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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.
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.”
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.)
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:
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.
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.
Comments are closed on this article
kenban
April 15, 2011 at 2:35am
I don't know why but it seems like shutting down time is getting longer and longer for me. Using XP. Larry, bladder infection symptoms
crazyiniraq
November 02, 2009 at 7:56pm
AJinMosul
How can Max PC refer to QoS reserving 20% of Bandwidth as an absurd legend when it was in their Special Edition Summer 2004 issue???This was the issue on Tips,Tricks and Hacks for Windows XP. On page 40 under the Broadband Tip you describe in detail how to hack the registry to change the setting from 20% to 0.In older editions of XP this change could be made but it could not be done in newer editions.I read your magazine quite regularly and dont recall seeing a correction or retraction on this but now you refer to it as an absurd legend.What Gives???
daddydave
October 21, 2009 at 4:05pm
The only time I clear temporary internet files is when a site isn't working. I'm always surprised by the number of people who think that forcing the browser to download the files from the internet is somehow going to speed things up.
tri8gman
October 21, 2009 at 8:37pm
Unless of course... ...you're the average person who never ever clears the cache, resulting in 49.999MB of space used out of the 50MB allotted (default size for Firefox, varies from browser to browser). I don't see how forcing the browser to figure out which of the over 9000 files is oldest really helps the situation typical for most... It's really a context tip, not universal.
But then again, we read Maximum PC: we better have better cycles of maintenance over most. :P
Ntldr
October 21, 2009 at 1:18pm
I like the article and it is helpful for the true ones, that being said, I do have a problem calling them registry hacks. It isn't a hack it is simply editing the registry and nothing more.
Scootiep
October 21, 2009 at 12:23pm
"Putting your paging file onto a second hard drive will increase performance" and then "While not recommended, you can even put the pagefile on an external USB drive..."
Can I ask why this isn't recommended? I was actually considering doing this with my 16 gig SDHC card on my laptop. Is it a device failure issue, or something more along the lines of "It's easy to forget and leaving it plugged in could result in the USB drive being snapped off by a careless bump." Which would be negated by the SD card because it's enclosed in the system.
To start press any key...ohh, where's the "Any" key. - Homer Simpson
aviaggio
October 21, 2009 at 1:12pm
Cause USB drives are VERY slow. And it could crash the system if the drive disconnects for any reason. USB just isn't that bulletproof.
Scootiep
October 22, 2009 at 4:41am
So really the SD card would work fine as far as staying connected and being out of the way but probably wouldn't be fast enough unless it was a speed class of 30 to 45? Or would that still be too slow? Sorry, not really up to date on the requirements of paging file writes.
To start press any key...ohh, where's the "Any" key. - Homer Simpson
reosoft
January 14, 2009 at 8:47am
I located the registry setting under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, not HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Desktop. Is this a misprint?
Reo
xterminator
December 26, 2008 at 12:55pm
If u disable the indexing service in ur c:\ properties, your hd will perform better.
JohnP
October 21, 2009 at 12:58pm
I was watching a streaming movie on Win7 when it started stuttering. Went to Task manager and sure enough, indexing was going on the hard drive. Went to C: properties and killed indexing. No more issues. I have never seen the benefit for indexing in the first place.
I rarely use search in explorer as I run Directory Opus 9 instead. If you do not know where a file is, you need to work on your housekeeping.
BrandonLive
January 02, 2009 at 3:02pm
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
Gigabyte
December 26, 2008 at 3:49am
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
big_montana
October 21, 2009 at 2:24pm
I think you misunderstood, as this tweak eliminates the Recent Documents/List folders entirely. Without the folders present you do not have to remember to MANUALLY clear the contents before logging off, as since they will not exist, nothing there will be nothing to worry about eliminating, or forget about clearing.
MRrelabled
December 25, 2008 at 1:55pm
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 !
MRrelabled
December 25, 2008 at 1:50pm
Disabling System Restore can improve performance, because it's crap it leave orphaned files and registry listings.
zoltan the gypsy
December 23, 2008 at 1:09pm
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.
mdude
October 21, 2009 at 5:25pm
I have vista 64 ultimate on a q6600 w/ 8 gigs of memory. With superfetch enabled, my computer is SOOOOO slow because every time I turn around superfetch is fetching something. I guess it's possible if I left it running for an hour to do it's thing, it might actually make it faster. But when I turn my computer on, or wake it up, I expect it to usable. And superfetch makes it unusable.
I've seen the same problem on a similar machine I built with 4 gigs of memory. It was bogging down because of superfetch. Once I turned the service off, it was like having a new machine.
I haven't used win7 enough to know if it's any better, but I'd be surprised if it was.
Thanatos-
December 18, 2008 at 11:48am
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.
reggiester
December 16, 2008 at 1:20pm
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"
neo1piv14
December 23, 2008 at 1:47pm
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.
magnetizer
December 15, 2008 at 10:00am
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.
JustEnough
December 15, 2008 at 9:43am
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.
Cache
December 14, 2008 at 8:40pm
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...
Falcon4
December 15, 2008 at 1:51am
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. :)
Falcon4
December 14, 2008 at 6:15am
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! ;)
Falcon4
December 14, 2008 at 6:12am
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. ;)
Falcon4
December 14, 2008 at 6:03am
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?
Muerte
October 21, 2009 at 1:38pm
If Windows doesn't need to use the pagefile it won't. so it doesn't slow anything down by being there. If it does need to pagefile something and you don't have it you will see the need for it.
My guess is that either you've been lucky thus far and have not taxed your ram with what you do.
mdude
October 21, 2009 at 5:30pm
We use XP at work. Not too long ago I noticed my machine (4 gigs of memory) was going slower than it used to. I had configured all our machines to have about 2 gig pagefile. I decreased mine to 500meg, and performance increased significantly. Only when running a VM with vista in it do I get close to using all of my physical memory, so I know the pagefile isn't needed.
I noticed the same thing with my vista 64 box at home (8 gigs of memory). I have the pagefile set to 512mb now and it's much more responsive.
I understand why pagefiles are necessary, but the logical conclusion that windows won't use it if it doesn't need it seems to be false.
Muerte
October 23, 2009 at 1:15pm
My guess is that your using more ram than you think. There is alays a bunch of services windows uses that take ram for programs that aren't necessarily doing anything but holding memory space, just in case.
Having too big of pagefile is also bad. That's why they give that calculation. The bigger it is the longer it takes to search for what it needs.
Why you would get better performance for eliminating your pagefile is beyond me. It just doesn't work that way.
iaTa
December 13, 2008 at 12:23am
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.
JohnP
December 13, 2008 at 9:56am
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.
Phated1
December 13, 2008 at 7:36am
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.
iaTa
December 16, 2008 at 5:54am
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.
Muerte
October 21, 2009 at 1:43pm
Okay, one more time. SSD's don't care if the data is sequential. The only reason defrag is important for HD's is because the needle physically has to move to the spot where the data is.
A SSD does not have this problem. The storage works just like RAM. Its indexed by memory location. You pop in the proper location and bang you have your data no matter where on the storage it is.
SSD is actually a misnomer since there is not a mechanical drive in the thing.
horzo
December 12, 2008 at 10:15am
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.
Muerte
October 21, 2009 at 1:48pm
Its saved my ass many times. But I sometimes engage in risky internet behavior. And do not relish the idea of reinstalling all my stuff, which is an even bigger drain on installation time.
The actual point of the tip was that their is no performance hit while running. It may take a little more time to install but who cares, that's one time thing. If your lucky.
As for the search? If your not using it does it really matter?
funkyp56
December 12, 2008 at 9:09am
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!!!!
willsmith
December 12, 2008 at 9:32pm
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.
soccer1105
December 12, 2008 at 8:03pm
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!!!!
DoctorX
December 12, 2008 at 7:46am
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.
JohnP
December 13, 2008 at 5:24pm
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?
ScottProdigy
December 12, 2008 at 6:59am
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!
