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This guide provides a series of tips and techniques to enhance the overall performance of your Windows PC. Although the advice offered here is aimed primarily at creating a more reliable and efficient Windows DAW (digital audio workstation) platform for musicians, most of these tips also help maintain a better XP environment for general use.

New XP System Setup

This section applies to those who have built their own PC from scratch (or from a barebones kit), have a readymade PC with no operating system installed, or who want to completely remove their current OS and start afresh. Before doing this, of course, make sure you have backed up all your important data to a separate physical drive or other removable media!

XP System Maintenance

There is a certain amount of regular maintenance everyone should do to ensure their system doesn't become grindingly slow over time. Particularly when using the Internet, most systems tend to accumulate a myriad of tools, utilities and programs (which may be used once and then forgotten about), as well as the usual complement of spyware, adware, viruses, trojans and so on.

XP Optimisation Tweaks and Tips

There are a number of tweaks which you can perform to get better performance out of Windows XP, depending on your requirements. For the general user, the default settings are perfectly adequate and tweaking your system will not bring any noticeable benefits. However, if you want to keep your PC running as smoothly as possible, this section contains lots of important tips that you should know about, particularly if you plan on using your machine to produce music.

XP Resources

A list of handy utilities that you can download and use for free, as well as a selection of links to other websites that provide valuable information.