Tweaking Optimizing Windows.pdf - GEGeek

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long you intend to be monitoring for. Make sure to Start logging (Click on File then Start logging) & save the logs so that you’ll be able to reference usage over the days. It would be best to start tracking your usage when you go to play a game or something that will put your PC under a bit of stress. Run a few time-demos or play Unreal tournament against some bots. This will give you an idea of your Virtual memory needs, however don’t go overboard with the testing you want to track normal usage, not excessive usage. The graph to be concerned with is the Swapfile size. Once you’re satisfied with your monitor it’s time to consult your log. Open the sysmon.log (or whatever you saved it as) with Notepad. Unfortunately the size is saved in byte size, rather than in MB’s. To convert into MB’s, take the largest value from the log & divide it by 1048576 (1024*1024). So in the above example it would be 113246208/1048576=110MB (108 rounded up). Obviously you should only be concerned with calculating the highest value, rounding up to the nearest 10 MB’S, e.g. if you get 143.8MB round it up to 150MB. Based on your results, there are 2 different methods that should be considered when setting the Virtual memory. 1 is to create a permanent fixed swapfile; the other is to create a semi-permanent one. The benefit of a Semi-permanent one is that if needed, Windows can enlarge the size of it. This will remove any chance of Out of memory errors occurring. Afterwards Windows will bring the Swapfile back to its original, Minimum size. Permanent swapfile - (NOT recommended) then set the size about 30-50MB’s larger than the value you’ve calculated, E.g. given the values calculated earlier you’d set both the Minimum & Maximum to 150MB. This will allow for most unforeseen circumstances where extra Virtual memory is needed. Given the large size of hard drives today you should have no problem allowing for the extra space needed for this. There's no point in creating a 1GB swapfile if you only need 100MB for most tasks. Monitoring the swapfile size from time to time will determine whether your minimum is suitable. Eg if it resizes above your minimum often, then your minimum is clearly not suitable. Semi Permanent swapfile - don't set the maximum and minimum to the same value. The only way to avoid "out of memory" errors when both are set to the same value would be to set them both far higher than you would ever need. This is wasteful and inefficient (indeed, it can actually reduce performance). Remember that swapfile size is based upon allocated memory, not used memory. You can easily allocate more than 2GB of memory (disk-space permitting, of course) yet only actually use 128MB. However, under normal usage, the swapfile will "top-out" at some value that is unique to your way of working, and that is the size your swapfile should be minimised to. By leaving the maximum open, any attempt to exceed your normal workload will not be hindered, and the swapfile will shrink back to its minimum when that overhead is no longer required. Your actual usage of the swapfile may well be a lot less than your minimum, however if you can't allocate the memory in the first place, you can't make use of it either... I have a swap file located on the fastest hardly used drive. Once you’ve decided on which method you want to choose, take the following steps. NOTE - Some recommend disabling Virtual memory first. Rebooting, then defragmenting the hard drive. Then setting the Virtual memory options. I do not recommend this as it won’t help you much in the sense that it won’t do anything that defragmenting with the Swapfile enabled won’t do (Unless you have a defragmenter that can move the swap file to the outer edge of the hard drive that is). Also I would recommend putting your swapfile\pagefile on the fastest hard drive e.g. preferably a fast scsi drive that is not used much. Also do not put two hard drives on the same IDE channel. NEVER put a swapfile\pagefile onto a separate partition (except the first) of the same hard drive - this is because the hard drive head as to move all the way across the disk each time and you will notice a major performance decrease ! For users with one hard drive c:\ will be fine. - Right click on My computer & select Properties. Select the Performance tab. - Select Virtual memory. Choose Let me specify my own virtual memory setting. - Select step A or B depending on which path you choose to take. ---If you’ve chosen to use a Permanent fixed Swapfile set it (substituting in your own values) ---If you’ve chosen to use a Semi-Permanent Swapfile set it (substituting in your own values). -For the Maximum value however set it to whatever amount of hard disk you have free. -Reboot your PC for the changes to take effect The Swapfile is best placed on the outer edge of the hard disk it is located on. Windows 9x\Me Disk Defragmenter won’t do this unfortunately. You’ll need a disk defragmenter like Norton speed disk to do so. Swap File Myths Swap-File myth #1: Create a permanent Swap-File 2 1/2 or 3 times the amount of physical memory. I read that at least one of the popular PC Magazines and some web sites are still perpetuating this one. Fortunately it can't hurt you, it's just bad information. Fact: Virtual memory (Swap-File) is a substitute for physical memory. Common sense tells you the more physical memory you have, the less virtual memory you need. Conversely (all other things being equal) the less physical memory you have the more virtual memory you will need. There is no reasonable "rule of thumb" formula for setting the size of a permanent Swap-File. Swap-File myth #2: Set the 'min' and 'max' size the same for the Swap-File. This one can cause you grief. Bad advice!!! Some seem to think of the Swap-File like an insect trap, if you don't have a lid on it, all of those Ks and Ms of bytes and bits will fly out all over the HD. Not so!!! It may help to think of your Swap-File as a water glass sitting on the table (The level within this container will rise and fall as demands change and it is emptied whenever you shut W95 off), the only time it will overflow is if you try to put more into it than it can hold, (your 'min' size setting) and that is the reason you 'never' want to place a 'max' size for your Swap-File, you want it to overflow if it needs to. (This is an analogy, it will not overflow, the Swap-File will increase in size if need be, possibly using non contiguous HD space until it shrinks to your 'Min' size setting again.) Win9x will 'never' exceed your 'min' size unless it needs to, if it can't (because of a 'max' size setting) it will revolt, usually with a "Out of Memory!! Shut down one or more programs to continue" warning. It is doubtful you will associate this warning with the 'max' setting you placed on your Swap-File months ago when your usage habits were less demanding.
44. Switch off Dos memory manager Delete or uncomment out this line (if you have it) from your config.sys and/or autoexec.bat. These are located in your root directory where Windows is installed. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE This is a DOS memory manager, some switches to this line can place a limit on RAM available in Windows. 45. Disable the Windows animation function It can slow down your PC. Open your registry and change the value of 'MinAnimate' found in the key below, set the value to '0' for disabled or '1' for enabled. If the value doesn't already exist simply create a new string value and name it 'MinAnimate'. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] 46. Disable Windows smooth scrolling This setting allow you to disable the Windows smooth scrolling function, which on an low-powered system can cause performance degradation. Using RegEdit find the key below. Modify the value of 'SmoothScroll' to either '00 00 00 00' for disabled, or '01 00 00 00' for enabled. If the value doesn't already exist create a new REG_BINARY value, naming it 'SmoothScroll'. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] 47. Configure the contiguous file allocation size This tip forces by Windows to ignore larger amounts of fragmented diskspace, and avoids splitting larger files the same time using windows maintenance tools e.g. defrag. If you are using disk intensive applications than configure the contiguous file allocation size. This also applies to NT, 2000 and XP. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\FileSystem Right-click in the right hand pane -> select New -> DWORD -> name it "ContigFileAllocSize" (no quotes). Now double-click on it -> check the Decimal box -> give it an integer value between 1024 (1 MB) and 4096 (4 MB). Default is 512 (512 KiloBytes = 1/2 MB). If you have any newer/"monster" multi-GigaByte size hard disk(s), you may want to set this value to "high": 2048 - 4096. If you don't work/"play" frequently with multi-MegaByte size files, you may want to set it to "low": 512 - 2048. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows when done. 5 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000200 10 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000400 15 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000600 20 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000800 20 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000a00 25 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000c00 30 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000c00 35 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00000e00 40 gig drive = "ContigFileAllocSize"=dword:00001000 48. Office Assistants ! Turn off those bloody office assistants always popping-up when you least expect it! This tweak will let you remove them for good! Open you're registry and find the key below. Then delete all the values under the key. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Common\Assistant] 49. Hide Links Folder on Favorites Menu Internet Explorer persistently creates a Links folder on the Favorites menu, this tweak allows you to hide it.Although not a registry tweak, this tweak appears to be the only way to hide the automatically recreated Links folder. Using Explorer find the location of your Favorites folder (e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\Joe Bloggs\Favorites) within that folder will be a sub-folder named Links. Select the Links folder and right-click (or secondary click) and click on Properties, check the Hidden checkbox and click OK. From now on the Links folder should be hidden from the Favorites list. Note: This works for any other folder or link on the favorites menu as well. Another method is to edit the registry. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar Locate the string "LinksFolderName" Right Click on it and select delete. 50. Hide the Internet Explorer Icon [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] Value Name: NoInternetIcon Data Type: REG_DWORD Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled) 51. Add Command Prompt Here to Every Folder If you're from the old school and still use the DOS prompt regularly, then this tip is for you! It creates a new right-click option to open a command prompt window at the directory you are currently working from. Open your registry and find the key below. Create a new sub key called 'CommandPrompt' as in [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\CommandPrompt]. Change the value of '(default)' within the key to equal the text you would like on the right-click menu, for example 'Command Prompt Here'. Create another new sub-key under the key created above, name this subkey 'command' as in: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\CommandPrompt\command]. Change the value of '(default)' within this key depending on your operating system to equal either: Windows 9x command.com /k cd "%1" or Windows NT cmd.exe /k cd "%1"
Page 1 and 2: Mr.X.'s TWEAKING AND OPTIMIZING WIN
Page 3 and 4: -Msdownld.tmp This one needs manual
Page 5 and 6: If you have Windows 95/NT you can e
Page 7 and 8: BootKeys=1 BootMenu=0 BootMenuDefau
Page 9 and 10: Settings\Cache\History] "CachePath"
Page 11 and 12: Similarly, open Internet Explorer,
Page 13 and 14: g - Restart your computer once step
Page 15: 38. Keep IE crash free Here's a tip
Page 19 and 20: Data: D:\WIN95 58. Clear Recent Doc
Page 21 and 22: Click on the property tab for this
Page 23 and 24: Right-click in the right hand pane
Page 25 and 26: By the use of this client software,
Page 27 and 28: 8. Want Real mode DOS back in Windo
Page 29 and 30: Recommendation: This service will f
Page 31 and 32: detect and/or recognize your hardwa
Page 33 and 34: It should almost certainly benefit
Page 35 and 36: Click start. click settings. click
Page 37 and 38: Click Analyze, click ok, click Acti
Page 39 and 40: Nonbrowser. A nonbrowser is configu
Page 41 and 42: Private IP Addressing (APIPA) for p
Page 43 and 44: provides protected storage for sens
Page 45 and 46: If the service is turned off, RIS i
Page 47 and 48: enables NetBIOS name resolution. Pr
Page 49 and 50: 11. Adaptive Menus Microsoft Office
Page 51 and 52: 3. Speed up Internet Explorer 6 Fav
Page 53 and 54: Note that in doing this, you are co
Page 55 and 56: claimed for a ‘fixed’ page file
Page 57 and 58: When a NTFS drive is formatted it b
Page 59 and 60: Goto above key in registry and you
Page 61 and 62: To get Admin account on the "Welcom
Page 63 and 64: • Security is not opening attachm
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[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Current
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exists on your NT machine (this key
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- Not found in a dictionary - Not d
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Alt - 119 = w Alt - 120 = x Alt - 1
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Alt - 0166 = ¦ Alt - 0167 = § Alt
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11. Remove the default administrato
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These logs can contain sensitive da
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Right-click in the right hand pane,
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57. Temporarily Assign Yourself Adm
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Install the appropriate post-Servic
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Windows XP Home Edition Configurati
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Caution If your computer is not in
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C:\inetpub\ftproot (FTP server) C:\
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MBR Work - www.terabyteunlimited.co
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Extreme Tech www.extremetech.com Fi
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feature is a little different from
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ypass the compensation circuit and
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Therefore, using the latest video B
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So, for optimal performance, you sh
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second clock cycle before sending t
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SDRam RAS precharge time This featu
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The shorter the delay, the earlier
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CPU level 1 cache The modern proces
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MPS 1.1 was the original specificat
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Please note that even if you don't
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Advanced Settings tab of the associ
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However, this is not a surefire way
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This feature allows you to manually
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doubling the bandwidth of the proce
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When this feature is enabled, the s
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VLink 8X support V-Link refers to V
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AMD OVERCLOCKING - changing the mul
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Hard drive limitations Overclocking
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If you see copper, you've gone too
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"PC" specification that SDRAM uses
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Benchmarks allow you to measure you
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