Hello
I have made a xp install cd the Bart way, thanks for your help, and installed xp on my
laptop sucessfully. Thing is its a p300 with 64 m ram and 4gb hd. It does run but it is
slow, like I expected. I need the computer to run zone alarm as its conected to a router
and small network which is on broadband.
Programs I will use on it are small, mostly but not all dos so what can I get rid of on xp
to keep the hard disk freed up.
Thank you
number7

Without directly deleting folders/files you can free up space by:

Cutting the IE cache to 10MB or so
Setting the Recycle bin to about 10MB or so
Setting the System Restore space to 225MB
Setting the Page/Swap file to 128MB min & max
Going thru the CP Add/Remove window and uninstalling anything you don't need or will use.
Going thru the Windows folder deleting $Ntuninstall*.* files older than 6 months. (You need to see Hidden & System files)

Lastly look for a folder named Online Services and if present rename it, reboot, and if everything works ok delete its contents.

You can increase the processing speed by adding more real RAM. 64MB is designed for Windows 3.1.

You can also get a faster system by installing Linux in place of XP.

hth

Minor correction to what Ed_P stated..

Windows 3.1 worked fine with 4 Mb of memory... minimum recommended was 2-3 Mb ( 3.1 vs 3.11 )

Win95 - While Microsoft said 4Mb min.. and recommended 8 Mb.. I think the community always stated 32 Mb recommended..

Win98 / 98SE / ME - 32-64 Mb ... I didn't see much performance improvement after 96 Mb except on certain programs.

WinNT - While I own copies of NT4... I didn't run it enough to make a memory recommendation for it. I skipped using it and waited until XP SP1 was released for my personal use.

Win2k - 128 - 256 Mb ( the more memory the better )

XP - originally 256 Mb was pretty good but after SP2 I preffered 512Mb +

Vista... I wouldn't use anything less than 1 Gb and prefer 2 Gb +


On XP... any system I saw with just 128 Mb of memory was slow with little you could do to improve performance... I would never recommend anything less than 256 Mb on the system.

Thanks m8s
Its still pretty desperately slow after all that. May have to go back to m.e. though
I have had problems networking xp and me. Not worth spendind money on ram.
Thanks again
number7

You'd be better off going with 98se rather than ME if you were to downgrade.

Why do you prefer 98 se, I have got it so easier for me but
I thought using it on a network with xp pcs would have been
easier

98se is more stable than ME.
98 and XP will work together just fine if you configure them correctly.

Or, License permitting, Windows 98 "patched" with the few better files of ME:
http://www.mdgx.com/9s2m/


About networking, "standard" reference is here:
www.windowsnetworking.com
expecially for "mixed" networls with 95, 98, ME, 2K, XP and later.

jaclaz

Looks interesting, thanks
number7

hi n7

if ur still into tweaking xp for ur old school laptop this chk out :Slimming Down Windows XP: The Complete Guide
at
http://www.bold-fortune.com/forums/index.php

also : hiberfil.sys (disable hibernation & delete )
and pagefile.sys (reduce size)

have not been mentioned hear (probably to obvious )

and sum how this recently found its way to my browser http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy80.htm

glad to hear of u making use of what many foke would abandon
especially in this vista day and age

and system restore (disable that ****) !

laterzz
zmith

Thanks zmith
Just found your post. Lots of interesting stuff there. Have recently installed tiny xp beast edition on it and is is even quite fast and a useable computer for kids games.
number7