windows XP Tweaking

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Windows XP Tweaking—Startup and General Performance Tweaks

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Windows XP Tweaking—Startup and General Performance Tweaks By Ars Staff | Published 8 years ago

Introduction Editor's Note: Readers have raised enough doubts as to the effectiveness of some of the tweaks mentioned in this guide that we've asked the author to step in and clarify if possible in the discussion thread. Though none of the tweaks have been alleged to do any serious harm, for now we advise you to check the discussion thread before applying any of these until further notice. Windows XP is now the predominant consumer OS of both gamers and power users. Sure, many of us still dual-boot with Win9 x, because it is faster for many games, but the joy of a true 32-bit operating system with full consumer support is too much for many of us to remain loyal to NT 4 .0 or Windows 2000. Now that Windows XP has matured past its infancy and many (but by far not all) of the bugs have been shaken out of it, Ars Technica brings you the first in a series of tweak guides for this illustrious and yet somewhat finicky OS. This first guide aims to cover two main areas of contention: the boot process (sans the system services, which are an entire guide of their own) and a mishmash of general computing tweaks. The boot tweaks will be comprised of not only system settings, but also several under-utilized applications that can dramatically reduce load time. The general performance tweaks are simply various tweaks that do not quite fit in with the theme of this article, but still have a significant effect on system startup performance (because most any tweaks that one performs should have some kind of effect on the startup time of the system). Before we begin, several pieces of laundry need to be aired out. To begin with, if you have already tweaked the services on the computer in question, please return them to the default settings. One of the applications I am recommending requires that several systems be enabled that most power users frequently disable (e .g. , Task Scheduler). Once you have completed the tweaks mentioned in this guide, feel free to return said services back to your preferred settings, as they only need to be enabled for a short time. In addition , please run the disk defragmenter prior to and after applying these tweaks. We will be moving the MFT to the fastest part of the drive, defragmenting it, and resizing it so that (hopefully) it will remain contiguous forever after. Defragmenting prior to this process will allow the program to move the MFT more quickly, and defragmenting afterwards will clean up the mess that the fragmented and unoptimized MFT wreaked upon your system. No, a normal defrag does not do this, and no, a normal defrag will not undo the changes made by the boot optimizer. Also , Windows XP is something of a fair-weather friend. As I was researching this guide, I corrupted my registry no fewer than three times testing out various tweaks (which obviously did not make their way into this guide). However, as a precaution, please back up your system, or at least the registry, prior to undertaking the steps outlined in this guide. Neither Ars Technica, nor the author of this article, will be responsible for any damage you do to your computer by following the steps outlined herein. You have been warned.

Startup Windows Prefetcher [HKEY _LOCAL_ MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management \ PrefetchParameters] Under this key there is a setting called EnablePrefetcher, the default setting of which is 3 . Increasing this number to 5 gives the prefetcher system more system resources to prefetch application data for faster load times. Depending on the number of boot processes you run on your computer, you may get benefits from settings up to 9. However , I do not have any substantive research data on settings above 5 so I cannot verify the benefits of a higher setting. This setting also may effect the loading times of your most frequently launched applications. This setting will not take effect until after you reboot your system.

Master File Table Zone Reservation [HKEY _LOCAL_ MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ FileSystem] Under this key there is a setting called NtfsMftZoneReservation, the default setting of which is 1. The range of this value is from 1 to 4 . The default setting reserves one-eighth of the volume for the MFT. A setting of 2 reserves one-quarter of the volume for the MFT. A setting of 3 for NtfsMftZoneReservation reserves threeeighths of the volume for the MFT and setting it to 4 reserves half of the volume for the MFT. Most users will never exceed one-quarter of the volume. I recommend a setting of 2 for most users. This allows for a "moderate number of files" commensurate with the number of small files included in most computer games and applications . Reboot after applying this tweak . Source : Microsoft Technet

Optimize Boot Files [HKEY _LOCAL_ MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Dfrg \ BootOptimizeFunction] Under this key is a text value named Enable. A value of Y for this setting enables the boot files defragmenter. This setting defragments the boot files and may move the boot files to the beginning (fastest) part of the partition, but that last statement is unverified. Reboot after applying this tweak.

Optimizing Startup Programs [msconfig ]

file://localhost/C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/Desktop/Windows%20XP%20Tweaking%E2%80%94Startup%20and%...

3/28/2012 12:33:43 AM


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