Speed up your computer Part 3: Checking HDD File System and MSCONFIG
Posted by: wizardcreations on: November 9, 2007
Get rid of FAT
If you have upgraded your computer from windows 95 or 2000(windows 98 cant be upgraded to xp you have to upgrade to windows 2000 first) then your hard disk may still be using the old FAT32 file system. The FAT32 file system is slow and needs to be De-fragmented much more frequently than the newer NTFS file system.
Checking you file system
- Go to my computer
- find your hard disk and right click
- select properties
- on the general tab your file system will be listed near the top of the window
Changing your file system to NTFS
If your file system is NTFS then you can easily change this by going into the command prompt. here’s how.
- Click Start and open “Run”
- in “Run” type cmd and click OK
- In the Command Prompt type convert [your drive letter]: /fs:ntfs
- Press enter, your computer will say “windows needs to restart to make the changes”
- restart your system
- once restarted the computer will convert the file format and then reboot twice
Using MSCONFIG to change the start-up programs
MSCONFIG also known as the System Configuration Utility can be used to change the start-up programs and services that windows will load. This will speed up your computer by freeing up more system resources. To open MSCONFIG
- Click Start and open “Run”
- type msconfig and click OK
You should now be in a window that looks like this(below):
Now to change the start-up programs and services:
- Go to the start-up tab
- In the list box you can see all the programs and services
- Uncheck the boxes to stop a program or service
- The name of the service or program is on the left
- Don’t stop a program or service unless you are sure you know what it is and does. if you dont know then keep it on.
- Click OK once finished
Now you will be asked to restart your computer to put the changes into effect.
- Restart your computer
- Once the desktop has loaded a message box should appear saying “you have edited the start-up programs with MSCONFIG”
- If you don’t want this message to appear every time you start-up then click the check-box “don’t show this again”
- Click OK
OK this concludes Speed up your computer part 3 and in the next part i will probably be talking about Ready-Boost for those vista users and adding more memory to you computer.
thank you reading this post!
Tags: computer advice, Computer Help, Computers, email, internet, PC, ram, readyboost, Technology, vista help, windows vista, windows xp, xp help
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