some XP tweaks

drakesteakn · Dec 9, 2004, 02:28 AM

some win XP power tweaks by me

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

Disclaimer: here is a list of stuff to help speed up the slow computers out there. i'm not a know it all. so if there is anything u want to add do so. made this to help people and this list is for power users or persons knowledgable about windows. these tweaks are for win XP. some maybe the same for other windows operating systems.

ENJOY

tweak the virtual memory to help with lower RAM machines.

set the minimum and maximum to 1.5 times the amount of Physical RAM you have.

Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "Advanced" tab, in the "Performance" section select "Settings",

"Advanced" tab, in the "Virtual Memory" section select "Change", change the "Initial Size" and "Maximum Size" to the same size then select "Set" and "OK".

turn off file indexing.
go into "My Computer", right-click on all your hard drive partitions one at a time, left-click "Properties".

Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching". Select "Apply changes to subfolders and files". If any files can not be updated select "Ignore All".

stop unwanted processes in services.msc, if its not there look in msconfig under startup. i use

Code:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

to see the services to disable.

turn off the pretty but performance killer luna visual style.

Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "Advanced" tab, in the "Performance" section select "Settings" then "Visual Effects",selsect "Best Performance"

turn off or manage the system restore hd usage to a minimum.
Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "System Restore" tab, for each drive partition highlight it then select "Settings", under "Drive Space Usage"

adjust the slider so System Restore is only using roughly 500MB of disk space per partition and select "OK"

clean out the registry of unwated old files from programs u unistalled long ago.
use a reg cleaner to do this, only deleate stuff u are sure of. if your not sure or dont know about the registry stay out!!!!!!!!

update Bios and hardware drivers to and use a driver cleaner when changing drivers.
the driver cleaner i use.

Code:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/cleaner/

disable XP sounds, yes the annoying sounds that com from starting XP.
To disable all Windows XP task sounds go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel",

"Sounds and Audio Devices", select the "Sounds" tab, under "Sound Scheme" select "No Sounds".

uninstall the useless windows programs that come installed with windows.
Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "Add or Remove Programs", select "Add/Remove Windows Components".

uncheck "indexing service"

"MSN Explorer"

"messenger(update to mesenger 6.2 after u take the old messenger out)"

"outlook express" only if u dont use it or are using regular outlook in windows Office

" go to "Accessories and Utilities" click the details button. then uncheck "games" then go to "Accessories" and click "details" and

uncheck "Paint"

tweak the space available for the recyle bin. bigger the hard drive the more space it takes up.

right-click on the "recycle bin" go to"C:" tab" and move to the percentage u would like. if u have multiple hard drives go here instead "global tab" then click on "Use one setting for all drives"(for multiple hard drives)

clean out your prefetch once in awhile.
find the prefetch folder by using "Search" in the "Start Menu". go into the folder. go to "Edit" then "Select All" then hit the "Deleate" button.

clear out the cookies and temp internet files. use a spyware and adware cleaner to remove spyware.

i use Adaware and Spybot S&D. to help block spyware use spyblaster along with the cleaners.

GregS · Dec 9, 2004, 04:20 AM

Hi, I have a question about the messenger part. In my add/remove I have two Windows messenger listed. The first one I removed and it is showing 0.0 MB. The other one with a square looking icon showing 14.3 MB. Is this the one you are referring to? thanks

drakesteakn · Dec 9, 2004, 04:31 AM

there are message queing and windows messenger in the add/remove windows components. only remove the windows messenger one. let me give u a screenie to show u

EDITED FOR SCREENIE

The_Neon_Cowboy · Dec 9, 2004, 01:11 PM

those are common but you missed a quite few I might help you after bit

also thats te hard way to unistall msn messanger
the easy way is to goto start run and type

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

then hit enter

drakesteakn · Dec 10, 2004, 02:59 AM

cool, thanx for adding some stuff.

Sgt.Slug · Dec 10, 2004, 02:18 PM

Instead of all this, why not just post www.tweakxp.com ? They explain all the tweaks, there's so many. I think it's great people post this stuff, but save your time and just give a site. There are other tweaks that work well too, like auto-killing dll's after its associated application has closed. Networking tweaks such as removing QoS, disabling file access and update functions. Disabling idle disk cleanup, removing quicktime auto update, disabling media player serial lookups etc.

Go to www.tweakxp.com . It's a excellent site. After that go to BlackVipers as mentioned in this thread.

PangingJr · Dec 10, 2004, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sgt.Slug

www.tweakxp.com

like auto-killing dll's after its associated application has closed.

just wondered, how's that works, you know?
and i can find it on that site?

GregS · Dec 10, 2004, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ctrl-Alt-Del

just wondered, how's that works, you know?
and i can find it on that site?

The tweakhound considers it a bad tweak.
http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/xptweaks/supertweaks11.htm

riles9262 · Dec 10, 2004, 09:03 PM

Between tweakhound's xp guide and the blackviper guide, they pretty much got me covered

thanks for the tips tho drake

Sgt.Slug · Dec 14, 2004, 01:19 AM

Sorry I didn't get a notice of a reply until now.

As far as I'm concerned, I already knew the tweak doesn't do anything in terms of performance gains, I use it for a 'cleaner' system and a system that stays up generally longer than most peoples on average. I certainly don't notice any performance impacts with the tweak. I don't generally have applications crashing or hung processes outside of MS Outlook. But taking what this guy states, is one side of the coin perspective.

Quote "If this setting actually did work, you have hurt your overall performance because you unloaded a dll when it didn't need to be and caused the system to have to load it again when called upon."

Not true at all, taking a decent gaming machine these days. The performance impact is likely not noticed and remember we are talking dll's, not applications. This is a 'power user' tweak, use it, see if your system remains stable. I don't see any sense, or a clean efficient computer for that matter that would have dll's in memory for applications that were closed a long time ago. For a fraction of a second to load a dll, I can deal with it. Given a lot of gaming machines today have 512MB of ram, usually tweaks like this are beneficial. I also use Process Explorer as a replacement for CTRL ALT DEL. I like more detail.

You have to test these tweaks. Don't go nuts installing a million. You have to remember which ones you install and monitor your system. I reboot my computer perhaps once a month and typically only because of MS Windows updates. I play lots of games and I have a general load of 27 processes. I have a 2.5 year old that messes around on my machine during the day and the computer still runs great. The only problems I have to deal with is drivers or the games themselves.

PangingJr · Dec 14, 2004, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sgt.Slug

Not true at all, taking a decent gaming machine these days. The performance impact is likely not noticed and remember we are talking dll's, not applications. This is a 'power user' tweak, use it, see if your system remains stable. I don't see any sense, or a clean efficient computer for that matter that would have dll's in memory for applications that were closed a long time ago. For a fraction of a second to load a dll, I can deal with it. Given a lot of gaming machines today have 512MB of ram, usually tweaks like this are beneficial.

I also use Process Explorer as a replacement for CTRL ALT DEL. I like more detail.

Ok, you seemed thoroughly to understand and with your understanding assumed there would be some gains for your system, so you went on to apply the tweak.

this would be assumming that you applied this tweak by modifying (edit registry value or add a new key/value) your windows registry to adjust windows behavior. if i may can i ask a couple more questions,

What/How, exactly, did you change in the registry ?
also, link to the page on the web site that contains information about this tweak. please.

GregS · Dec 14, 2004, 06:35 AM

I'm not Sarge but here's the link on Tweak XP

http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak408.aspx

WinGuides Tweak Manger as well as Xteq and maybe Fresh UI will do it and undo it for you automatically. But TweakXP tells you how to manually. I used this on 98 and ME and never had a problem doing so. I just haven't used it on XP yet.

PangingJr · Dec 14, 2004, 06:44 AM

Thanks for the info.

i'll wait for Sgt.Slug's answers before continuing...

PangingJr · Dec 14, 2004, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sgt.Slug

This is a 'power user' tweak, use it,

You have to test these tweaks. Don't go nuts installing a million. You have to

remember which ones you install and monitor your system.

Would you mind telling me how you test it ?

i only interested in this tweak and i don't care about what they said on those sites,
so if you don't know how to test it, here's...

it may not be the right way to test it, but i think, it should tell you something for now.

pls follow these steps....
start up about 10 programs, any programs that you've installed,
then open up the Process Explorer, click on the process "explorer.exe",
then save the listdlls, press Ctrl+S keys, save it as .txt file,
and close the Process Explorer.

then open the .txt file that you just saved and remove every lines till the first .dll file line.
and pls tell me how many .dll or lines that you have on that txt file ?

note-- there will be other file extension like .exe, .nls, .dat etc, listed in there as well, don't remove these lines, just leave it. also, if your text editor don't have line numbers then you may have to find your way to count it.

then close the 10 programs mentioned above, wait for about 10-15 mins then reopen the Process Explorer, and save the listdlls one more time, give it a new name...
and then do the same as the above steps.
how many .dll or lines that you have on this txt file ?

just give me an honest answer, no need to make or show any pics.

Sgt.Slug · Dec 14, 2004, 08:26 PM

Sorry CTRL ALT DEL. I access this site from various machines and because of that my cookies are different so I lose track of the thread until I get back to that machine I posted from. Maybe a site bug.. I don't know. Anyhow I will address as much as I can. (this thread is on my home machine)

The short answer for you is yes, I notice that dll's such as those for ICQ or AIM tend to stay open much longer. With the tweak I notice they close down after a few mins. I can do this test for you. You are right in terms of how you want me to test, because I believe the tweak is more for Windows native applications than 3rd party, though I have noticed some dll's shutting down that didn't before. This is not a guaranteed tweak.. It might not do anything, but I just find it does. It's hard to explain. When I launch a game, I make sure that my process count is normal to begin with. That means, I CTRL ALT DEL before playing HL2, check if my process count is right and kill things such as MySQL and Apache for example. You think, I have gig of ram I wouldn't be so concerned, but I am fussy. I like max memory in safest way I can. Stubborn I guess.

I will do this test for you.. not sure about tonite but I will do it. Again, I cannot certify it works, but I can't say it makes my system unstable either. I generally don't reboot unless I patch Windows or install ATI drivers or other drivers. That doesn't happen often as you know. Sometimes I go +1 month without reboot and system always stable and process count is stable.

Sgt.Slug · Dec 14, 2004, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GregS

I'm not Sarge but here's the link on Tweak XP

http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak408.aspx

WinGuides Tweak Manger as well as Xteq and maybe Fresh UI will do it and undo it for you automatically. But TweakXP tells you how to manually. I used this on 98 and ME and never had a problem doing so. I just haven't used it on XP yet.

Ya I do the changes manually. For this one I believed it required creating a new registry key, no biggie. I play in my registry alot. Heh, when I uninstall, I don't just do that. I clean program files, my documents and also registry entries under local machine and current user. I'm not a registry expert but I know my way around it to customize it pretty good. I don't trust GUI based applications because I want to really know what is going on in my machine. I also don't want to bother with registry sniffers. I had to use one to get CCC out of my machine since the uninstaller doesn't. If you uninstall ATI drivers, half the time when you right click, you still have an entry for CCC, for example. You need to run sometimes the additional cleaner from ATI's site. Again, I'm fussy I don't like junk left over or sloppy applications.

GregS · Dec 14, 2004, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sgt.Slug

Ya I do the changes manually. For this one I believed it required creating a new registry key, no biggie. I play in my registry alot. Heh, when I uninstall, I don't just do that. I clean program files, my documents and also registry entries under local machine and current user. I'm not a registry expert but I know my way around it to customize it pretty good. I don't trust GUI based applications because I want to really know what is going on in my machine. I also don't want to bother with registry sniffers. I had to use one to get CCC out of my machine since the uninstaller doesn't. If you uninstall ATI drivers, half the time when you right click, you still have an entry for CCC, for example. You need to run sometimes the additional cleaner from ATI's site. Again, I'm fussy I don't like junk left over or sloppy applications.

I was just mentioning the programs that do it auto. I did it manually on other OS's. In XP, or on mine, the always unload dlls is already in the registry only the value has to be changed. About the CCC, can you give me specifics on locations in the registry to rid myself of the CCC. It may not be important, and I'm not having problems with it as you described but everytime I uninstall and install the latest version, it remembers the classic skin that I was using. If it remembers that, then it has to have other entries it's remembering as well. I just want to get a fresh install of this if possible.
Also how to get rid of the ACE Event viewer. It never clears that up even if I use the old control panel it's still listed in the event viewer.

PangingJr · Dec 15, 2004, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sgt.Slug

but I can't say it makes my system unstable either.

i've not mentioned anything about this tweak makes system unstable yet.
just want to do a cross-check on this tweak again, it's for myself and maybe for you too. pls help, do the test, will return favour if possible.

here's just to make sure you understand the above...

Sgt.Slug · Dec 15, 2004, 03:50 AM

ya I will take a look for ya. not a problem. just spent an hour on another reply, little forum bummed out right now.

PangingJr · Dec 17, 2004, 04:15 AM

Okay, Sgt.Slug. maybe you don't have time to help me do the test on your system, so i finished the test on mine. myself.

i wanted to know if unload Dlls will help saving my system memory, and 'how much' does it actually saved ?

i do NOT use any registry tweak to unload Dlls, but i doing it anyway with my own way and i think, it all unloaded almost instantly.

here's some info for the pics below...

- explorer.exe01.txt - when about 10 programs are loaded.

- explorer.exe02.txt - the 10 programs are now closed.

- explorer.exe03.txt - Dlls are unloaded/discharged.

note-- i do not know if this test is actually the right way to test this, so i could be wrong.

Dec 9, 2004, 02:28 AM	#1
drakesteakn boo!!!! Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Ft. Meyers, FL Posts: 2,041 Rep Power: 0	some XP tweaks some win XP power tweaks by me ----------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: here is a list of stuff to help speed up the slow computers out there. i'm not a know it all. so if there is anything u want to add do so. made this to help people and this list is for power users or persons knowledgable about windows. these tweaks are for win XP. some maybe the same for other windows operating systems. ENJOY tweak the virtual memory to help with lower RAM machines. set the minimum and maximum to 1.5 times the amount of Physical RAM you have. Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "Advanced" tab, in the "Performance" section select "Settings", "Advanced" tab, in the "Virtual Memory" section select "Change", change the "Initial Size" and "Maximum Size" to the same size then select "Set" and "OK". turn off file indexing. go into "My Computer", right-click on all your hard drive partitions one at a time, left-click "Properties". Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching". Select "Apply changes to subfolders and files". If any files can not be updated select "Ignore All". stop unwanted processes in services.msc, if its not there look in msconfig under startup. i use Code: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm to see the services to disable. turn off the pretty but performance killer luna visual style. Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "Advanced" tab, in the "Performance" section select "Settings" then "Visual Effects",selsect "Best Performance" turn off or manage the system restore hd usage to a minimum. Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "System", "System Restore" tab, for each drive partition highlight it then select "Settings", under "Drive Space Usage" adjust the slider so System Restore is only using roughly 500MB of disk space per partition and select "OK" clean out the registry of unwated old files from programs u unistalled long ago. use a reg cleaner to do this, only deleate stuff u are sure of. if your not sure or dont know about the registry stay out!!!!!!!! update Bios and hardware drivers to and use a driver cleaner when changing drivers. the driver cleaner i use. Code: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/cleaner/ disable XP sounds, yes the annoying sounds that com from starting XP. To disable all Windows XP task sounds go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "Sounds and Audio Devices", select the "Sounds" tab, under "Sound Scheme" select "No Sounds". uninstall the useless windows programs that come installed with windows. Go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "Add or Remove Programs", select "Add/Remove Windows Components". uncheck "indexing service" "MSN Explorer" "messenger(update to mesenger 6.2 after u take the old messenger out)" "outlook express" only if u dont use it or are using regular outlook in windows Office " go to "Accessories and Utilities" click the details button. then uncheck "games" then go to "Accessories" and click "details" and uncheck "Paint" tweak the space available for the recyle bin. bigger the hard drive the more space it takes up. right-click on the "recycle bin" go to"C:" tab" and move to the percentage u would like. if u have multiple hard drives go here instead "global tab" then click on "Use one setting for all drives"(for multiple hard drives) clean out your prefetch once in awhile. find the prefetch folder by using "Search" in the "Start Menu". go into the folder. go to "Edit" then "Select All" then hit the "Deleate" button. clear out the cookies and temp internet files. use a spyware and adware cleaner to remove spyware. i use Adaware and Spybot S&D. to help block spyware use spyblaster along with the cleaners. __________________

Dec 9, 2004, 04:31 AM	Thread Starter #3
drakesteakn boo!!!! Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Ft. Meyers, FL Posts: 2,041 Rep Power: 0	there are message queing and windows messenger in the add/remove windows components. only remove the windows messenger one. let me give u a screenie to show u EDITED FOR SCREENIE __________________ Last edited by drakesteakn; Dec 9, 2004 at 04:37 AM.

Dec 9, 2004, 01:11 PM	#4
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	those are common but you missed a quite few I might help you after bit also thats te hard way to unistall msn messanger the easy way is to goto start run and type RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove then hit enter __________________

Dec 10, 2004, 02:59 AM	Thread Starter #5
drakesteakn boo!!!! Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Ft. Meyers, FL Posts: 2,041 Rep Power: 0	cool, thanx for adding some stuff. __________________

Dec 10, 2004, 09:03 PM	#9
riles9262 Driverheaven brewmaster Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: British Columbia, Canada Posts: 4,842 Rep Power: 72 System Specs	Between tweakhound's xp guide and the blackviper guide, they pretty much got me covered thanks for the tips tho drake __________________ A beer a day keeps the doctor away.

Dec 9, 2004, 04:20 AM	#2
GregS DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 110 Rep Power: 0	Hi, I have a question about the messenger part. In my add/remove I have two Windows messenger listed. The first one I removed and it is showing 0.0 MB. The other one with a square looking icon showing 14.3 MB. Is this the one you are referring to? thanks

Dec 10, 2004, 02:18 PM	#6
Sgt.Slug DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 136 Rep Power: 0	Instead of all this, why not just post www.tweakxp.com ? They explain all the tweaks, there's so many. I think it's great people post this stuff, but save your time and just give a site. There are other tweaks that work well too, like auto-killing dll's after its associated application has closed. Networking tweaks such as removing QoS, disabling file access and update functions. Disabling idle disk cleanup, removing quicktime auto update, disabling media player serial lookups etc. Go to www.tweakxp.com . It's a excellent site. After that go to BlackVipers as mentioned in this thread.

Dec 14, 2004, 01:19 AM	#10
Sgt.Slug DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 136 Rep Power: 0	Sorry I didn't get a notice of a reply until now. As far as I'm concerned, I already knew the tweak doesn't do anything in terms of performance gains, I use it for a 'cleaner' system and a system that stays up generally longer than most peoples on average. I certainly don't notice any performance impacts with the tweak. I don't generally have applications crashing or hung processes outside of MS Outlook. But taking what this guy states, is one side of the coin perspective. Quote "If this setting actually did work, you have hurt your overall performance because you unloaded a dll when it didn't need to be and caused the system to have to load it again when called upon." Not true at all, taking a decent gaming machine these days. The performance impact is likely not noticed and remember we are talking dll's, not applications. This is a 'power user' tweak, use it, see if your system remains stable. I don't see any sense, or a clean efficient computer for that matter that would have dll's in memory for applications that were closed a long time ago. For a fraction of a second to load a dll, I can deal with it. Given a lot of gaming machines today have 512MB of ram, usually tweaks like this are beneficial. I also use Process Explorer as a replacement for CTRL ALT DEL. I like more detail. You have to test these tweaks. Don't go nuts installing a million. You have to remember which ones you install and monitor your system. I reboot my computer perhaps once a month and typically only because of MS Windows updates. I play lots of games and I have a general load of 27 processes. I have a 2.5 year old that messes around on my machine during the day and the computer still runs great. The only problems I have to deal with is drivers or the games themselves.

Dec 14, 2004, 06:35 AM	#12
GregS DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 110 Rep Power: 0	I'm not Sarge but here's the link on Tweak XP http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak408.aspx WinGuides Tweak Manger as well as Xteq and maybe Fresh UI will do it and undo it for you automatically. But TweakXP tells you how to manually. I used this on 98 and ME and never had a problem doing so. I just haven't used it on XP yet.

Dec 14, 2004, 06:44 AM	#13
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 71	Thanks for the info. i'll wait for Sgt.Slug's answers before continuing...

Dec 14, 2004, 08:26 PM	#15
Sgt.Slug DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 136 Rep Power: 0	Sorry CTRL ALT DEL. I access this site from various machines and because of that my cookies are different so I lose track of the thread until I get back to that machine I posted from. Maybe a site bug.. I don't know. Anyhow I will address as much as I can. (this thread is on my home machine) The short answer for you is yes, I notice that dll's such as those for ICQ or AIM tend to stay open much longer. With the tweak I notice they close down after a few mins. I can do this test for you. You are right in terms of how you want me to test, because I believe the tweak is more for Windows native applications than 3rd party, though I have noticed some dll's shutting down that didn't before. This is not a guaranteed tweak.. It might not do anything, but I just find it does. It's hard to explain. When I launch a game, I make sure that my process count is normal to begin with. That means, I CTRL ALT DEL before playing HL2, check if my process count is right and kill things such as MySQL and Apache for example. You think, I have gig of ram I wouldn't be so concerned, but I am fussy. I like max memory in safest way I can. Stubborn I guess. I will do this test for you.. not sure about tonite but I will do it. Again, I cannot certify it works, but I can't say it makes my system unstable either. I generally don't reboot unless I patch Windows or install ATI drivers or other drivers. That doesn't happen often as you know. Sometimes I go +1 month without reboot and system always stable and process count is stable.

Dec 15, 2004, 03:50 AM	#19
Sgt.Slug DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 136 Rep Power: 0	ya I will take a look for ya. not a problem. just spent an hour on another reply, little forum bummed out right now.

Dec 17, 2004, 04:15 AM	#20
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 71	Okay, Sgt.Slug. maybe you don't have time to help me do the test on your system, so i finished the test on mine. myself. i wanted to know if unload Dlls will help saving my system memory, and 'how much' does it actually saved ? i do NOT use any registry tweak to unload Dlls, but i doing it anyway with my own way and i think, it all unloaded almost instantly. here's some info for the pics below... - explorer.exe01.txt - when about 10 programs are loaded. - explorer.exe02.txt - the 10 programs are now closed. - explorer.exe03.txt - Dlls are unloaded/discharged. note-- i do not know if this test is actually the right way to test this, so i could be wrong.