Freeing up your RAM

IMPORTANT NOTE 1: Every computer is different. As such, this guide can really only help in a general kind of way. Dare to experiment!
IMPORTANT NOTE 2: These steps should only be followed if you have already cleaned your computer of viruses and spyware.

Step 1: Do I need to be here?

Most people who come here do so because their computer is running slowly, even after they've cleaned out all the malware. The usual reason for this is that your computer is running out of system memory (RAM), and is having to resort to using "virtual" memory, which is much slower. Common symptoms include:

• Tons of activity from the hard drive activity light whenever you open a program.
• Long delays when booting into Windows/logging into your user account.

If you're been having these problems, open the task manager by hitting CTRL + ALT + DEL and click on the Performance tab. In the Physical Memory (K) box, compare the Total and Available numbers. If they differ by less than 50,000, you're probably experiencing a RAM shortage.

Also, you can check the number of processes running (lower left-hand corner) and compare it to this table (instructions on finding out how much RAM your computer has can be found here.

RAM (MB)	šššApproximate max number of processes supportedššš
512 MB	~70-80
256 MB	~35-40
128 MB	28-30*

If you're over the limit, continue onward...

Step 2: The System Tray

The #1 source of RAM-wastage tends to come from third-party programs that are always running the the background, sucking up resources. The largest RAM-hogs tend to display themselves in your system tray. Your system tray is located on the bottom-right half of your screen. If you've got XP set to hide inactive icons, make sure to click the arrow button whenever you want to see all of them:

The first thing you should do is go through each icon and decide if you really need whatever it is that that process is doing (if you hover your mouse over an icon for a few seconds, Windows will tell you its name). Good criteria for removal:

• You didn't know it was there
• You've never used it before (see above)
• It does something you have no need of (Example: Veritas' miniature timer that reminds you to back up your files every once in a while).

Disabling these "features" will vary by program:

1. First, try seeing if there's an option to disable the "System Tray Icon" somewhere in the program's preferences. These can usually be reached by right-clicking on the icon and selecting "Options" or "Properties," etc. Here's a common example:
   • If you have Apple's media player QuickTime installed, you probably have a little blue Q-esque icon sitting on the bottom of your screen. Right-click it and select QuickTime Preferences from the menu that pops up. A QuickTime Settings dialog box should appear. Select Browser Plugin from the drop-down menu and uncheck the QuickTime system tray icon option. You just saved ~2.0MB of RAM.
2. If that doesn't work, you can uninstall the entire program if you really have no need of it. You can do this by going to Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs.
3. If you're still experiencing problems, or if you can't get some annoying icons to go away, proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: msconfig

WARNING! msconfig is a very powerful tool! Treat it with respect, and make sure to leave the Services tab alone!

As some programs have proven themselves to not play nice, we're going to pull out the big guns. Go to
Start > Run and type in msconfig and hit enter. You should see the following window appear:

The System Configuration Utility (msconfig) can do a lot of things, but we're going to use it to stop all that junk from starting up every time you log into Windows.

1. Change the selection from Normal Startup to Selective Startup. Make sure to leave all the sub-options checked (they should start out that way).
2. Click on the Startup tab. Unless you feel really brave, please DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ELSE.

This window displays all of the third-party "stuff" that Windows automatically starts for you whenever you log in. In a brand-new, "clean" install of Windows, this screen would be empty.

Super-easy step for lazy people:

Click the Disable All button and hit Okay. Restart when prompted.

Slightly more arduous step for people who want their other programs to work:

While it's tempting to just kill everything, you may have some programs that you like to use that actually depend on the software in question. In that case, you need to leave those entries checked. Everything else you should uncheck.
If you're unsure about an entry:

• Check its Command entry (which is usually a filepath), as this can sometimes give a hint as to its nature. For example, something contained in the C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI Control Panel\ folder is probably related to your video card (assuming you have a video card made by ATI).
• You can also check our list of common processes for a match, or Google the process name to find out what it's related to.

Once you're happy with your changes, click okay, and restart your computer when it asks you. The next time you log in, Windows will bug you about the fact that you messed with its startup file, but just click the "Do not show at startup" checkbox and ignore it.

Did that work? If yes, then do a happy dance and go on to Step 5. If not, then continue onwards into the scary land of services...

Step 4: Services

Services are like processes, except that they are activated even before you log on (they're running by the time you see the login screen). True to form, Windows actually has a lot of services that you will never need or use, so we should try to disable them (these are mostly what the svchost.exe processes are, by the way).

Go to Start > Run and type in services.msc and hit okay. You should see the following window:

This is the list of all of your services. They have three "modes"

1. Automatic - This service is started every time you boot into Windows (although it may be stopped at some later point).
2. Manual - Windows usually won't start this service unless something else needs it.
3. Disabled - Windows will never start this service.

First of all, look through the list for any third-party services. For example, I've got a service related to the Maya 5.0 PLE (a 3D modeling program) that apparently retrieves help files from the internet. That doesn't sound terribly useful to me (especially since I gave up on trying to understand that damn program a while ago), so I'm going to disable it.

• First, I'll double-click on its name. This brings up the following window:
  

• Now I'm going to change it's Startup type from Automatic to Manual.
• If I didn't know what the process belonged to, I could also look at the Path to executable for some clues.
• If you're at all scared of disabling some service, you can check its Dependencies tab, which lists all the other services that need that service to be running in order to work.

IMPORTANT SAFETY WARNINGS

• There are some Windows-critical processes here that might render XP non-functional if they are disabled. As a rule, don't disable anything contained in the C:\WINDOWS\System32 folder ("Path to executable") unless this web page tells you it's okay to do so. If a service is stored somewhere else, disable away--you won't hurt anything.
• If a service is marked as Started in its Status column, always stop it manually before disabling it. This can be done by clicking on the "Stop this service" link or clicking the Stop button in its properties. This is just a safety procedure--if your computer yells at you or restarts, then that process is necessary and shouldn't be disabled.

Chances are, you won't have many (or any) third-party services installed. Now it's time to start messing with some of the Windows services that you'll never need.
NOTE: Most of this information is taken from the ever-awesome Black Viper.

Set the following services to Manual:

• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• Help and Support
• Logical Disk Manager

Set the following services to Disabled:

• Error Reporting Service
• Fast User Switching Compatibility
• Indexing Service
• Net Logon
• Network Location Awareness (only disable if running Service Pack 2 and you don't have a wireless card)
• Performance Logs and Alerts
• Portable Media Serial Number Service (this is normally never used, but if programs like iTunes or Windows Media Player start acting weird, re-activate this service)
• Remote Registry
• Secondary Logon
• Server (disabling this service will prevent you from sharing files via windows networking)
• Telnet
• Themes (makes Windows look gray and ugly...if you like the blue bubbly-ness, don't disable)
• Uninterruptible Power Supply
• WebClient (this may cause various network file sharing functions to not work properly)
• Wireless Zero Configuration (only disable if you don't have a wireless card)

Yay! Hopefully that worked! Either way, go on to Step 5 for some final cleanup.

Step 5: Miscellaneous Optimizations

Disable your Language Bar

• Windows uses the Language Bar to display non-standard characters, such as the Chinese and Japanese alphabets. If you don't speak Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc., you can disable it by going to
  

Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages TAB > Details... BUTTON > Advanced TAB > Turn off advanced text services CHECK BOX (Phew!)

I can't think of anything else

Okay, you're done! Close this window and be happy!