“Windows operating systems are never streamlined by default. Part of the reason is that their install base is huge--many times that of any other operating system (in fact, probably every other operating system combined). No matter how well polished and optimized any Windows OS may be, Microsoft must balance performance with ease of use and across-the-board compatibility.
Therefore, Windows XP makes quite a few assumptions about how it's going to be used. Its aesthetics are designed to give the GUI a warm, friendly appearance, but effects like drop shadows and fading menus slow the OS down ever so slightly. Failsafe tools like System Restore can make recovering from crashes and incompatibilities easier, but they eat up disk space and their quiet work in the background requires processor clock cycles.
Windows XP also activates a whole batch of services that you may or may not need, depending on how you use your computer. Streamlining your system's pool of processes can expedite the OS's startup and save some clock cycles for foreground applications. Likewise, common commercial software like Quicken, Microsoft Office, and others load their own background applications that eat up system memory and monopolize the processor.
If you spend a few minutes eliminating applets and services you don't need, and are willing to sacrifice some of XP's visual goodies, you can noticeably improve game and application performance on an XP box. XP itself even helps by optimizing its file system based on your computing habits, and Microsoft provides a few hands-on applets to speed up the optimization process.”
The optimizations presented here may require registry editing or employ other system-altering modifications. administrative privileges on the machine in question are needed. Before proceeding, disable any antivirus and security programs you may be using and make backups of critical data onto removable media.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,5155,00.asp
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