TIPS TO OPTIMIZE WINXP FOR SSD USE

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DISABLE Page file.

With no swap file, you avoid the constant disk trashing due to the page file constant reading/writing, However, there's still more to be done.

A. XP gives you the option of not using the pagefile if you have more than 512MB of RAM. To disable the pagefile, perform the following steps:

  1. Start the Control Panel System applet (go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, and click System).
  2. Select the Advanced tab.
  3. Under the Performance section, click Settings.
  4. Select the Advanced tab.
  5. Under the Virtual Memory section, click Change.
  6. Select No Paging File and click Set.
  7. Click OK.

 

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USE RAM DRIVE 

for program caches

 

There are other programs that use disk space for temporary buffers and caches. Internet Browsers are probably the worst of them. Each time you visit a new page, hundreds of small files are written to disc to speed up future requests. Although not a big deal on magnetic hard drives, these are not well suited to SSD.
Until these programs offer a finer control on how to use their RAM/disk caches and memory usage, the most efficient way to deal with it is by using a RAM disk.
Yes, I know it sound illogical - waste RAM making it look like it's a disc... However it does work out ok for the time being.
You just need to configure your programs to use the newly created ram disk to store their temporary files.
(As an added advantage you also stop worrying about cleaning your disk and privacy issues - every time you reboot it will clear all you temporary files; though some Ram disk drivers also allow you to commit the changes to disk at shutdown time, restoring it when you boot up again.

Firefox use cache in ramdrive

Firefox cache is the same thing as Internet Explorer’s “temporary internet files”, it keeps copies of webpages that you visit on your harddrive so that the page may load quicker the next time you visit it.

Even if you delete the cache each time firefox quits (tools, options, privacy tab) an expert may still be able to recover your cache data from your hard drive. You may wish to change the firefox cache location to an encrypted drive. Assuming you have setup your encrypted drive, or just want to change the location of the cache, simply do the following:

  1. type about:config into the firefox navigation bar and hit enter
  2. find the browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, if it doesn’t exist right click anywhere and select NEW, then STRING.  Enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory in the first popup box and then the location in the 2nd popup box e.g. k:\tempintfiles. If the entry already existed simply right click on it and select MODIFY and enter your new directory path.

Now your firefox cache location has been changed! This was tested on firefox version 2.0.0.8.

* set the cache location to your RamDisk or some drive other than your SSD

Optional now in firefox:
1- click on Tools (on the top menu)
2- selection Options
3- click on the ADVANCE tab
4- click on NETWORK subtab:
5-  under Offline Storage.  set your size to another size if u want. I have a 300meg ramdisk and I set the size to 100 megs, but that's just me.

 

Set a page file on the Ram Drive

- Control Panel -> Advance tab -> Performance Settings -> Advance -> Virtual Memory Change
- select your ram drive and select "Custom size"  and set inital size and maximum size. 
(I use 400 and 625meg   because I have a 1gb ram drive.  Between the page file and firefox cache 1gb should be enough.   You can use what ever size u want but I recommend something larger than 300megs)

 

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1 Disable winXP prefetcher

Applicable to AHCI mode and compatibility(IDE) mode.

- manually edit registry keys

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]
"EnablePrefetcher"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction]
"Enable"="N"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\OptimalLayout]
"EnableAutoLayout"=dword:00000000


- or download 'Disable WinXP Prefetcher(http://mampan.org/prefetch/Disable_Prefetcher.reg)' and double click.

 

 

How to re-enable WinXP prefetcher

- manually edit registry keys

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]
"EnablePrefetcher"=dword:00000003

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Schedule]
"Start"=dword:00000002

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction]
"Enable"="Y"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\OptimalLayout]
"EnableAutoLayout"=dword:00000001


- or download 'Enable WinXP Prefetcher(http://mampan.org/prefetch/Enable_Prefetcher.reg)' and double click.


Reboot.

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- Turn off hibernation to save space and the drive constantly updating the hibernation file. http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips1386.html

- Turn off System Restore: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310405

- TURN OFf write caching


Windows XP
Start at the desktop.
Right-click on My Computer, then left-click on Properties.
Click on the Hardware tab at the top.
Click on the Device Manager button.
Click on the + next to Disk Drives to expand it.
Right click on the hard drive on which to turn write caching off, then left click Properties.
Click on the Policies tab.
Click on Enable write caching on the disk to remove the tick. It must not be ticked.
Click OK.

 

 

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Turn off INdexing Services

If you don't use Windows XP's built-in search often (like every day), disabling indexing can significantly speed up your PC.

By default Windows XP indexes files on your hard drive and stores them in memory to speed up its' built-in search. But if you rarely use Windows search, turn off indexing to free up memory and CPU horsepower for the files and applications you actually do use. A few simple how-to steps after the jump.

To turn off indexing:

  1. Open up "My Computer."
  2. Right-click on your hard drive (usually "C:") and choose "Properties."
  3. Uncheck the box at the bottom that reads "Allow Indexing Service to..."
  4. Click OK, and files will be removed from memory. This removal may take a few minutes to complete.

To disable the indexing service:

  1. In the "Start" menu, choose "Run."
  2. Type "services.msc" and press Enter.
  3. Scroll-down to "Indexing Service" and double-click it.
  4. If the service status is "Running", then stop it by pressing the "Stop" button.
  5. To make sure this service doesn't run again, under "Startup Type:", choose "Disabled."

Windows search will still work if you perform these steps, but it will work more slowly than if indexing was enabled.