How can I speed up machines running Windows XP SP2?

We have a peer-to-peer network with five Windows 98SE machines, one Windows NT, one Windows 2000 and two Windows XP SP2. The XP machines read files and folders on the 98 and NT machines VERY slowly. The others all work at normal speed. They are all in the same workgroup and on the same subnet. Is there anything we can do to speed up the XP machines? My platform is Windows XP SP2.

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Without additional information it's hard to point to a specific culprit. Some general troubleshooting steps you should take would be to check the Event Viewer on the XP machines that are having trouble accessing resources. You should also test network connectivity using PING and TRACERT, as verifying that DNS and WINS are set up properly. Remember that Windows 98 and NT use NetBIOS name resolution by default, so you may need to install a WINS server or use LMHOSTS files to speed up name resolution for these hosts.

This was first published in June 2006

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