Make Internet Explorer run faster

The web is a sparkling achievement of modern society. It's everywhere—from the home to the classroom. We use it to communicate, to work, to play—even to waste time, when there's not a lot to do.

Yet there's nothing more frustrating than having this technical marvel at our fingertips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, only to wait as our computers access the Internet at a crawling pace. Thankfully, Windows Internet Explorer provides some useful options for quicker web surfing. Let's look at these options now.

Reduce the size of your webpage history

Internet Explorer stores visited webpages to your computer, organizing them within a page history by day. Although it's useful to keep a couple days of web history within your computer, there's no need to store more than a week's worth. Any more than that and you're collecting webpages that will slow down your computer's performance.
To reduce your webpage history:
1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
In the General tab, under Browsing history, click Settings.
2. Under History, find the Days to keep pages in history: box. In the box, type 1. Click OK.

Don't save encrypted webpages

Encrypted webpages ask for usernames and passwords. These pages scramble information to prevent the reading of this sensitive information. You can define Internet Explorer to not save these types of pages. You'll free up space by saving fewer files to your computer, in addition to keeping secure information off of your computer.
To not save encrypted webpages:
1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
2. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
3. In the Settings section, scroll down to the Security section. Select the Do not save encrypted pages to disk option, check box. Click OK.

Automate Windows Update
Configure once

Microsoft works constantly to release updates to Windows and other Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office. With Windows Update, you can find and install all these updates—not just the critical ones. Often, these updates can improve your computer's performance.

You can make life easier by automating Windows Update so that your computer downloads and installs all the updates without you having to worry about them.

Source : http://www.microsoft.com/athome/setup/optimize.aspx