Microsoft® Windows® XP Unleashed

Summary

As you can see, there are a number of factors involved in a computer's performance, including hardware, configuration, and software. Windows provides a number of utilities for improving your computer's performance. These range from the more mundane tools like Disk Cleanup, which helps free hard disk space by deleting unnecessary files, to the more interesting System Configuration utility, which you can use to exert fine control over your Windows startup routine.

In addition to the utilities used to improve overall performance, Windows also includes three utilities for monitoring performance and determining where performance bottlenecks may occur on your computer. Task Manager provides a real-time snapshot of current activity. System Monitor ...