Improve Boot Times
A great new feature in Microsoft Windows XP is the ability to do a boot defragment. This places all boot files next to each other on the disk to allow for faster booting. By default this option in enables but on some builds it is not so below is how to turn it on.

1. Go to Start Menu and Click Run

2. Type in "Regedit" then click ok

3. Find "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> SOFTWARE >> Microsoft >> Dfrg >> BootOptimizeFunction"

4. Select "Enable" from the list on the right

5. Right on it and select "Modify"

6. Change the value to "Y to enable"

7. Reboot

Improve Swapfile Performance
If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.

1. Go to Start then Run

2. Type "msconfig.exe" then ok

3. Click on the System.ini tab

4. Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign

5. Click on new then in the blank box type"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"

6. Click OK

7. Restart PC

Make Your Menus Load Faster
This is one of my favourite tweaks as it makes a huge difference to how fast your machine will 'feel'. What this tweak does is remove the slight delay between clicking on a menu and XP displaying the menu.

1. Go to Start then Run

2. Type 'Regedit' then click 'Ok'

3. Find "HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Control Panel >> Desktop"

4. Select "MenuShowDelay"

5. Right click and select "Modify'

6. Reduce the number to around "100"

This is the delay time before a menu is opened. You can set it to "0" but it can make windows really hard to use as menus will open if you just look at them - well move your mouse over them anyway. I tend to go for anywhere between 50-150 depending on my mood.

Make Programs Load Faster
This little tweak tends to work for most programs. If your program doesn't load properly just undo the change. For any program:

1. Right-click on the icon/shortcut you use to launch the program

2. Select properties

3. In the 'target' box, add ' /prefetch:1' at the end of the line.

4. Click "Ok"

Voila - your programs will now load faster.

Improve XP Shutdown Speed
This tweak reduces the time XP waits before automatically closing any running programs when you give it the command to shutdown.

1. Go to Start then select Run

2. Type 'Regedit' and click ok

3. Find 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Control Panel >> Desktop'

4. Select 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'

5. Right click and select 'Modify'

6. Change the value to '1000'

7. Click 'OK'

8. Now select 'HungAppTimeout'

9. Right click and select 'Modify'

10. Change the value to '1000'

11. Click 'OK'

12. Now find 'HKEY_USERS >> DEFAULT >> Control Panel >> Desktop'

13. Select 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'

14. Right click and select 'Modify'

15. Change the value to '1000'

16. Click 'OK'

17. Now find 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> System >> CurrentControlSet >> Control'

18. Select 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout'

19. Right click and select 'Modify'

20. Change the value to '1000'

21. Click 'OK'