Performance Metric results - Slow Response ..

I have been having very slow response lately.. hosting with Hostgator...
So, ran GTMETIX and the "red" areas are

1. Leverage browser caching
2. Optimize images

For caching it give me a list of about 100 links and says..

"The following cacheable resources have a short freshness lifetime. Specify an expiration at least one week in the future for the following resources:"

Where exactly do I modify these Freshness lifetime" settings?

Also, what can I do about optimizing images? **Reinstalling over 5000 images is not an option

You could benefit from an upgrade to v1.5.4, where caching settings are built-in to the supplied .htaccess files such as /images/.htaccess

DrByte:

You could benefit from an upgrade to v1.5.4, where caching settings are built-in to the supplied .htaccess files such as /images/.htaccess

Thanks but I sure wish there was another alternative. I just did the 1.3 to 1.5.1. upgrade last year and every upgrade is a near nightmare experience... i.e. the multiple MOD conflicts, incompatibilities, etc...my health can only survive one upgrade every few three years..:D

Then at least copy the /images/.htaccess file.

DrByte:

Then at least copy the /images/.htaccess file.

Update: We did this . However, it sent my site usage up from 25 to 174%. So my hosting service shut down my site. We had to delete that file as it was making endless calls to the SQL DB..

kevinmc3:

Update: We did this . However, it sent my site usage up from 25 to 174%. So my hosting service shut down my site. We had to delete that file as it was making endless calls to the SQL DB..
There are no entries in the "/images/.htaccess" from Zen Cart 1.5.4 which execute SQL calls to the database...

Perhaps some other modifications are present which caused the issue? Or images with an extension blocked for security purposes by "/images/.htaccess" causing additional requests from browsers to load the images?

Have you tried Image Handler? It would require some work to install and configure, but may help a little with the "optimize images" portion of your original request...