Windows XP - Tweak Performance

• Apply the DirextX runtime installer after updating drivers

  Update the DirectX runtime after installing new drivers to prevent conflicts.

• Change processor quantums to tweak application priority

  Configure how the process scheduler should split up the processor slots.

• Configue IDE ATA hard disk to use DMA transfer

  How to configure Windows to use DMA for IDE ATA hard drives.

• Configure I/O requests for SCSI devices

  How to increase the allowed amount of concurrent I/O request for a disk controller.

• Configure performance counters in Windows NT

  How to activate performance counters for the different performance objects in Windows NT.

• Configure shortcut link tracking

  Control what should happen when a shortcut is detected as being broken.

• Configure the Master File Table for the NTFS partitions

  The Master File Table is the index for all files and directories placed on a ntfs partition and critical for ntfs performance.

• Configure the Recovery Log on stressed NTFS Volumes

  How to change the size of the NTFS transaction log to handle peak loads.

• Configure the WMI logging level

  How to configure the location of WMI logs and how verbose the logs should be.

• Configure the cluster size of the hard disk partition

  How to change the cluster size of a partition with description of the different filesystems and their limitations.

• Configure the file system cache in Windows NT

  How to configure memory size of the file cache for faster file operations.

• Configure the logical prefetcher for faster application start

  Microsoft Windows can speed up the launch of application by prefetching the data the application usually request at startup.

• Configure the memory usage of the NTFS file system

  How to increase the amount of memory the NTFS filesystem can use for file operations.

• Configure the page file for best performance

  Finding the the optimal size and location for the Windows swap file.

• Configure what fonts to load in memory

  Uninstall unneeded fonts to speed up boot times and free memory.

• Defrag hard disk partitions to speed up file operations

  List of steps to perform before starting a file defragmentation on a hard disk partition.

• Defragmentation utilities to remove file fragmentation

  Different utilities available to keep file fragmentation at a low level, and maintain good hard disk performance.

• Description of soft and hard page faults

  Description of how Windows optimizes the virtual memory to minimize the need for hard pagefaults.

• Description of the hard disk cache

  The hard disk performance is very dependent on the configuration of the disk cache.

• Description of the kernel memory area in Windows NT

  How the kernel memory area is divided into the different page pools.

• Diagnose performance issues with IDE ATA hard disk

  Description of different causes and solutions to hard disk performance problems.

• Disable creation of DOS compatible 8.3 filename

  Speed up the creation of new files by not creating a 8.3 filename for backward compatibility.

• Disable detection of non-existing IDE devices at every boot

  Faster boot times by not spending time on detecting non-existing IDE devices.

• Disable paging of drivers and kernel core

  Prevent the Windows kernel core from being paged to disk.

• Disable speech recognition to free resources

  Windows includes text services to handle speech and handwritting recognition that can cause conflicts with other applications.

• Disable the automatic updating of file access time

  Lower the disk activity by disabling the updating of when a file was last accessed.

• Disable the page file to avoid using the slow HDD

  Disabling the page file to prevent Windows from unloading memory to the hard disk.

• Disable visual effects to make the desktop faster

  Speed up the Windows experience by disabling unneeded visual effects.

• Manage temporary files to minimize file fragmentation

  How temporary files cause file fragmentation and different RAM disk options.

• Optimize processor power management

  Use power management to throttle the processor when idle, and get a cool CPU temperature.

• Specify base priority when launching programs

  Decide the CPU priority when starting an application.

• Update Windows to improve security and fix errors

  Description of how Microsoft Windows requires constant updating to get the best performance.

• Update hardware drivers and firmware to improve stability

  Description of how the drivers and firmware for the computer hardware should be updated to get the best performance.

• Use process affinity to lock application to a single core

  Applications optimized to run on single CPU systems, will perform worse on multi CPU systems.

• Use several Explorer.exe processes to increase stability

  Prevent that all Windows Explorer instances crashes just because one gets a fatal error.