Windows tweaks

[bias_hjorth]

I took some old threads, combined them all together to get a nice clear overall view of the various windows tweaks. Thanks to the guys who made this happen.
For questions and concerns drop me a PM.

Windows XP tweaks:

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Want to know everything about your system?

Instead of typing systeminfo in a dos box, your can simply do it in windows too.

1. Start
2. Select Run
3. type winmsd

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Remove shortcut arrow from desktop icons :

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
3. Rename IsShortcut in AriochIsShortcut
4. Reboot xp

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Remove MSN Messenger from your system :

If you'd like Windows Messenger to show up in the list of programs you can add and remove from Windows, navigate to C:WINDOWSinf (substituting the correct drive letter for your version of Windows) and open sysoc.inf (if you cannot see this folder, click on Tools, folder options,view then check "Show hidden files or folders).

Open the sysoc.inf file, you'll see a line that reads:

msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7

Change this to the following:

msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7

You only remove the word hide, nothing else. Save the file. Windows Messenger will appear in Add or Remove Programs, then Add/Remove Windows Components, then , and you can remove it for good.


--------------

Getting rid of unwanted items in "open with..." shell extension

When rightclicking any file you´re likely to see an option called "open with", which lists any available program on you computer to open the file with. To simply clear up this list of unwanted items, or to remove useless associations, like opening an mp3 file with a paint program, follow these steps:

- Click on the start button, click on Run... and type the word "regedit" (without the quotes) in the box that appears to open the registry editor, Navigate to " HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre
ntVersion\Explorer\FileExts"
- Find the extention you wish to edit and click on the "+"-sign to locate the key that says "OpenWithList"
- In the right pane of the registry editor you´ll see a list with the programs in the list, like "paint.exe" or "notepad.exe"
- Simple click on the one you wish to delete and press the delete button on your keyboard

Don´t worry if you´ve removed an entry you rather hadn´t removed. When rightclicking a file there will be another option in the "open with" extension where you can choose any program on your computer. Once used, it will reappear in the list of associated programs.

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Q. How can I enable autologon for Windows XP?

A. To enable autologon and bypass XP's prompt to enter a username and password, perform the following steps:

1. Select Run from the Start menu.
2. Enter control userpasswords2 and click OK.
3. Select the Users tab.
4. Clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box.
5. Click OK.
6. When the system prompts you, enter a username and password for users who automatically log on, and click OK.

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Q. How can I perform a bulk file rename in Windows XP?

A. XP lets you rename files in bulk by simply selecting multiple files within Windows Explorer and pressing the F2 key. When you use this feature, the OS applies the name you enter to the first file and applies the same name with a number in parentheses to the other files you selected (the file extensions remain unchanged).

For example, if you select the following files,
* notes.doc
* figures.xls
* disney.jpg
* holiday.gif

and rename the first file (notes.doc) to file.doc, XP renames the remaining files as follows:
* file (1).xls
* file (2).jpg
* file (3).gif


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You can easily create an icon on your desktop that allows you to compose and send a mail by double clicking on it without opening Outlook Express.

1- Find a free space on your desktop and right click on it on -> New -> Shortcut
2- Enter in the space 'mailto:' (w/out quotes)
3- Press 'Next' button.
4- Enter in the space a name for the icon (i use 'Q-Mail')
5- Click 'finish'.


-------------------------------------------------------


This Tweak will prevent Messenger from loading when you access your account via the Hotmail web page, it will also prevent the delay when Messenger has been removed or disabled.

Go to Start --> Run and type regedit Navigate to the Registry Key below.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Messenger.MsgrObject.

Right click on the Messenger.MsgrObject key and select rename. Rename it to Messenger.MsgrObjectold


-------------------------------------------------------

Shut down fast

Start -> Run -> regedit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\

set WaitToKillServiceTimeOut to the time (ms) you want to wait for the kill service to timeout

-------------------------------------------------------

Create Your own Logon message:


1 Click start, click run, type regedit, then click ok!
2 In The registry editor, drill down to the following key:
hklm\software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current version\Winlogon

3 Right click LegalNoticeCaption, click modify, Type: My windows XP Machine,
and then click ok!

4 Right click legalNoticeText, click modify, and then Close your message!
5 The message will appear every time you logon!

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Windows XP Services

Here is a way to figure out which services to set as Automatic and which to set as manual or disabled.

Step1: Set ALL your services to *manual* setting.
Step2: Reboot computer and wait for windows XP to load. XP will boot pretty slowly, since it has to turn on each service
separately. Use your computer for a bit, doing what you normally do during a computing session. This will allow any
other services to activate (such as DHCP or other services that didn't load during the boot process).
Step3: Go back to the list of services, and see which ones are Started. Change the services that are marked as Started, to
*Automatic*. This way windows will automatically load all of the services that you normally use, and the ones that
you don't use will stay unloaded.

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Unsigned Drivers - Use Sigverif.exe:

1. Click Start, click Run, type "sigverif" (without the quotation marks), and then click OK.
2. Click Advanced, click "Look for other files that are not digitally signed", navigate to the Winnt\System32\Drivers folder,
and then click OK.
3. Click Start.

After Sigverif.exe is finished, a list of all unsigned drivers installed on your computer are displayed.

The list of all signed and unsigned drivers found by Sigverif.exe can be found in the Sigverif.txt file in the %Windir% folder, typically the Winnt or Windows folder. All unsigned drivers are noted as "Unsigned".

File signature verification is something I hate in Win XP. I like testing beta drivers. I disabled those annoying popups that says the file is not Microsoft Digital Signe........etc. If you want to disable signature verification, goto control panel, System icon, hardaware tab, Driving signing and click on ignore.


----------------------------------------------------------

Adds Defrag to the right click context menu in Windows XP

Save the following text as a ".inf" file, then just right click & install
That's it..just right click on a drive letter & defrag.

; context_defrag.INF

; Adds Defrag to the right click context menu in Windows XP

[version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"

[DefaultInstall]
AddReg=AddMe

[AddMe]

HKCR,"Drive\Shell\Defrag\command",,,"DEFRAG.EXE %1"

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To speed up boot time

run "regedit" and navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > MemoryManagment > PrefetchParameters

There you'll see a DWORD called "EnablePrefetcher" double click it and set the value between 5 to 7, which ever works better, I recommend 5.

Also after time it gets filled with unneeded stuff, navigate to C:\Windows\Prefetch and delete unnecesary files, if unsure, delete all files and restart twice, all needed files will be automatically created

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To make Windows XP use L2 cache

by default windows doesn't recognise your L2 cache on processor and doesn't make use of it, to enable it run regedit and navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > MemoryManagment

there is a DWORD called "SecondLevelDataCache" double click it, select Decimal and set the amount of L2 cache you have (e.g. if you have 256KB, then just type 256, and make sure you enter it in Decimal, not Hexadecimal)

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theres a quick way to restart/exit windows without going throught the start menue
first of all create a shortcut with the following paths:

C:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec

This Shortcut on clicking will restart Windows immediately without any Warning. To create a Shortcut to Restarting Windows, type the following in the Command Line box:

c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows

This Shortcut on clicking will shut down Windows immediately without any Warning.

however i havent tried this on xp, but im sure it will work

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Increasing System Performance

If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can
increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.

Start Regedit
Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\Session
Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
Set the value to be 1
Reboot the computer

Increasing File System Caching

To increase the amount of memory Windows will locked
for I/O operations:

Start Regedit

Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\Session
Manager\Memory Management

Edit the key IoPageLockLimit

4096 - 32megs of memory or less
8192 - 32+ megs of memory
16384 - 64+ megs of memory
32768 - 128+ megs of memory
65536 - 256+ megs of memory

-------------------


Remember all of this is to use at your OWN risk



Enjoy :cool:

[KoolDrew]

There is no reason to disable services. If a service is not being used it will remain idle and fully paged out. It will only use up recourses if the service is in direct use and if the service is in direct use you surely do not want to disable it.

Your way of determining what to disable it the worst I have ever heard too.

Also about the "EnablePrefetcher" setting. Setting it to anything over 3 will do nothing. The values are as follows

0 = Disabled
1 = Application launch prefetching enabled
2 = Boot prefetching enabled
3 = Applaunch & Boot enabled

As for "SecondLevelDataCache" the description is completely wrong. If you do not set this value Windows will use HAL to determine the L2 cache size automatically. If this fails, a default value of 256KB is used, but this entry is means as a secondary source of cache size information for PC where the HAL is not capable of deteting the L2 cache. The HAL is capable of retrieving the L2 cache size of any CPU that is a Pentium II or newer.

It is only a few older CPU's with direct-mapped L2 caches where the HAl is not able to recognize it. If used on an old PC it maye increase performance, but it would not be noticable. I also highly doubt anyone her eis using a P1 or older on there main rig where the HAL is not able to recognize it.

As for "DisablePagingExecutive." Yet another tweak that does nothing. This entry only applies to ntoskrnl.exe which is only a few MB in size. Since this will always be used and is such a small size it would rarely be paged out anyway unless under an extremely heavy load. If you do come under such a heavy load where those few MBs need to be paged out then you are most likely on your way to a crash anyway.

"IoPageLockLimit" has been completely ignored by Windows since W2K SP1. So this is yet another tweak that does nothing.

[J-Mag]

There is no reason to disable services. If a service is not being used it will remain idle and fully paged out. It will only use up recourses if the service is in direct use and if the service is in direct use you surely do not want to disable it.


If this is true, then why is there a manual setting for services? What would be the difference to windows resources between the manual and automatic?

Also, even if there isn't any difference in system performance with services on or off there is still a reason to turn them off. Certain services have vulnerabilities, whcih can be elminated by turning them off...

[isp]

Thanks, some of these little things are annoying and I've been meaning to look into the fixes... this is quite handy. I think I'll print it out. :)

[bias_hjorth]

This thread is indeed for contribuation so if post your idea, comment, tweak or what ever as long as it has to do with windows tweaks. :)

[bias_hjorth]

"IoPageLockLimit" has been completely ignored by Windows since W2K SP1. So this is yet another tweak that does nothing.


You cant be too sure all benchmarkers are using sp1 ;) But thank you for that friendly comment.

[bachus_anonym]

There is no reason to disable services. If a service is not being used it will remain idle and fully paged out. It will only use up recourses if the service is in direct use and if the service is in direct use you surely do not want to disable it.
Not true! On my WinxXP benchmarking rig, I have only 7 services set to Automatic and all of them are Started. Plus there are 2 services set to Manual that are also Started. Altogether - 9 services... I can go to as low as 5 started services but that would mean no network and no file-sharing with my other rigs on the network.
Now on regular WinXP installation, there is a LOAD of services that are Stated (both Autoatic and Manual).
Difference between both - 55-60MB of freed RAM on benchmarking rig (confirmed by Task Manager on both) ;) And better scores in benchmarks...

My :2cents:

[bias_hjorth]

Yes there´s quite a gain disabling windows tweak.. Especially if your into PI runs and similar :)

[KoolDrew]

If this is true, then why is there a manual setting for services? What would be the difference to windows resources between the manual and automatic?

IS set to automatic it will attempt to start at startup. If set to manual it can only be started if something else asks for it to be started. So a very small amount of recources will be used at bootup for services set to automatic. If RAM is needed for other things the amount of RAM being used by the service will be shrunk to practically nothing. However, if the RAM is not needed for other things it will not be shrunk. So if the RAm is available who really cares? It is not hurting performance at all by having the service running.


Also, even if there isn't any difference in system performance with services on or off there is still a reason to turn them off. Certain services have vulnerabilities, whcih can be elminated by turning them off...

Basically your system would of have been already owned to use any service as an attack point.


Difference between both - 55-60MB of freed RAM on benchmarking rig (confirmed by Task Manager on both) And better scores in benchmarks...

The amount of freed RAM is because of how Windows manages memory. Windows will always try to use all of your RAM. It will retain code of previously opened filea. Any RAM that is left over will be used for cache. Anytime another use comes along where RAM is needed anything that is not being used will be paged to disk. So those services that are not in use will instantly be paged to disk if another use for the space comes along.

Also I would like to see what benchmarks you actually did score higher in and what the before and after score was.

[bias_hjorth]

Kooldrew -

I am just curious but the you ever been doing benchmarking on a more serious state than just starting the program? But here´s a small task if not.
Download the no patch/ no cheat super pi edition. Run it like you´re probably use too. Then disable all windows services and run it again.

And then come back and correct your comment cause in my eyes I am having a hard time figuring what it is your exactly doing on a overclocking forum.

[bachus_anonym]

Also I would like to see what benchmarks you actually did score higher in and what the before and after score was.
Give me couple days and I will post some interesting screenshots comparing SPi 8M-16M, Pifast 10M-100M and PCMark ;)

I'm kind of caught up in a "little race" and do not really want to stop one of my rigs from crunching D2OL just yet... Even for few hours :)

I'll be back here in couple ;)

[KoolDrew]

Kooldrew -

I am just curious but the you ever been doing benchmarking on a more serious state than just starting the program? But here´s a small task if not.
Download the no patch/ no cheat super pi edition. Run it like you´re probably use too. Then disable all windows services and run it again.

And then come back and correct your comment cause in my eyes I am having a hard time figuring what it is your exactly doing on a overclocking forum.

I am only 16 (just turned 16) so I am stuck witha Dell Dimension 2300. I am still saving up for my first rig. Since I have a Dell Dimension 2300 I never bothered with benchmarking except when overclocking my video card.

I will wait until bachus_anonym posts his bench scores instead of doing it myself. I would just like to know if the services that were disabled were only Windows default ones or if there were other ones disabled.

Certain benchmarks may see an improvemnt, but because of the way Windows manages memory there will be NO real world performance gain by disabling services. Especially the default services in Windows. I think we can all agree on this.

I came to this forum to learn about overclocking and other things. Since I plan on overclocking my new rig and this seems like the place to go for that stuff.

[bias_hjorth]

Certain benchmarks may see an improvemnt, but because of the way Windows manages memory there will be NO real world performance gain by disabling services. Especially the default services in Windows. I think we can all agree on this.


Who cares about real world performance. I dont think thats why this community excists.
And yes almost any benchmark shows a slightly gain and this is number uno in order to keep up with the big guys.



I came to this forum to learn about overclocking and other things. Since I plan on overclocking my new rig and this seems like the place to go for that stuff.

Sounds good and please stick around -
This IS the place all overclocking stuff happens :cool:
But judging things like these tweaks, before you even have tried them out yourself is kinda suicidal if you´re hopeing to reach big numbers in the future. :)

[RaptorRaider]

Very nice guide. Lots of stuff I'll have to remember.
There were 2 small things though:

2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile
I was searching for 'lnkfile' and I couldn't find it because I thought the 'l' was a capital 'i'. I know it's stupid but it might save time for some people.

set WaitToKillServiceTimeOut to the time (ms) you want to wait for the kill service to timeout
Are you sure this is in ms? Mine says 20000; my guess would be in 0.1ms. Or am I understanding this wrong?

[KoolDrew]

20000 = 20 seconds so yes it is milliseconds in decimal.



But judging things like these tweaks, before you even have tried them out yourself is kinda suicidal if you´re hopeing to reach big numbers in the future.

I have tried these tweaks out. When I first got interested in computers a couple years back that was what got me interested in computers. I read plenty of guides and tweaked my system to the max. Then I started reading more about certain tweaks and realized some were not what they were described to be and some didn't even exist in Windows XP. Then I picked up a copy of "Inside Windows 2000" and now have a very well understanding of many of these tweaks and how Windows manages memory etc.

I learned that there is no real world performance gain from the mojority of tweaks on the net even though they claim to. However benchmarking may be a totally different story. In benchmarks I have used in the past there were no performance gains, but then again I have never heard of SuperPI until I joined this forum.

EDIT: Also you may want to mention that with the Help and Support service disabled "winmsd" will not work. You could also mention some tweaking programs. I only really recommend ones where you do everything manually such as TweakUI. The tweaking programs that claim to increase performance are crap.

[D_o_S]

I can definitely recommend Tune Up Utilities 2004. I find this program the best of the best, has usefull features, and a backup in case something goes wrong.

[KoolDrew]

I downloaded the program just to test it out. Now it is nice that you can change a lot of visual effects which do in fact help performance. I do not like how it has the DisablePaging Executive tweak though. The description is sort of wrong too. It only applys to ntoskrnl.exe which is only a few MB in size. Since this will always be used and is such a small size it would rarely be paged out anyway unless under an extremely heavy load. If you do come under such a heavy load where those few MBs need to be paged out then you are most likely on your way to a crash anyway.

The program also claims to clear RAM. This is complete BS. There is no reason to clear memory because of how Windows manage memory. Using this feuture will only degrade performance as the program allocates a lot of memory for itself forcing other things out of physicaly memory. This will also increase the size of pagefile since the Private data has to be paged somehwere. Definitely don't use this feuture.

There is also no reason at all to clean the registry. The registry is mapped and if a key is needed it will go directly to this key. Also before I cleaned my registry it was 55.2MB. After cleaning it came down to 54.6MB. You really think that little amount taken away is going to make any notiable impact on performance? No it won't.

[D_o_S]

On Windows XP, there is no point in using the Memory thingy - yes, that is true. On the other hand, I do think that diasabling some of the Windows "flashy" things will give you faster response.

And I will show you a tweak where you will DEFINITELY (unless you happen to own a super computer with a massive 100+ drive RAID 0 array) see an increase in performance:
Go to Tune Up system control, choose file types, then New Menu, and uncheck everything. Now, whenever you right click and select new, the menu will appear faster than before.

Also, keep in mind that performance is not the only thing we're looking at here - it's no use having a really powerfull computer, if it can't easily handle the task's you require. What would you prefer - loading a menu, which you endlessly have to go through to find what you are looking for, or the same menu, without all the unnecessary entries?

[bias_hjorth]

I learned that there is no real world performance gain from the mojority of tweaks on the net even though they claim to. However benchmarking may be a totally different story. In benchmarks I have used in the past there were no performance gains, but then again I have never heard of SuperPI until I joined this forum.


I am very curious to find out which benchmarks you have used that didnt show any type of gain.

[KoolDrew]

I do think that diasabling some of the Windows "flashy" things will give you faster response.

If you mean Visual effects then yes it will give you faster response. I already said this.


Go to Tune Up system control, choose file types, then New Menu, and uncheck everything. Now, whenever you right click and select new, the menu will appear faster than before.

This is sort of common sense. If there is less for Windows to display in the menu of course it will be more responsive. I never said it wouldn't.


I am very curious to find out which benchmarks you have used that didnt show any type of gain.

3D Mark is about it when I was overclocking my video card. I was never really into synthetic benchmarks. With many syntehtic benchmarks i have even seen some XP's beat A64's.

[reject]

thanks bias these tweaks work great for my gaming partition, i did a few on my w2k bench partitions and is a teeny bit faster in 2001, mainly just faster startup times :toast:

[WiZaRI7]

my question is how impotant is virtual memmory in xp? i have set it to the same size i have in physical memory and also set it to my secondary drive at the "front" of the drive with diskkeeper. Is this better or worse?

[KoolDrew]

my question is how impotant is virtual memmory in xp? i have set it to the same size i have in physical memory and also set it to my secondary drive at the "front" of the drive with diskkeeper. Is this better or worse?

Without Virtual Memory Windows would not function ;) You are referring to the pagefile which is not the same thing. Setting the PF size to the same amount of RAM you have is not a good idea. For the majority of the users it is best to leave the PF system managed, but to find the optimal size you need to run your most intensive applications like you would in a normal day or w/e. Then measure PF usage using perfmon. This is the only way to measure Pf usage using built-in tools. If you want something else this (http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/) will work.

Once you have figured your PF usage multiply this number by 4. That number should be set as your initial size. For the max multiply the number you just calculated by at least 2.

Many people will recommend setting a "fixed" pagefile, and the reason they do this is because they want to prevent fragmentation. With my recommendation the PF will never have to resize anyway because the initial size is high enough for your needs. However if it does come a time where it needs to resize it can. Setting a fixed size removes this "safety net."

Also you should never disable the pagefile. Many people will also recommend this to improve performance, but all this will do is hurt you. First of all you have to realize the pagefile is NOT the only file involved with paging. All exe's and dl''s are also. So when you do disable the pagefile you have to keep all "private" data in RAM and only code and mapped files can be paged. So even if the "private" stuff has not been touched in hours. So this will cause more paging of code. It also means that paging cannot be correctly balanced. It will also cripple the file cache and slow down code execution. Also not to mention some applications will fail without a pagefile.

Also in theory moving any file to the outer cylinders of the drive will help, but in real-world performance it will not. This only makes a difference in sustained transfer rate and the PF IO is never in buffers of more than 64KB at any given time. This is basically the same reason why fragmentation is taken way too seriously by a lot of people. When a executable is read so are all the libraries it needs. Of course loading all of it in RAM would be a waste of memory so it only loads the immediately necessary parts. This is called demand paging. So regardless if the file is fragmented or not the head will have to move anyway, paging a bit here and there. Seek time is everything when it comes to HDD performance so you want your most frequently-accessed stuff together. So the pagefile should be on the most-used partition and the least-used HDD. This will give you best performance. However whether you will benefit from it not will depend on the amount of RAM you have and your usage patterns.

[Vince2005]

thanks for the tweak they relly work well now windows loads in one bar haven't timed it yet but it boots up way faster

[Cooper]

I`d like to add one tweak. I always use it since it came up to me - SuperPrefetch.
To enable it run regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControl/SetControl /Session/Manager/MemoryManagement/PrefetchParameters. And make new DWORD called EnableSuperfetch. Change it`s value to 1. Reboot and enjoy :)
Remember to back-up your register before making any changes to it. I`m not responsible for any damage this tweak could do to yr system.
However I never experienced any :)

[Jochenp]

superfetch or superprefetch?

[KoolDrew]

Cooper, the SuperPrefetch tweak does absolutely nothing. If you do not want to take my word for it how about Mark Russinovich?
http://bink.nu/Article4556.bink

You can even run the strings anaylisis yourself. The key is not even recognized by Windows.

I highly recommend changing some of the "tweaks" in the original post. I posted the truths about these "tweaks" and you still didn't change them. It is ok if you keep some things in there, but at least add a few comments. For example, mention for IOPageLockLimit that it does nothing in Windows XP (or anything newer then W2K SP1).

[Jochenp]

All head over to Xteme Overclocking -> Xtreme PI and await my benchmarks that will reveal the truth about tweaks!

[IFMU]

Wowza....
Interesting thread for sure.
KoolDrew? You seem like a very intelligent 16y/o, without a doubt. However, just becuase a book or MS says something, doesnt make it fact. Some things that are done by people on here should not work as far as some books and software makers are concerned, but they do. Real world actions sometimes work when it is thought they shouldnt.
If I may make a suggestion? Keep an open mind, dont dis-believe something right away, find real world proof to one way or the other beforehand.

And please, dont take this as rude or an attack, not meant as so, it just appears from your posts that you prefer to believe the software makers are infallable, regardless of the proof given otherwise.

All just my 2 corroded coppers.

[KoolDrew]

When the book "Windows Internals," several windows developers, and real-world tests back up my claims, it is a fact. The people that recommend "tweaks" have nothing to back them up except "my system feels faster." That has placebo effect written all over it.

Also, when it comes to "tweaks," it is safe to assume that it does nothing for real-world performance, as the majority don't.

[Jochenp]

Check my thread, and you will see some of your 'facts', don't match real-life FACTS
there are 'facts' and facts, and then there are FACTS
I don't want to bash you, but if I have to choose between believing people from Microsoft and SuperPi, my choice goes to SuperPi. (I mean, they say XP is the most stable OS there is :D)

[KoolDrew]

A SuperPI benchmark doesn't prove anything. I will use the LargeSystemCache tweak as an example. From your benchmark it makes a large difference, but it should not be used for regular use. What it does is change the balance in size of working sets between the OS, processes, and "free" RAM. LargeSystemCache set to 1 permits the OS working set to get bigger at the expense of the other two. It allows the file cache to use a lot MORE ram than processes do, whereas the default is that it competes fairly equally with them. With the "tweak" enabled the file cache will typically use up to 80% of RAM even when free RAM is scarce. This often causes massive amounts of paging of app code and data. This would not be good at all in real-world situations, even though some benchmarks may show an improvement. This is only a good idea if the machine is a server being ONLY used for very lightweight file serving purposes, like an FTP server or a regular old SMB file server. For nearly everyone else it's a terrible idea.


LargeSystemCache determines whether the system maintains a standard size or a large size file system cache, and influences how often the system writes changed pages to disk. Increasing the size of the file system cache generally improves file server performance, but it reduces the physical memory space available to applications and services. Similarly, writing system data less frequently minimizes use of the disk subsystem, but the changed pages occupy memory that might otherwise be used by applications. On workstations this increases paging and causes longer delays whenever you start a new app. Simply put enable this on a file server and disable it on everything else.
- Source (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/regentry/29933.asp)

The thing that I find funny is that "tweakers" disable services in order to have more available RAM for their applications, then they recommend this tweak which does the exact opposite.

You can use whatever tweaks you want if it improves your benchmark scores, but I am telling you they won't help in real-world situations (e.g. gaming) and may actually hurt (LargeSystemCache). Just create a .reg file that enables the tweak before you benchmark if you really care about getting a better score. After the benchmark disable it again, as it is a terrible idea to use for normal usage.s

[Jochenp]

Well, it increased my aquamark03 score too, and I'm not noticing any drawbacks in cs:s, so i'll just leave it on, unless you have some hard prove (ie numbers) that it doesnt work

[KoolDrew]

Changing the LargeSystemCache entry to 1 does the same thing as selecting 'system cache' in the screenshot below.

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/2817/largesystemcache9wn.jpg

You don't even have to know anything about how Windows functions to know that selecting 'programs' is the best idea for the majority of users. It is common sense.

[goreblast]

I shall add my 2 cents worth.

This thread was started to highlight some on the tweaks that various benchmark gods around the internet use to get that last bit of juice out of their systems. Be it in 3dmark or super pi. The guys that do the benching live by numbers. I have never seen someone saying that their machine feels faster with a certain tweak, everything and I mean everything is backed up with numbers (some might even say that there are too many numbers and screenies in some threads). Therefore, whilst you have read around the subject, if all you have is a Dell Dimension PC and dont benchmark how can you start to lecture to the rest of us here?

I am sure that a lot of what you are saying is correct for real world stable computing - we are not doing that! We are on the edge. Why else would any sane person by 2 or 3 fx-57 chips to get a good one? etc. Rather than trying to knock down all the excellent tweaks that have been stated at the start of this thread, you should either not post at all, or add some that you think will work.

Goreblast

PS: I suppose that Blackviper and TheElderGeek (to name but 2) are wrong when it comes to disabling windows services as well?

[Jochenp]

Blackviper actually doesnt know what he's saying most of the time

[goreblast]

That may be the case, but you know what I am getting at.

[KoolDrew]

I suppose that Blackviper and TheElderGeek (to name but 2) are wrong when it comes to disabling windows services as well?

Most of BV's advice is horribly inaccurate and/or totally unnecessary. Most of his tweaks do absolutely nothing performance-wise, and much more accurate and detailed information about securing services and Windows in general can be found at microsoft.com.

BV's horribly inaccurate definition of virtual memory pretty much sums up how little he knows.


Virtual Memory ~ The name used for the sum of Physical RAM and the Swap File. In other words: Physical RAM + Swap File = Virtual Memory. You cannot "disable" Virtual Memory even if you disable the Swap File. Meaning, 2 GB RAM + 0 MB Swap File = 2 GB Virtual Memory.

Also, if you look at ElderGeeks site he even says this:


Frankly, I don't recommend you change any of the services from the default installation of XP.

The fact is that an unused service will use no CPU time and its memory will be reclaimed as needed. There is no real-world performance benefit from disabling services from the default installation.

Also, I was correcting some of the tweaks that were posted in the original post. If they increase benchmarks socres, fine, but the descriptions about what they do should at least be correct. The ones that do absolutely nothing such as IOPageLockLimit should just be removed from this topic. The key is not even recognized by Windows past W2K SP1.

[scarface_what]

i cant find memory manager under session manager

[Jochenp]

it's memory management

[OmegaMerc]

Question, I followed the steps onto making all services "manual" which resulting in only me having 16 process's. The only thing is that now my windows GUI looks like Windows 98. Also, windows now wants me to re-activate itself wtf? (got to do it through telephone too). Anyone can help?

[Jochenp]

Well, I hope you made a restore point?
When doing these tweaks you should disable one service after the other, reboot, work with it for a day or 2 and see if there's missing anything you need.
If there isn't, go on to the next service.
That way you won't end up getting such supprises:)

[madgravity34]

Omega, making xp look like 98 isnt bad, its what a lot of tweakers do. Its just because you ended the themes service in windows. I do it on both my bench harddrives so its no big deal. As to the windows activation problem, I have never been hit with that one. Just keep in mind that most of the people who spend a lot of time getting rid of services do not use thier systems 24/7, rather, they are only meant to bench and report scores and therefore, if you are using your system 24/7, I would recommend not ending any of the services unless you are pretty careful. Personally, I have all my services disable except 5 and use my system all the time, but then again, I only bench, tweak, overclock, and surf the net on my system at home. I have others for school work, listening to music, and gaming.

[OmegaMerc]

Reactivated systems to default and disabled some I already know I dont need, so now im back up to 23 which isn't a big deal considering system specs. After I re-actiavted my theme service I was able to reactivate windows xp without the use of the phone (yeah i know, wtf?). Anyways this is my 24/7 system, but im waiting arrival of my HTPC parts to make that my 24/7 system and this my gaming / work.

[KoolDrew]

Before you do any "tweaking" you should know what you are doing. Research what each service does before messing around with it. Then you can make an educated decisions as to whether or not you want to disable it.

The advice given in the original post telling you to set every single one to manual is terrible.

[Twin]

@KoolDrew: I trust you here, you're backing up your facts very well, even tho I am certain some things "just work better" anyway due to theorists (grammar? word?) always think detailed and divide each tweak into it's own use and function, and I bet 2 random tweaks can perform very well together as they weren't thought out to to.

BUT, I'd very much like something else from you, than just telling what's not working, and that's what really IS working.
I bet you only change 2-3 things after a clean xp sp2 install, and what would those things be? Please make a mini xp tweak guide, ppl here can laugh or applaud you or whatever, it's for my personal use.

@Others; flame away, I won't bother.

[KoolDrew]

I change a lot of things when I install Windows. However, this is not for performance reasons. It is for personal preference. Some things may increase performance like using the Windows Classic look, but I don't do this for performance. I do it because I prefer it.

The fact is that most of these "tweaks" you run across on the internet don't increase performance. Instead of blindly following a tweak guide you should do research to make sure you know what everything does before applying them. Then you can decide what you prefer.

[Cooper]

Followed one tweak:


Windows XP Services

Here is a way to figure out which services to set as Automatic and which to set as manual or disabled.

Step1: Set ALL your services to *manual* setting.
Step2: Reboot computer and wait for windows XP to load. XP will boot pretty slowly, since it has to turn on each service
separately. Use your computer for a bit, doing what you normally do during a computing session. This will allow any
other services to activate (such as DHCP or other services that didn't load during the boot process).
Step3: Go back to the list of services, and see which ones are Started. Change the services that are marked as Started, to
*Automatic*. This way windows will automatically load all of the services that you normally use, and the ones that
you don't use will stay unloaded.

Tryed it. And after reboot I couldn`t play any music - audio drivers were disabled. Also my system locked several times w/o any notice in events viewer or any issues with HW.

Please be aware what services you turn off !!!

SuperFetch tweak enables one great Vista feature. Read more here (http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/05/109/microsoft-backs-samsung-over-intel)

[Newblar]

Without Virtual Memory Windows would not function ;) You are referring to the pagefile which is not the same thing. Setting the PF size to the same amount of RAM you have is not a good idea. For the majority of the users it is best to leave the PF system managed, but to find the optimal size you need to run your most intensive applications like you would in a normal day or w/e. Then measure PF usage using perfmon. This is the only way to measure Pf usage using built-in tools. If you want something else this (http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/) will work.

Once you have figured your PF usage multiply this number by 4. That number should be set as your initial size. For the max multiply the number you just calculated by at least 2.

Many people will recommend setting a "fixed" pagefile, and the reason they do this is because they want to prevent fragmentation. With my recommendation the PF will never have to resize anyway because the initial size is high enough for your needs. However if it does come a time where it needs to resize it can. Setting a fixed size removes this "safety net."

Also you should never disable the pagefile. Many people will also recommend this to improve performance, but all this will do is hurt you. First of all you have to realize the pagefile is NOT the only file involved with paging. All exe's and dl''s are also. So when you do disable the pagefile you have to keep all "private" data in RAM and only code and mapped files can be paged. So even if the "private" stuff has not been touched in hours. So this will cause more paging of code. It also means that paging cannot be correctly balanced. It will also cripple the file cache and slow down code execution. Also not to mention some applications will fail without a pagefile.

Also in theory moving any file to the outer cylinders of the drive will help, but in real-world performance it will not. This only makes a difference in sustained transfer rate and the PF IO is never in buffers of more than 64KB at any given time. This is basically the same reason why fragmentation is taken way too seriously by a lot of people. When a executable is read so are all the libraries it needs. Of course loading all of it in RAM would be a waste of memory so it only loads the immediately necessary parts. This is called demand paging. So regardless if the file is fragmented or not the head will have to move anyway, paging a bit here and there. Seek time is everything when it comes to HDD performance so you want your most frequently-accessed stuff together. So the pagefile should be on the most-used partition and the least-used HDD. This will give you best performance. However whether you will benefit from it not will depend on the amount of RAM you have and your usage patterns.

I multiply the amount of my ram x 1.5 to get the initinal pf which for me in 720. I keep the maximum pf at the same amount too. I have integrated video so 512 - 32 = 480 x 1.5 = 720

I dont think your 16.. -_-

[Jochenp]

Why not? Can't people of 16 know something?

[Richie P]

Windows XP Services

Here is a way to figure out which services to set as Automatic and which to set as manual or disabled.

Step1: Set ALL your services to *manual* setting.
Step2: Reboot computer and wait for windows XP to load. XP will boot pretty slowly, since it has to turn on each service
separately. Use your computer for a bit, doing what you normally do during a computing session. This will allow any
other services to activate (such as DHCP or other services that didn't load during the boot process).
Step3: Go back to the list of services, and see which ones are Started. Change the services that are marked as Started, to
*Automatic*. This way windows will automatically load all of the services that you normally use, and the ones that
you don't use will stay unloaded.



This is the worst advice EVER! I can't believe this post is stickied with such a potentially operting system crippling suggestion. Ok, so someone who knows about windows services does this, and then spends the next couple of reboot's turning all the services they need back on after not being able to do things they should be able to do and it just becomes a stpud idea....

But think about the person who does not know RPC from NTFS - setting all the services to manual would cripple the system with the user having no idea what to turn back on! They'd probably just end up setting everything to automatic just to have things working again!

I suggest this be sorted out - there's a perfectly good post in the parent forum with loads of links to tweak sites.

[p360stick]

thanks for the info

[Aegis]

KoolDrew is mostly right with his facts, but he did miss a few things. The tweak about shutting down faster is misleading, since all it does is kill any application/service that's not responding while you try to shut down. Also, the tweak to shutdown/restart the system doesn't work, since there is no user.exe or rundll.exe file on XP.

However, I would like to add that Drew's not always right. There are considerable benefits when you cut down on your services. The boot time goes down and so does your memory usage. If you want proof, check your current boot time and RAM usage, then change all of the services in services.msc to automatic and restart. I think there's going to be quite a difference.

Also the pagefile debate is an ongoing one, so I'm not going to attempt to sway you in one way or another. But contrary to what Drew mentioned, it is possible to run without a pagefile, as I'm doing right now with my main OS. I'd only recommend it if you have plenty of RAM. It all depends on how much trust you have in the Windows Memory Manager. I don't trust it to page out the right thing all of the time, so I disabled the PF to ensure that it can't page out my applications even if it wanted to.

[KoolDrew]

There are considerable benefits when you cut down on your services. The boot time goes down and so does your memory usage. If you want proof, check your current boot time and RAM usage, then change all of the services in services.msc to automatic and restart. I think there's going to be quite a difference.

Yes, disabling services may help your boot time. However, I barely ever reboot. Is it really worth it to disable a ton of services to save a few seconds in two weeks? It may be to some, but not for me.

As for helping memory usage, the real question is not whether or not disabling services decreases your memory usage. The real question is whether or not disabling services provices any real-world performance benefits. Disabling services does not do this. If a service is not being used the used memory by that service will be reclaimed by something that needs it.


I don't trust it to page out the right thing all of the time, so I disabled the PF to ensure that it can't page out my applications even if it wanted to.

You do realize the pagefile is not the only file involved with paging, correct? Even with the pagefile disabled, you are still paging. I already pointed this out earlier, but in case you missed it....


Also you should never disable the pagefile. Many people will also recommend this to improve performance, but all this will do is hurt you. First of all you have to realize the pagefile is NOT the only file involved with paging. All exe's and dl''s are also. So when you do disable the pagefile you have to keep all "private" data in RAM and only code and mapped files can be paged. So even if the "private" stuff has not been touched in hours. So this will cause more paging of code. It also means that paging cannot be correctly balanced. It will also cripple the file cache and slow down code execution. Also not to mention some applications will fail without a pagefile.

[euclid]

Yes, disabling services may help your boot time. However, I barely ever reboot. Is it really worth it to disable a ton of services to save a few seconds in two weeks? It may be to some, but not for me.


so for some users isnt faster boot time a real-world benefit? buy your parts already and start the overclocking process, and then tell me you dont care how fast your machine boots.

[Cappie]

You don't necessarily have to reboot your PC when you make registry changes, just open TASK MANAGER and kill the explorer.exe process, then go to FILE, NEW TASK(RUN), and start up explorer.exe again. Also cleaning out prefetch is a bad thing to do,

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000743.html

[Serra]

I'm surprised how long this thread has gone without a post. Too bad too, considering how important this thread should be to all performance enthusiasts and how woefully incomplete the information here is.

At any rate I gave this sticky a once through today when I came across this entry:


----------------

To speed up boot time

run "regedit" and navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > MemoryManagment > PrefetchParameters

There you'll see a DWORD called "EnablePrefetcher" double click it and set the value between 5 to 7, which ever works better, I recommend 5.

Also after time it gets filled with unneeded stuff, navigate to C:\Windows\Prefetch and delete unnecesary files, if unsure, delete all files and restart twice, all needed files will be automatically created

-----------------


The issue here is that the PrefetchParameters registry key works like this:
1 means to prefetch boot processes only.
2 means prefetch applications only
3 means prefetch both (make sure you're using this) (default)

with no other numbers being defined. You can look this up anywhere. Setting this value to 5/7 won't do you anything setting it to 3 would (though I'm not sure if a value of greater than 3 defaults to 3 or 0).

It is also worth noting that despite what the above poster states, it does not hurt to clear out your prefetch folder. The reason is that although Windows Xp does trim this down depending upon number of entries (max=128), if you only need, say, 30 entries then 128 is about 4x that amount and does directly mean more prefetching than is necessary. I wouldn't clean this out weekly like some people suggest (it will take a few reboots for this to become fully populated with what you want again and those reboots will be slower), but I wouldn't say never clean it out.

[KoolDrew]

It is also worth noting that despite what the above poster states, it does not hurt to clear out your prefetch folder. The reason is that although Windows Xp does trim this down depending upon number of entries (max=128), if you only need, say, 30 entries then 128 is about 4x that amount and does directly mean more prefetching than is necessary. I wouldn't clean this out weekly like some people suggest (it will take a few reboots for this to become fully populated with what you want again and those reboots will be slower), but I wouldn't say never clean it out.

You obviously don't get how prefetch functions. You act as if the prefetch trace files are a cache and the prorams are preloading into memory upon startup. A .pf file is simply a list of pages to load that is only accessed upon starting that particular application. When you load an EXE, windows checks to see if there is a matching file in the prefetch folder and if there is, it loads those pages. If not, it tracks which pages are loaded and then creates a .pf file. Nothing is pre-loaded into memory at all. It is a feauture which atempts to lessen seek distances by prefetching every file in a particular directory, rather than jumping around the disk, which would normally happen without prefetch. A page from one file may be loaded, then a page from a different file, then back to getting a page from the original file upon request.

The ONLY thing cleaning out the prefetch folder gives you is a very tiny amount of disk space back. That's it. It definitely doesn't help performance, actually quite the contrary, at least initially until WIndows re-creates the trace files.

[bleagh]

I'm a bit confused...

Some time back I did a small test...
I did several bootups and timed them.
Then I disabled the Task Scheduler and cleared the prefetch folder.
I did several more bootup and timed them.

The boot times after I disabled the Task Scheduler were clearly faster than the ones before! So I just left the Task Scheduler disabled. But over time I noticed the boot times were getting slower. And defragging didn't help much at all.

So I re-enabled the Task Scheduler and left it on. It still didn't help my boot times. But I left it on for a few days (1+ bootups each day), then defragged. Then suddenly my bootup times increased again. So it would seem that the windows defragger uses the stuff in the prefetch folder when defragging.

So I'm not sure if it is worthwhile to disable the Task Scheduler or not. But if one does disable the Task Scheduler, it seems that they should enable it every couple of months, for at least a day or two, then defrag before disabling it again.

[chinaguy]

Vista SP1 is here downloading from MS web page.

Its just finished installing Vista SP1 so I am testing it out now.

BUT Vista SP1 now see all of the 4GB of RAM I have installed, as before it only said I had 3.5GB of RAM.

So SP1 has solved the one of my problems!

[EneergE]

Here is just a small tip I thought I might add to this thread. Windows XP is now a dying OS, but you can force rebuild the prefetch layout.ini file located in %windir%\prefetch which will tremendously increase boot-up time.

1) Delete ALL files in %windir%\prefetch
2) Start->Run : "rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks" (this is case sensitive)
3) Confirm that a new layout.ini file has been created in %windir%\prefetch

Disabling task scheduler prevents the prefetch from functioning properly, and also creates errors in the event log. You can use the previous tweak, instead, to receive a similar or equal performance boost with prefetch enabled. Prefetch helps launch files quicker, so I recommend it over disabling task scheduler.

You can do this every so often or setup a batch script to run the command on every reboot so that you can have a quicker bootup.

[slim142]

So did enabling SecondLevelCache helped anybody?
I just set mines to 512 to see if I get a little boost

[KoolDrew]

So did enabling SecondLevelCache helped anybody?
I just set mines to 512 to see if I get a little boost

...



If you do not set this value Windows will use HAL to determine the L2 cache size automatically. If this fails, a default value of 256KB is used, but this entry is means as a secondary source of cache size information for PC where the HAL is not capable of deteting the L2 cache. The HAL is capable of retrieving the L2 cache size of any CPU that is a Pentium II or newer.

[dan7777]

xp thought that died years ago lol dx 10-11 :( 7 os dx 11 :)

[slim142]

...

lol, thanks for that one, I didnt catch it.

[PaganII]

Black Viper started those tweaks when computers had little ram in them so some may be unnecessary but several are for SECURITY reasons, plugging holes and backdoors.

[HDCHOPPER]

Black Viper kicks a$$ and has been at it for years he has tweaks by OS too (all of them just look him up ;))

I will open a bag of worms here for christmas lol , XP partition alignment ( there is none by default ) you have to set it your self using diskpar not diskpart (diskpart will round off/up with XP)
Only 2 commands :

C:\diskpar-i x <<< X being the drive number as in disk management ( quary drive layout and partition information) XP default is 63 sectors you want 64 sectors to be aligned 64 sectors = 32K , 128 sectors = 64K 256 sectors = 128K and so on ect... FYI Vista & W7 default to 1024K..

C:\diskpar-s x <<< X being the drive number as in disk management (set partition information USE ON RAW DRIVE ONLY) << this is how you align the partition for XP set to 64 sectors or 128 or 256 ect you get it ;) once you type this command in it will direct you what to do ....

This will improve drive performance esp if using an SSD dramatically ;) once you have tried this you will neve understand why it wasn't this way long ago , Windows finaly saw the mistake by Vista and changed it ......

Have a safe new year...

[SabreWulf69]

Hi all, from SabreWulf over at NRNL Forums. This is my first post on the site that's helped me so much, so I thought in return I could help others here in kind by offering some of my personal tweaks over here (and in the process revive this thread's activity a little :-)) -

http://www.nrnl.org/general-windows-7-registry-tweaks-t184.html

Lemme know what you think and feel free to add more. :-)