Simple Tweaks to Improve the Performance of your Windows PC

Here are four simple tweaks for your PC that will help improve your overall computing and internet browsing experience.

Step 1: Change the IE Concurrent Download Limit - Internet Explorer's default settings only enable you to download up to two downloads at the same time. Optimizing the download settings enables you to download up to 16 files concurrently from the same server.

Method - Open registry editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

Right click the right pane and select New->DWORD Value. Type MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server and give it a value of 16. Add another DWORD using the same process - call it MaxConnectionsPerServer with the same value - 16.

Step 2: Disable Windows Indexing Service - The indexing feature consumes system resources, and may adversely affect your system's performance. By disabling the indexing feature, you free up disk space on your computer and may improve its performance.

Method - Goto Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Find the Indexing Service, right click and select "Disable".

Step 3: Resize your Internet Explorer Cache - The default cache settings of IE are configured to hold a large number of cached temporary Internet files. However, storing many small files on your hard disk consumes valuable disk space and can cause disk  fragmentation. Reduce the maximum size of IE cache to 128MB for optimal performance.

Method - Start Internet Explorer, Select Tools -> Internet Options ->General. Under Temporary Internet Files click the Settings button and type the amount of disk space to use.

Step 4: Windows Menu Display Speed - Menus are displayed on your computer according to Windows' default settings. By optimizing these settings, you speed up your computer's ability to display (and hide) these menus.

Method - Goto Start -> Control Panel -> System. Click the Advanced tab, and under Performance, click the Settings button. Clear the Fade or slide menus into view check box, and then click OK.

These excellent suggestions are based on a local optimization report generated by a tuneup utility that's available for Dell machines.

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