Tweaking the Registry to Speed Up Your PC

Tweaking the registry is one of the more effective ways to speed up your Windows PC’s performance. However, most people are wary of tinkering with the registry, with good reason. For one, you might mess up your system’s internals if you’re not careful, possibly preventing your PC from booting up properly after making changes to the registry.

If you take the necessary precautions, however, you’ll find your PC running faster and smoother with a few registry tweaks. This article will show you how to do that.

First, before you start editing your registry, make sure to backup the data files on your PC. For instructions on how to make a proper backup, pls. see our article entitled “backing up your files in Windows“.

Then, create a system restore point. For instruction on how to do this, pls. see our article entitled “creating a system restore point in Windows“).

Once you’re finished with backing up and creating a system restore point, open up the registry editor by typing “regedit” on the Run command. On the Registry Editor, you will see the Registry’s main sections (see Figure 1), each divided into subsections, which can be viewed by clicking the plus (+) sign next to each main section. This is where you’ll set the keys for the tweaks that you’ll perform below.

The first tweak you’re going to do will speed up the loading of your menus. Follow the instructions below for this tweak:

1. Open the Registry Editor.
2. Bring up the subsections of HKEY_CURRENT_USER by clicking the plus (+) sign to the right.
3. Select Control Panel, then Desktop.
4. Double-click MenuShowDelay from the list of entries on the right side of the Registry Editor.
5. Change the entry in the Value data field to 0.
6. Click Ok.
7. Close the Registry Editor, then restart Windows.

Another tweak will speed up application startup by modifying the Enable Prefetcher key. To set this tweak, follow the instructions below.

1. Start Registry Editor
2. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management/PrefetchParameters key.
3. Set the Enable Prefetcher key to 5, then click Decimal.
4. Click Ok.
5. Close the Registry Editor, then restart Windows.

Our last tweak will unload DLLs from memory when you close a program. Typically, when you close a program, some DLLs used by that program remain in memory. The following tweak will remedy this behavior:

1. Start Registry Editor
2. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion.
3. Right-click CurrentVersion, then select New->Key.
4. A new key called New Key#1 will be created. Right-click this key, select rename, then change its name to AlwaysUnloadDLL.
5. On the right side of the Registry Editor, with the AlwaysUnloadDLL key selected, double-click Default.
6. Set the Value data field to 1.
7. Click Ok.
8. Close the Registry Editor, then restart Windows.

You’ll find your PC’s performance a little better when you’re done with these tweaks. Because we have to say this, please make these changes at your own risk. Messing with your Registry can be risky. You may want to buy Registry Mechanic instead.

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