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Stop unneeded Windows services. Services are again programs that Windows starts up automatically at startup. Many of these are not needed and stopping them can help speed up you considerably. To get to services, in WIndows 2000 and XP, right click on My Computer and choose Manage. Then choose services down at the bottom. Now, consult any one of these lists to see which services are needed: here, here (reference by many) or here (detailed explanations with references to Microsoft articles. Tweakhound (first link) also has a batch file which is posted on PC Worlds Site, which will stop a lot of unneeded services. It is here. Beware though it will turn off all fancy display elements of Windows XP and make it look like Windows 98.

12. Turn off fancy desktop backgrounds, screensavers, and the Hibernation Feature.

Turn off fancy desktop backgrounds, and screensavers. Elaborate background pictures and fancy screensavers can take up an enormous amount memory. These operations can be done by right clicking on a blank part of your Desktop and choosing "Properties." Go to the Desktop Tab and set the Background to "None." On the screensaver Tab, set the Screensaver to "None."

To turn off the Hibernation feature: right click on your desktop -> choose Properties -> Click on the Screen Saver Tab -> Click on the Power Button in the lower right corner -> Click on the Hibernate Tab -> Uncheck "Enable hibernation".

Turn off Windows animations. Turn off Animation - Go to Start> Run, type in regedit. Follow this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics. Click on WindowMetrics once to open its contents in the right pane. Look for "MinAnimate", double-click it and set the string value to 0
to turn off animations. If MinAnimate does not exist, right click inside the right pane and choose New> String Value. Type MinAnimate then press enter. Now that the string value is created, double click it and set the string value to 0.

source - http://www.internetfixes.com/help_desk_nt4/winsNT_12.htm

Pick a time just before you will not be needing your computer for a long stretch, and run the Disk Cleanup Utility. The process can go very fast or it can hang your computer for hours.

You can be aggressive about what to delete, although if Disk Cleanup finds Office Setup Files, its generally better to keep them. This is because if you ever update MS Office via the Microsoft Office Website (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/default.aspx) its generally handier to use the files on your computer, rather than find and load the Office disks (although finding the setup files is difficult too).

Also keep setup logs as they are sometimes necessary for software uninstallation.

There are many freeware tools out there that can help you do the same thing as Disk Cleanup and more, but be careful not to delete uninstall launching executables themselves (as some programs do) as these are obviously necessary for software uninstallation, if you decide to do so later on down the line.

Delete unneeded programs. These clog up your disk, registry and slow the display of your Start Menu. You can do this by clicking on Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs.

Delete unneeded files. Apparently once your disk gets past the 50% full its performance degrades and as it gets near the full mark, it seriously degrades.

If you have a network or home network and you have used the My Computer or Explorer option "Map Network Drive," you may have network mappings where the drive or folder no longer exists or is accessible from your PC.

Unfortunately, this greatly increases time before your Desktop appears after you log on (or a plain start your computer if you do this automatically and by pass the login screen). What happens is the PC will try a set number of times to contact this drive or folder before giving up, but this can be a minute or two. In fact according to one technician I know he has seen it delay boot up 30 minutes!

This is not displayed by default, so right click on a blank part of the toolbar and choose toolbars and then check Quick Launch, see below:

The Quick Launch Toolbar allows you to start frequently used programs without opening the Start Menu or going to the Desktop. You can drag shortcuts onto toolbar from the Start Menu (which will cause them to move off the Start Menu) or your Desktop (which causes them to be copied).

Use keyboard shortcuts. Once you get in the habit of using these, they are such a boost to efficiency.

Ctrl - a - Selects all items on a page including	Ctrl - x - Cuts selected items	Ctrl - c - Copies selected items
Ctrl - v - paste the current item on the clipboard	Ctrl - p - prints your current document or Webpage	Ctrl - n - opens a new IE Window
Print Screen - places an image of your screen on the clipboard for pasting into Word or Paint or another image program	Alt-Print Screen - places an image of the current active window on your clipboard	Tab - moves from one blank (field) to the next in a form
Shift - Tab - moves to the previous blank (field) in a form	F1 - Opens the Help Menu for the active program	F2 - Allows renaming of a file
F5 - refreshes the display of your current Window	F11 - makes IE go to full screen	Home - brings cursor to beginning of a line
Ctrl- Home - brings cursor to beginning of document	End - brings cursor to the end of a line.	Ctrl - End - brings cursor to the end of a document.
Shift - [Left or Right] Arrow Key - highlights one character	Ctrl - Shift - [Left or Right] Arrow Key - highlights a whole word.	Ctrl - {Right or Left] Arrow Key - moves the cursor through the document one word at a time.
Ctrl - [Up or Down] Arrow Key - moves the cursor through the document one paragraph at a time.	Double Click on a Word - Highlights the word.	Triple Click on a Word - Highlights the whole paragraph.

Don't wait. You've visited a search engine and got a list of sites to check out. You click on the first link, and it's taking ages to load. Don't hang around waiting, just click on the Stop button.

Often the bulk of the page will appear immediately. If it doesn't, hit Reload to fetch the rest. An alternative approach is to work your way down the list of sites, right-clicking on the best links and choosing Open in New Window.

21. Break folders up with large amounts files and few folders, to many folders containing manageable amount of files.

The effect of this is to cut down the amount of time WIndows takes to build views when traversing folders.

Windows may stop and build a view of each folder as you try to get deeper in a folder structure or find one file in a folder of a thousand documents.

22. For the same reason as in step 20., if you have a large amount of programs on your Programs part of the Start Menu, break them up into categories. Put often used programs and folders on the initial Start Menu.

It's easiest to work with Explorer when you want to manipulate the Start Menu. In fact if you right click on the Start Menu and choose "Explore," it will open most likely open right to the Start Menu Folder in you you C:\ Drive File Tree.

The Classic View packs information (actually program shortcuts) more efficiently.

24. Turn off personalized menus on your Start Menu and in all your MS Office Programs.