XP will tell you what patches and service packs are available and it
puts them on groups of "critical," "Windows XP" and "driver updates."
The Windows update (Start / Help and Support / Scan for updates) will
give you a list and allow further info on each item. You can then
download what you think would be handy.

Orf Bartrop

Don Penlington wrote:

> I believe that after 3 months I now have XP Pro SP1 running to my
> satisfaction.  But I'm not sure, there may be settings and tweaks I've
> missed. I would welcome any further suggestions where performance
> might be
> improved.
>
> System is Celeron2000, 256Mb RAM, Gigabyte mobo, 40Gb HD in 4x10Gb
> partitions.
>
> What I've done:
>
> 1. Installed Windows on C partition, all other software on E
> partition, all
> data files on F partition, and kept G partition for messy stuff such as
> editing and temp things.
>
> 2. Disabled all but essential Services.
>
> 3. In Tools/Performance, set to maximum performance.
>
> 4. Disabled all animations, helpers, eye candy, etc.
>
> 5. Set System Restore in C and E drives to 5% of disk space (is that
> sufficient?), disabled for drives containing only data.
>
> 6. Set Pagefile to max and min 500Mb on same partition as Windows. I
> tried
> moving it to its own separate  partition--but that didn't seem to make
> any
> difference.
>
> 7. Culled startups to bare essentials.
>
> 8. Have a modified autoexec.bat running at bootup to empty caches, all
> temp
> folders, and other crud.
>
> What I haven't done (naughty naughty) is downloaded any XP patches and
> updates, other than the recent Blaster security patch.  My reason for
> this
> is that I'm on dialup, and the thought of playing catchup and wading
> through all the patches, trying to see which are "critical", which ones I
> need and which I don't, etc, is daunting to say the least, and probably
> impractical to download on a 56K modem. The system seems fine without
> them,
> so I'll pass on patching until maybe SP2 comes along. Unless anyone can
> think of a specific patch of downloadable size (no more than 10 Mb)
> that I
> absolutely should have (other than the Blaster patch)?
>
> I have Zone Alarm, AVG, and SpywareGuard running only when on
> internet, and
> I update and run both AdAware and Spybot regularly or after visiting
> suspect sites such as "free" screensavers.
>
> I think I'm reasonably cautious browsing, haven't seen a virus for years,
> and receive virtually no spam, thanks to my excellent ISP's spam and
> virus
> filters and Eudora's very efficient filters. MyIE2 browser keeps out
> practically all popups and anything they might contain. So security is
> not
> a major concern. I backup important stuff regularly, so if the worst came
> to the worst, reformatting would not be a major problem.
>
> Perhaps I should add that I'm not greatly into gaming. Video and sound
> are
> mobo built-ins. I've considered adding another 256Mb RAM, but don't
> see any
> need for it for what I do.
>
> I might add that, so far, I'm very pleased with XP, after a nervous
> start.
>
> Any suggestions, anyone?
>
> Don Penlington
> From the beach at Surfers Paradise.
> http://www.geocities.com/donaldpen/
> for sunny Queensland photos, fractal art, free computer tutorials, and
> more.
>
>               The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
>              Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along
>             with the OpenOffice CD...  at a great price!!!
>             http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml
>

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