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How Can I Boost Performance Without Upgrading Hardware?

Q: I want my Windows 2000 machine to scream with speed. How can I boost performance without breaking the bank?

A: Some performance enhancing tricks in Windows 2000 aren't any different than what you'd do with other flavors of Windows. You should, for instance, defragment your hard drive on a regular basis for the fastest disk access. To launch Windows 2000's included defrag utility, select Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. But other tips are specific to Windows 2000, or at least outside the ken of Windows 9x. For instance, in Windows 2000 there is a fast, easy way to reclaim RAM and speed up most computer chores.

Windows 2000 automatically starts a host of services, small programs that support other software as well as hardware. But many of these services may be unnecessary in your situation. Disable the services you don't need, and you reclaim RAM that would have otherwise gone to waste.

To see which services are loading, right-click My Computer and select Manage. In the left pane, expand Services & Applications, then click Services.

The right-hand pane shows the status of all installed services. Automatic means that the service loads into memory when Windows 2000 starts up (some services must be set to Automatic for the OS to work properly). Manual indicates that the service wasn't started at boot, but it can be initiated if necessary.

To change a service's setting from Automatic to Manual, right-click the service and select Properties. In the "Startup type" field, pick Manual from the drop-down list and click OK. When we poked into our PC, we managed to unload services that were grabbing about 2MB of memory at start-up.

Although it's impossible to make blanket statements about services, here is a list of culprits you may be able to do without:

• If you're not connected to a network, set Computer Browser to Manual.
  
  
• If you're not on a network, or don't use an always-on Internet connection such as digital subscriber line or cable, set DCHP Client to Manual.
  
  
• If you're not connected to a Windows 2000 domain and you're not using the NTFS file system, set Distributed Link Tracking Client to Manual.
  
  
• If you're not connecting to a specific DNS server on a network, set DNS Client to Manual.
  
  
• If your PC is not acting as an FTP server, set FTP Publishing Service to Manual.
  
  
• If your PC is not acting as a Web server, set IIS Admin Service to Manual.
  
  
• If you're not connected to a Windows 2000 domain or network, set Messenger to Manual.
  
  
• If you don't need to give a network administrator access to your PC's Registry, set Remote Registry Service to Manual.
  
  
• If you never use Windows 2000's Task Scheduler to run programs unattended, set Task Scheduler to Manual.
  
  

For more information about Windows 2000 services, the functions they serve, and who can do without each one, the best online source we've found is the Windows 2000 Services Tweak Guide.