

Enter a value of 2000 in the Value Data field and click OK. The proper value is Max Cached Icons, not MaxCachedIcons.ĭouble-click the new value. Make sure you separate each word with a space. The new value will appear in the right pane, prompting you for a value name. Select New | String Value from the Edit menu. If the value doesn’t exist, you’ll need to add it. If the value exists, it’s probably set to 500, which is the default value for the key. In the right pane, look for the value named Max Cached Icons. When the Registry Editor opens, navigate through the left pane until you get to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer. Start the Registry Editor by selecting Run from the Start menu, typing regedit in the Open text box, and clicking OK. You’ll make the changes in the system registry. By sacrificing a little bit of RAM, you can speed up perceived workstation performance.
#Windows xp desktop icon resize windows#
Rather than physically accessing XP’s Iconcache.db database to display every icon on your workstation, XP first checks the icon cache in RAM, and then looks to the database file if it can’t find the icon in RAM.īy default, Windows XP doesn’t reserve a lot of memory for icon caching. When the operating system needs access to a file, it checks the cache first, loading the file quickly if it’s in cache or physically reading the file from the hard drive if it’s not. Because a workstation can access information from RAM faster than it can from a hard drive, it copies file information to a temporary location in memory. You’re probably familiar with the way a hard drive cache works. If you make a mistake when making changes to your workstation’s registry, you may cause your server to become unbootable, which would require a reinstallation of Windows to correct.

Before performing any technique in this article, make sure you have a complete backup of your workstation. This article discusses making changes to your server’s registry. Doing so will speed up desktop refreshes on your users’ workstations without having to remove the precious icons that are slowing them down in the first place. With a quick change in the Windows XP registry, you can increase the icon cache that XP uses to store icon information. They’ll copy all of these icons to their desktop and then ask you why it takes so long for the desktop to refresh. You’ve probably noticed how some users love to copy every icon they ever click to their desktops, turning it to a vast junkyard of tiny pictures. Speed screen redraws by increasing the size of the icon cache.īy definition, the Windows GUI can represent files, folder, programs, and other things on your computer graphically, almost always with an icon of some type.
#Windows xp desktop icon resize pro#
Change the icon cache size in Windows XP Pro
