You might be surprised how much faster your computer boots after you finish this process. Not only that but this also frees up RAM, your computer’s most precious resource.
2.    Eliminate unwanted programs. Just go to the Control Panel and open up Add or Remove Programs. Then uninstall programs that you don’t use anymore.
3.    Eliminate unwanted files. Even if you have a huge hard drive, the fewer files that you have on it, the faster it will run. There are a number of free and commercial programs that will visually show you all your files by size. This makes it much easier to find and delete your largest files. One program you might want to try is Jam Software’s TreeSize Professional.
4.   Buy more RAM. If you want or need to speed up your system and can only upgrade one thing: this is the one. If you have Windows XP, 1GB is enough for most people. If you are running Vista, you will want 2GB or more.
5.    Buy a faster hard drive.  Many applications, especially games and programs like Photoshop, make extensive use of the hard drive. Moving from a 5400 RPM to a 7200 RPM drive can make a noticeable difference.
6.    Buy a faster video card. If you are trying to play modern games on your machine without a decent video card, you are not going to be happy. This is easy to do if your machine is a desktop but difficult or impossible if your machine is a laptop. Also, before you go shopping, find out what cards work best with the game you love. Some games are optimized for NVIDIA and some for ATI.
7.    Speed up your mouse. You laugh but perception is everything. All you need to do is go into the mouse settings and change the speed. Since it feels faster it is!
8.    Speed up your hard drive. You can use Window’s built in utilities to do this. Run Disk Clean Up and Disk Defragmenter.
9.    Speed up your video. You can speed up your video by reducing one of two things: the number of pixels or the number of colors. Depending on what you are doing, this may make things look not so good. On the other hand, it’s free and easy to play with. Right-click on your Desktop and choose Properties. Then click on the Setting tab. To reduce the number of pixels your card has to process, reduce the Screen Resolution. To reduce the number of colors it has to manage, reduce the color quality. For Vista users, consider turning off Aero Glass.
10.    Use NOD32 for your Anti-virus. It’s simply the best and uses the least amount of resources.

Some of these suggestions can make a big difference; others you may not even notice a change. Try a few and see how it works for you. And remember one of the fundamental principles of computing: they are never are fast as you would like them to be.

What about you? What are your favorite ways to speed up windows?

See also

• Do You Use The Forgotten Key?
• Windows Home Server - Easy Enough For Anyone?