get rid of all of the junk in the start up folder

win.ini - remove anything not neccessary from the load= and run= lines

system.ini - based on a system w/128MB
[vcache]
MinFileCache=32768
MaxFileCache=32768
ChunkSize=512
(set min and max to 25% of your ram)

config.sys, autoexec.bat- get rid of the junk

in the registry get rid of the junk in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run (and runonce, runservices, etc)

get rid of all junk/temp files, etc, defrag or (norton) speed disk (speed disk is cool becuase it will not only defragment your swap file but it will put at the begining of the drive)- heck, back in the days of dos/win 3.1 who provided the original defragmenting program to begin with? Symantec!

device manager-performance virtual memory- set virtual to 2.5 or 3x your ram (min and max the same)

device manager-performance file system- cd-rom- if you do not use your CD-ROM to run apps, set it to no read ahead and turn the cache to the lowest setting (do not do this is you run programs off of CD or have a cd burner)

device manager-performance - file system -hard disk set to network server, make sure the read ahead is turned up.

get rid of that stupid 1MB wallpaper in the background...

turn off any wierd cursor/icon/desktop animations (IBM is famous for gobbling up all of the resources with this crap)

we also have a digital video equipment business and the hardware/software manufacturers even recommend getting rid of the clock on the task bar! (for digital video editing)

And I know I will get flamed for this, but Norton WinDoctor... to check the registry for errors. (do not choose "let windoctor fix the problem automatically" this will most likely screw everything up!!) - choose the option to "do it yourself", this feature is very useful but only if you know what your doing and understand the registry, this really should not be an end-user program. It would take days to scan through the registry manually, this program does in it a few minutes.