Tweaking Optimizing Windows.pdf - GEGeek

-Msdownld.tmp
This one needs manual changing from a Registry hack; search for it with RegEdit and alter "C:\WINDOWS\" to whatever partition
you are using for this. (I am intentionally vague about how to make this last change. Leave the old (empty) versions of these
folders in their old locations. This prevents some general problems with Windows thinking they are there.
DATA PARTITION (on 1st hd or another drive) - size depends on data being created - backed up regularly
One advantage of the My Documents folder is that it gives one common location for all such content. You can just backup the one
folder and all of its subfolders, and their subfolders - your entire document hierarchy. But, you might consider moving My
Documents from its default location. I have one partition set aside for this. Using TweakUI, as you did for the 'Recent' folder, move
My Documents to its own partition. On some versions of Windows, this is even easier: Right-click the My Computers desktop icon,
select Properties, then edit the 'Target Folder Location' box.
For one, it ensures greater protection against data loss in the event of a crash or bad shutdown, and especially for a wrongly
deleted file. When you delete a file, it is usually possible to undelete it so long as the same part of the hard drive hasn't been
overwritten. The Windows partition, and especially the partiton(s) of the swap file and temporary files, will have quite a lot of write
activity, even during the course of a reboot. By isolating data files from these, you decrease the chance your wrongly deleted data
will be overwritten.
DEDICATED SWAP FILES PARTITION (2nd hd or least used fast drive) - size depends on swap file size - not backed up
You will get your best gain from moving the swap file if you have two physical hard drives. Put the swap file partition as the first
partition on the second drive. If you do not have two separate hard drives, the performance gains from this placement will be offset
by certain performance degradations, and only by experimentation on your unique computer with your unique usage pattern can
you determine whether the net change is a gain, a loss, or no difference at all. Also there is no need to backup this partition as your
swap file is created automatically when its deleted.
STORAGE DRIVE (2nd hd or another drive) - much as you can spare - backed up fairly regularly
I have devoted much of my secondary 15 GB drive, about 5 GB of it, to holding downloads of the programs that I commonly use so
that I can execute right off the hard drive, rather than off the much slower CD-ROM drive. Most importantly, I have downloaded the
entire cab files of the OS CD to my hard drive. That means that any time I want to make any change in my Windows installation, I
do not have to put in the CD -it is all onboard and works very fast. Notice that this type of partition does not need to be backed up
in your routine backups, since nothing is modified on it. In the event of a crash and data loss, just recopy the CDs to the hard drive
anytime you want. You could also put folder below into this partition (incoming files folder).
INCOMING FOLDER (2nd hd - maybe on new partition)
I have a folder on computer that contains all the files coming into the computer. This is checked extensively by virus checkers etc.
You could locate this folder on another partition if required but bear in mind files in this folder are constantly being created and
deleted and fragmentation will occur.
MULTIPLE OS SYSTEMS ETC
If you are booting multiple operating systems I would use VMWare available from http://www.vmware.com
TEST PROGRAM FILES PARTITION
If you test out loads of programs etc you may want to consider making a test partition for this purpose and when finished you can
delete all the files in this partition and just image back your system partition (windows). Or use the excellent VMWare.
Downloading files
Remember these simple rules when downloading files
1 - Read tip 3 in security tips on virus checking etc
2 - Good software will not write to your Registry unnecessarily, nor will it access your proprietary system areas.
3 - Good software will make your puter purr - perhaps even more so than before.
4. Use ram memory rather than the swap file
(Only do this on systems with 256+ megs of ram) Start / Search / Files type and enter: "system.ini" then click on it and open it in
Notepad and add this line after [386Enh] (without quotes) "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1"
This will stop a lot of hard drive accessing and you will notice a definite speed difference.
5. Set file system to cache about many times higher than its default setting
If you goto control panels\system\FileSystem\Performance\typical role of this computer you will probably have desktop computer
set here. You can further increase these settings BEYOND the Win9x GUI limit, to the
next level, otherwise unavailable from the System applet, to have your computer cache up to 3 (THREE) times more files and
directories, and speed up hard disk performance substantially.
The only disadvantage is that this way Windows will allocate up to 3 times more physical RAM to the file cache, which is taken from
the available memory pool, normally used by applications/games. Therefore I recommend doing this ONLY IF your system has at
least 32 MB of installed RAM. This works best on computers with 64 MB and up... and who cares about RAM "shortage" if you
happen to have 128 MB or more?
Copy & paste the text below in Notepad to create a REG file, and save it for example as MAXCACHE.REG, making sure when you
goto save in notepad you change the save as type to all files and then run it. Remember to restart Windows after each change.
-----Begin cut & paste here-----
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates]
@="Max Cache"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Super Cache]
@="Super Cache"
"NameCache"=hex:00,ff,00,00