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Hack The Registry to Make Your System Shut Down More Quickly: TRUE
Use TweakUI To Set the Number Of Customized Folders In Explorer: TRUE
Disabling The Last-Access Timestamp Will Boost Performance: FALSE
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25 Most Popular Windows Tips: The Best Explained and Worst Debunked
Posted 12/25/08 at 01:00:00 PM | by Christopher Null
Since the dawn of Windows, power-user tipsters (us included) have proffered hundreds of suggestions with the promise of improving your PC’s performance or streamlining its operation. The tip-givers have the best of intentions, but do all of those tweaks, registry hacks, utilities, and “undocumented secrets” really make any difference? To our surprise, in a number of cases, it turns out that tips that sound great on the surface don’t actually do anything when you put the screws to them. And some of those complicated registry hacks are more easily done with tools like TweakUI, saving you a lot of hassle.
We put 25 of the most commonly published XP and Vista performance tips and registry hacks to the test. Do the speed tweaks yield dividends? We clocked performance with PCMark and timed boots and shutdowns repeatedly after making the changes suggested in the tips. In the end, we found that many tips were right on the money, but some were outright wrong or just a waste of time. Some tips fell into the gray area in between, offering some improvement but perhaps not enough to merit the trouble of the hack to begin with. On the following pages, we indicate the strength of each tip with a validity meter.
Read on for our results. You’ll never tweak the same way again!
XP Tips
Disabling XP’s Indexing Service Can Improve Performance:TRUE
You can almost ignore the question of whether XP’s Indexing Service slows down your computer. The fact is it doesn’t do much good anyway. Indexing is supposed to help Windows keep better tabs on files, but it does a terrible job of it and offers the user no options for configuring what gets indexed. It’s almost beside the point that it can slow your system—sometimes only a little and sometimes to an outright crawl. Even Microsoft acknowledges that the Indexing Service can cause hard drives to thrash and that it “uses lots of pagefile space and lots of CPU time”—in fact, Microsoft often recommends disabling it. Note, however, that Vista’s integrated search and indexing system is considerably improved.
There are several ways to turn off XP’s Indexing Service. The most thorough is to open the Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, then open Services. Scroll down to Indexing Service and double-click it. Change the Startup type to “Disabled.”
Change Your Default "View Source" Application With A Registry Hack: TRUE
Viewing web-page source files in Notepad is hardly a user-friendly experience. You can hack the registry to change which app opens source files, but using TweakUI is a better choice.
Load TweakUI (http://tinyurl.com/553fw6), browse to Internet Explorer > View Source. Click Change Program... and browse for whatever app you prefer. This only changes the setting for Internet Explorer; to change the View Source app for Firefox, type about:config in the address bar, scroll to view_source.editor.path, and change the setting by pasting in the full path to the application you want to use. (The Firefox tip works with XP and Vista, but you’ll have to tweak the registry if you want to do the same for IE under Vista.)
Hack The Registry to Make Your System Shut Down More Quickly: TRUE
When’s the last time you didn’t have an application hang on you during shutdown? XP waits a grueling 20 seconds by default before trying to kill services that are still running when you’re trying to get out of the office, but you can knock this down to as low as zero with a quintet of registry hacks.
Make the following changes in regedit:
- Under HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop, change the values for WaitToKillAppTimeout and HungAppTimeout to 1000 or 2000 (this is the wait time in milliseconds).
- Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, change the values for WaitToKillAppTimeout and HungAppTimeout to 1000 or 2000.
- Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control, change the value for WaitToKillAppTimeout to 1000 or 2000.
- Use the same value for all three settings.
Use TweakUI To Set the Number Of Customized Folders In Explorer: TRUE
Many users want photo folders to show up with thumbnails in Explorer and have, say, everything else default to the list-based detail view. But if you have a large number of folders, Windows won’t keep track of them all, and if you go over the default of 400, some will revert to the standard view. This can be tweaked in the registry but it’s easier with TweakUI: You can get Windows to remember up to a maximum of 65,527 customized folders with a simple change.
In TweakUI, scroll to Explorer > Customizations. Change the “Folders to remember” to whatever number you’d like.
Disabling The Last-Access Timestamp Will Boost Performance: FALSE
A total bust. Turning off the mechanism that stamps a date and time on a file every time you access it (via a command-prompt instruction) does nothing for performance whatsoever. It may actually have negative consequences: Some sources worry that turning off these timestamps can wreak havoc on programs that rely on them, like incremental backups. Skip this one altogether.
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Submitted by jihnn on Wed, 2009-04-01 07:24
hola
Minimize Menu Loading Delay Time
Submitted by reosoft on Wed, 2009-01-14 08:47
I located the registry setting under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, not HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Desktop. Is this a misprint?
Reo
Indexing Service
Submitted by xterminator on Fri, 2008-12-26 12:55
If u disable the indexing service in ur c:\ properties, your hd will perform better.
Submitted by BrandonLive on Fri, 2009-01-02 15:02
Do NOT alter that attribute. That will NOT help your system performance and will only cause you problems in the future. Do NOT mess with that file attribute, it exists for applications to mark temporary files.
If you don't want a drive or folder indexed, use the Indexing Options control panel. Of course, if you disable the Windows Search service then none of this matters anyway. But disabling that is a myth, it will only serve to make the Explorer slower.
If you want to learn more, read this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/10/13/windows-desktop-search.aspx
Eliminate the Recent Documents/Items Folder With a Registry Hack
Submitted by Gigabyte on Fri, 2008-12-26 03:49
You messed up bad on that one. We do not need the registry or TweakUI.
XP allows us to...
1) Slecet the Clear List button to clear recent documents.
2) Uncheck the "List my most recently opened documents" box to make the entire feature go away.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/clear-recent-documents-in-the-xp-start-menu/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307875
Submitted by MRrelabled on Thu, 2008-12-25 13:55
I think you should test a one size fits all of 1.5GB min. I did a tests years ago and could never never get the pagefile over 1.2GB. Test It !
Submitted by MRrelabled on Thu, 2008-12-25 13:50
Disabling System Restore can improve performance, because it's crap it leave orphaned files and registry listings.
Submitted by zoltan the gypsy on Tue, 2008-12-23 13:09
Interesting article. I have to differ on two topics: leaving superfetch and restore points enabled. Not on laptops, IMNSHO.
When running on batteries, the last thing I want is superfetch banging away on the disk, burning battery and slowing the machine down post boot.
When sprinting for the ferry, I want the laptop to shut down FAST. If it has just decided to set a restore point, it can take MINUTES. Not good.
Z.
Submitted by Thanatos- on Thu, 2008-12-18 11:48
See i came to the same conclusion on boot times by clearing the prefetch folder but by disabling it completely i definitely saw an performance increase on boot time. Don't know if i can post links so just google "Disable Prefetch" and it should give you what you need.
Now on alot of these id love to have the registry hacks instead of simply being told "Use TweakUI". Why not post both.
Submitted by reggiester on Tue, 2008-12-16 13:20
To remove the recently opened docs/files from the start menu. you dont need to tweak the registry. jusy right click the task bar then choose properties. select the star menu tab, then click the customize button, select the advanced tab, then uncheck "list my most recent opened docs"
Submitted by neo1piv14 on Tue, 2008-12-23 13:47
That will hide the recent documents menu, but if you go back in and make it show your recent documents, you'll see that it's still been keeping track. So for privacy reasons, use the reg hack, because if all someone has to do is make the menu show again to see what you've been doing, then you're SOL.
Submitted by magnetizer on Mon, 2008-12-15 10:00
File fragmentation does not affect SSDs much because SSD random reads are very fast. Where the SSD falters is in random write times, and this is exacerbated by *free space* fragmentation, not file fragmentation. I am not sure, but I suspect this has to do partly with split (wasted) I/O requests and with the time required to erase+write data in MLC SSDs. Even the Diskeeper guys say that frequent file fragmentation is not required for an SSD, and free space fragmentation is what is necessary
http://www.diskeeperblog.com/archives/2008/12/hyperfast_is_al.html#commentsAnother thing, in the article it was suggested (but not recommended) to put the paging file on a USB drive for 'performance gains'. That doesn't sound very logical...the bottleneck here will the USB bus speeds, which are lower than SATA bus speeds by an order of magnitude (480Mbps vs 1.5Gbps). So I doubt whether it will provide any benefit at all, and will most likely hamper performance.
I beat you to it I'm afraid
Submitted by iaTa on Tue, 2008-12-16 05:51
I beat you to it I'm afraid - look further down the comments :)
Submitted by JustEnough on Mon, 2008-12-15 09:43
SuperFetch is a feature of Vista and is not available in your XP installation. Check the article again carefully and you will see that SuperFetch is listed as a Vista Tip.
Superfetch?
Submitted by Cache on Sun, 2008-12-14 20:40
I checked in XP, and I don't seem to have superfetch listed at all. Am I missing something here, or does it need to be added/activated somehow?
I should note, this is a very clean install of XP...
It's called Prefetch in XP
Submitted by Falcon4 on Mon, 2008-12-15 01:51
If you notice, that tip was cleverly hidden under a "Vista tips" header.
But it's no matter; it's simply known by a less glittery name under Windows XP: "Prefetch", which serves the same purpose. It's also enabled by default. You don't need to do anything to enable it, however there is a registry tweak to disable it. I do those adjustments while building my Windows installations in nLite, so I don't know where to do it post-installation. Google is your friend there. :)
Submitted by Falcon4 on Sun, 2008-12-14 06:15
Okay, okay, one more and I'll shut up.
The best Vista performance tip, to get the most work and least headaches out of your computer?
It's called an XP disc, and perhaps nLite.
Sorry, I had to say it! ;)
Submitted by Falcon4 on Sun, 2008-12-14 06:12
One last comment, of course.
Be careful about telling people to turn off 8.3 filename support. For some ridiculous reason, Windows XP itself still refers to the Program Files folder as "PROGRA~1" (its 8.3 filename) in some areas of the registry. On a computer I sold to someone, where I did an experimental drive-splitting cooperative-RAID, I installed Windows, created an empty folder called "Program Fails", mapped the secondary drive to that folder (so it became a mounted drive), moved the contents of the Program Files folder to the drive, then deleted Program Files and renamed Program Fails to Program Files.
The system booted and worked fine, but later down the line mysterious quirks started coming up. Uninstallers wouldn't run (claiming missing DLLs from PROGRA~1, a detail I overlooked at the time - but the DLLs were there), Windows Installer kept wanting to reinstall programs when I tried to run them, program and file icons went missing, almost all tied to Windows Installer. I didn't understand the problem until I tried CD'ing to C:\PROGRA~1, and being told that there was no such folder - it was now called PROGRA~2 because of the similar name I originally gave it! I had to use a registry search-and-replace tool to locate all instances of PROGRA~1 and replace them with PROGRA~2... hundreds, maybe thousands of entries.
Moral of the story is, it may be defunct, but Windows APIs still rely on them for some god-forsaken reason. I wouldn't suggest doing it. If it's disabled, the 8.3 filename for new files becomes "blank", with no way for an 8.3 API to access the files. Not good for relieving a PC tech's headache. ;)
Submitted by Falcon4 on Sun, 2008-12-14 06:03
Okay, I've been a Maximum PC reader since the years when "1 GHZ!!" was all over the cover in huge caps. And I've been tweaking and building/repairing computers since MFM and RLL hard drives were relevant, and BIOSes actually used those numbered "drive type" settings.
And I've got two serious problems to complain about in this article. Three, if you count Vistaids.
First, the header (and therein, verdict) on "You Need To Overwrite Your Hard Drive Seven Times With Random Data To Make Data Unrecoverable: TRUE" doesn't even match the article text below it. The whole article text was summarizing that it's impossible to recover data after one pass of zeroes (which is true). So therefore, the myth that you'd have to overwrite it 7 times is actually FALSE.
My second and most serious gripe is an issue that truly should have come to light at least 2 years ago, and it involves page file "optimization". The only TRUE way to optimize a page file on modern Windows computers is to entirely _DISABLE_ it. Windows has been capable of running entirely devoid of a page file holding the system back, since XP SP2 was released. Unfortunately, many people on the internet seem to disagree, primarily due to the lack of media attention this tweak has received.
The fact of the matter is, Windows' memory management model is to "conserve" physical memory by moving data off to the page file - or, as I believe it's actually implemented, to write pages to the page file and purge them from memory to make room for additional disk cache. That was all well and good back in 1990. Now, computers have 2, 4GB of memory, and people still blindly and ignorantly allow Windows to allocate 1.5x (which is the actual value for Windows' page file calculation by default) of physical memory to the page file - so if you have 4gb RAM (effectively about 3.5gb and a potential for crashing, if you're in a 32-bit OS), you end up with a 4gb page file, limited only because Windows can't allocate any more! The irony is, if you have a 32-bit OS, 4gb RAM, and a page file, Windows won't even be capable of utilizing the page file in any shape or form (other than slowing down the system) due to the 32-bit processor's inability to address more than 4gb of virtual memory (where virtual memory is defined as any addressable memory space) within a 32-bit system. So a page file is entirely worthless - it just slows the system down. Even if it does not slow the system down, the only purpose it serves is a potential for slowdowns by the potenial for Windows to swap pages out to disk. That is all.
So I just wanted to bring this issue to light before this false "optimize the page file" tweak gets spread any further in this day and age. The only true way to optimize a page file on a modern Windows PC is to disable it entirely. I would know; I've been running my main PC without a page file for almost 4 years. Why would I suggest something that hasn't worked for me?
Submitted by iaTa on Sat, 2008-12-13 00:23
Sorry guys but you are wrong on the SSD and defrag front. It actually does help an SSD to defrag the drive as it enables more writes to be sequential rather than random which increases performance. You can't just use any old defrag however. Have a read of this:
http://www.diskeeper.com/hyperfast/index.asp
This isn't spam by the way. I am a member on OCZ forums and we are constantly looing for new ways to improve the speed of SSDs.
Submitted by JohnP on Sat, 2008-12-13 09:56
Disk defrag programs have been around since the dawn of hard drives. They actually made a difference IN THE BEGINNING. I have seen NO PROOF (except for defrag program sellers "facts") that they make much difference if at all these days. And I have had defrag programs cause PROBLEMS with my drive since XP came out.
Just say no to defrag.
Submitted by Phated1 on Sat, 2008-12-13 07:36
Do you have any actual evidence that this product works to improve speeds? All I see is an advertisement by the company for the product, which holds no weight as any company is going to try to make their product sound amazing. And MaxPCs statements are true to the fact that the reason defragging works on a HDD is because there are moving parts. If the head has to move all over the platter to get one file, it slows performance. In an SSD where there is no head moving around retrieving the data in theory defragging would do nothing but cause unnecessary read/writes. So show us some third-party benchmarks using this software, and then we will see.
Submitted by iaTa on Tue, 2008-12-16 05:54
It works because it frees up clear blocks of space on the SSD for sequential writes. Nothing to do with reads. Benchmarks here if you don't beleive me:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=320622&postcount=19
I would assume the resuts would be even more apparent if the SSD had more data on it.
I'm currently in the process of testing Hyperfast and will post my results soon on OCZ forums.
Should...
Submitted by horzo on Fri, 2008-12-12 10:15
have added turning off Windows Search in Vista. It generates a ton of disk activity, and isn't useful enough to be worthwhile.
Personally, I also turn off system restore. Max PC may consider the extra disk activity, drive space usage, and general overhead inconsequential, but I'd have to politely disagree. It adds extra time to any software installation, and to me is essentially useless. I can't remember the last time a driver install actually borked my system, but If by some small chance such a thing actually hapens, I'll just reinstall.
The few small files that I really can't lose, I back up to an external drive.
RSS FEED
Submitted by funkyp56 on Fri, 2008-12-12 09:09
I THINK ITS COMPLETE BS THAT YOUR SITE TIMESTAMPS THE FEED TO BE IN THE FUTURE THEREFORE STAYING AT THE TOP OF MY SCREEN.
FIX IT!!!!
Actually, we don't do it to
Submitted by willsmith on Fri, 2008-12-12 21:32
Actually, we don't do it to make you angry. We do it because we don't have a way to sticky stories at the top of the page without doing it. Sorry for the hassle. It's one of the features I've asked for ages ago, but it's been pretty low priority.
Submitted by soccer1105 on Fri, 2008-12-12 20:03
I USE CAPS LOCK ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I'M CONSTANTLY YELLING, HAVE POOR SOCIAL SKILLS, AND DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS MY IDEAS IN AN INTELLIGENT WAY!
I AM A NEWB TO THE INTERNET, AND STILL THINK THIS IS EFFECTIVE!!!!
Submitted by DoctorX on Fri, 2008-12-12 07:46
man...i dont know which defrag program you are using..but if you found no improvement ... then you are using the wrong one. I use jkdefrag... it is free and open source. Runs on all windows from 2000-vista64. And I notice 40-50% improvement in boot up times and loading the desktop. Fallout 3 was cut down almost in half after running jkdefrag. Sorry... try again.
BTW... i have a 300GB C drive and my other drives have well over 5 million files.
Submitted by JohnP on Sat, 2008-12-13 17:24
If you are EXPECTING faster speed after a defrag, you will ALWAYS find that it is indeed faster! Observation and opinion is NEVER PROOF! Where is your scientific self respect?
Submitted by ScottProdigy on Fri, 2008-12-12 06:59
Today’s hard drives are fast enough to make fragmentation largely
irrelevant, and our benchmark tests have repeatedly borne this out: On
moderately fragmented drives, defragmentation will offer negligible to
no performance increase. For seriously fragmented drives (think 40
percent or more), especially those running XP or older OSes,
defragmentation can help, but don’t expect the world.Well, that's not exactly true, and goes hand in hand with clearing temp files. Some users at my company have NEVER had a disk cleanup run on their system, and combined with software installs, and windows updates/service packs, the fragmentation on the machine is crazy. After wiping thousands of temp files that could equate to several gigabytes, a defrag is certainly necessary and will help an ailing system perform like new again.
As for 3rd party defrag apps, Diskeeper is much better than the Windows variety. It will allow an automatic defrag in the background when the system is idle, or have it run on a schedule (similiar to antivirus apps) so your system's performance is in "set it and forget it" mode. It can also defrag the page file while booting up, something that can't typically be touched within Windows (you'd have to shut off the page file to completely defrag the system.) Combine Diskeeper with the free Process Explorer, and you can crank the process for the defrag to a "realtime" priority, thus further speeding up the process.
Though it lacks many of the advanced features of Diskeeper, the freeware IObit Smart Defrag is a decent alternative as well. Keep in mind, all of these apps run on Vista and show some form of progress window, which even Windows ME has a leg up on Vista in that category!
Submitted by murixbob on Fri, 2008-12-12 06:37
If you already have 1GB+ of RAM. It will kill performance. I used my psp in usb mode for readyboost and it slowed my computer to a crawl until I disabled it.
huh?
Submitted by Gailim on Thu, 2008-12-11 23:58
ok its late so maybe I'm just tired but the article says this:
Defragmenting SSD Drives Is Useless: FALSE
yet the article suggests that it is indeed useless
or have i just read it wrong?
Submitted by r1davis74 on Wed, 2008-12-31 11:14
I just watched a video from Disk Keeper's website and the Product Manager for the company just stated that SSD drives do need to be defragmented. I fully understand what the free space issue is and how they write randoms but does anyone have any information from the manufacturers to state whether or not to actually do this?
Is this topic the next great debate?? :)
Submitted by StaggeredSix on Fri, 2008-12-12 11:50
Defrag SSD = BAD. SSD is made up of the same thing your nifty USB drive is. If you want an SSD, dont defrag it a lot. They can only write/read so many times before they pooch. Defragging it is probably the worst thing to do, only do it if it's really fragmented... and even then try to only defrag certain files.
Crack addict by night, IT Manager by day.
Maybe it was already fixed in an edit, but
Submitted by uncleck on Fri, 2008-12-12 00:17
I read that as "Defragmenting SSD Drives is UseFUL (not UseLESS): FALSE". Seems to make sense to me.
Submitted by Gailim on Fri, 2008-12-12 12:52
they changed it to usefull
i copy pasted that line so i know i didnt get it wrong
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