Slow Computer

BETTER PERFORMANCE TIPS

• Delete all your useless files, folders programs, etc.
• Clear the temporary internet files regularly.
• Clear the temporary files also(Usually in C:\Documents and Setting\***User\Local Settings\Temp)
• Defragment your drives every month and also check them for errors.
• Keep a RAM cleaner program like FreeRam for performance boost.
• Whenever you quit a heavy program refresh the window to free the ram used by that program.
• If you use heavy programs allocate more virtual memory to the drives. To do this go to My Computers properties. In the Advanced tab, select Performance Settings and again go to the Advanced tab there.Select the Virtual Memory Change Option and allocate the virtual memory about 1.5-2 times your RAM(depends on your needs).
• Customize Windows for optimizing Program performance rather than Background Task's performance. Again go to Advanced tab in My Computers Properties and select Performance Settings. From here select Advanced again and there, in the Processor Scheduling and Memory Usage options, make sure that Programs is selected in both.
• Windows has lots of slight animations (for style) which are hardly noticed, but affect your system speed greatly. Go to My Computer's properties>Advanced tab>Performance Settings>Visual Effects Tab. HERE SELECT THE CUSTOM RADIO BUTTOM AND UNCHECK ALL THE OPTIONS EXCEPT THE LAST TWO AND THE OPTION-SHOW SHADOWS UNDER MENUS. If you uncheck ALL, your Desktop's looks will suffer greatly.
• For faster bootup, go to start>run. Type msconfig and select the Startup Tab. Uncheck all the programs there which you dont use every time you boot up. eg-msnmsgr. DO NOT disable your antivirus. Restart as prompted and when you bootup again, check the Do Not Show This Message Again thingy and accept it. Doing so will remove the unnecesary programs from being started up every time you switch on your PC.
• Last but not least-HIBERNATE always. Agreed that it uses as much space as your RAM to do this, but its better than a cold start.

Slow Internet

By default Windows reserves a part of your internet speed( 20% by default) for the use of its own programs, thus making your internet reasonably slower. To increase your internet speed,

• Click Start, go to Run and type gpedit.msc.
• This will open the Group Policy Editor.
• In the gpedit window, click on Local Computer Policy>Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Network>QOS Packet Schedular.
• Select the Limit Reservable Bandwith option and double click it to see its properties.
• In the Settings tab select the 'Enable' option and and reduce the Bandwidth Limit(%) to 0.
• Click on the Apply button.

Pinging

Pinging is a technique used to find out whether a particular IP address is reachable or not.

• Open Run and type cmd there to open msdos
• In the dos window type ping IPADDRESS and press enter eg. ping 72.14.223.191
• All websites can usually be pinged but if you want to ping your friend's computer, it's firewall MUST be off.
• For Advanced pinging options type ping -?

Suppose you want to run a program that pings a certain address then records the results?

• In notepad type ping -n 20 IPADDRESS >> network.txt
• A new file called network .txt will be created and the results will be recorded in it. To overwrite previous results each time replace ">>" with ">".
• Here also you can use additional commands seen by typing ping -? in cmd window.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping

Finding IP Address

This method will help those who want to know the IP addresses of their favourite websites or friends computers.

• Click on start and select run
• Type cmd there to open ms-dos
• Open the website whose IP address you want to find out or start file sharing with your friend's computer through msn/yahoo messenger.
• In the cmd window type netstat -n to get the desired IP address.
• To avoid confusion close all other programs using the internet.
• For additional help, type netstat -?.

Completely Hiding Folders and Files

Method 1 (Folders Only)

• Right click on any folder and rename.
• Switch off numlock.
• Hold the left alt key and type 0160 from the numpad.
• Click anywhere and the name field on the folder will be blank.
• Now go to its properties and change its icon to a blank one.

The Folder will become invisible. Incase of files you can only give a blank name field and not icon.

Method 2 (Files and Folders)

This method involves use of some basic programming in .bat

OPEN NOTEPAD AND TYPE THE GIVEN LINES

1. Hide Folders

• attrib +h +r +s "E:\Music"

2. Hide Files

• attrib +h +r +s "E:\Music\Lonely.mp3"

3. Hide All FILES Inside a Folder

• attrib +h +r +s "E:\Music\*.*"

Save the file as filename.bat and run it to hide whatever you want to.

• By replacing the '+' with '-' you can reverse this.
• The attrib command refers to attributes.
• h, r, s denote hidden ,read-only, and system attributes respectively.
• "*.*" command will apply to all FILES (NOT FOLDERS) inside the specified folder .