Tips for optimizing Windows performance on old PC. The following is what i got, please add things to the list.

- Defragment the harddisk
- Clear some space on the harddisk
- Reduce amount of unnecessary programs running in the background
- Check for malware/virus and remove them

If relatives had a really old pc and it was really ahitty what i used to do is install xp tiny or 7 tiny versions where almost everything is stripped out and only necessities left. 100-200mb ram usage in idle or something like that

deinstall unused software
remove update files
clean registry
(no defrag on ssd though)

while you cannot do a fresh install

- Upgrade ram and HDD—>SSD where possible
- Clean up the HSF
- Change wallpaper to dickbutt (makes some things faster)

@electrineer what is hsf?

@JiggleTits heat sink and fan

Install Linux and make it look like Windows.

Disable Superfetch and Windows Search indexing
Disable animations and transitions

Increase virtual memory, I think windows let's you change virtual memory size

Clear the autostart

If it's Windows 10, run ShutUp10

@Axis I think it's better to let windows decide since Windows 2000

@electrineer really? I would think it's trying to optimize between speed and not eating up storage space, but if they op has an unusable computer I doubt they care as much about the storage space as windows thinks

@Axis virtual memory kills all speed anyway, but bad configuration also breaks stuff

@electrineer virtual memory kills speed? Uh what?

@Axis your computer will feel like crap if what you're working with doesn't fit in your ram.

@electrineer true, but increasing virtual memory still will speed up the computer it dedicates a larger section of long term storage to memory, a page hit in the virtual memory takes a lot less time than a page fault to recover so increasing virtual memory will increase the amount of page hits not sure how that could make your computer slower

@Axis well the computer will be unusable if what windows suggests is not enough.

-remove all metro apps
-disable cortana
-disable telemetry and other privacy hogging services
-get rid of windows defender and use a lightweight antivirus instead