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Optimizing Windows 98/Me

Software Updates

    There are a number of updates that are required to keep Windows 9x running smoothly. Start by installing the latest versions of internet explorer, DirectX  and Windows Media Player. Now download all patches that are available from Windows Update.

    In the hardware department, ensure that you have 128MB of RAM. Only now will that excessive disc swapping be minimized. No page file tweak can come close to adding more RAM. In these days of ridiculously low RAM prices, 512MB will work wonders. Configuring the swap file depends on the number and speed of your hard drives. While I will not cover all possible variables, the following should give you enough information to make the best decisions. Firstly, how large should the swap file be? This is a controversial issue. Many sites recommend 2.5 times the size of RAM, but this is an old notion from the days of Windows 3.1 when 4MB of RAM was a high end system. I believe in a swap file of 200MB minimum regardless of RAM. This gives sufficient virtual memory for your applications. A better estimate for the size of you swap file is to load the programs that you use every day, all at once. Determine the size of your swap file (C:\Windows\win386.swp). Double the figure and use this as your minimum swap file size. Location of your swap file depends on your hard drive configuration. It should be located at the front of the first partition on the least used hard drive. For single hard drive users or identical/similar speed drives, this is easy. If you have multiple hard drives with differing speeds, only benchmarks will determine your best configuration - OS on the fast primary drive, swap file on slow secondary or both OS and swap file on the fast primary drive. I recommend Norton Speedisk to move the swap file to the front of the partition. Also a defragmented swap file will have less hard drive activity as the computer searches for information.

Configuring swap.

Goto Control Panel>System>Performance>Virtual Memory

Select "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings" and adjust the setting as described above.

See below for two system.ini settings that I highly recommended.

SYSTEM.INI tweaks

Under [386enh] add the following line

ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1

Window 9x will now use all available RAM before using the swap file. Since RAM is significantly faster than current hard drives, this will improve performance.

Under [vcache] add the following lines

MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=0

The vcache parameter controls the caching of hard drive data in RAM. Using the above settings will stop hard drive data from being cached in RAM. The benefits are two fold. Firstly, more RAM will be free for use by the OS and programs installed. Secondly, programs with memory leaks will not consume RAM as the vcache is now set to zero. This setting will increase speed and stability. It will extend the usable uptime by about 12 hours.

MSDOS.SYS tweaks

Under Options, add the following line

Logo=0

This prevents the Windows boot logo from being shown. As a result your computer will boot slightly faster.

For more information about MSDOS.SYS, check out KB article Q118579

CONFIG.SYS

Preferably, there should be no items in this file. Some OEM systems will come with Real Time drivers (16 bit DOS drivers) for the CD/DVD ROMs and possibly hard drives. These are usually unnecessary and detrimental to performance. Windows will load drivers for these items, so DOS drivers are redundant.

Delete non-present devices from Device manager.

Obtain the drivers for all hardware in your system. Save them to a location on your hard drive for upcoming use and convenience. After installing all of the latest drivers, reboot into safe mode. In device manager, look for multiple entries of the same hardware and hardware that is not present. Remove these entries. Reboot. You may be prompted to reinstall some drivers. Clearing the device manager will have your system a tad bit more stable and faster.

Registry Optimization.

Windows 98 and Me have a registry backup program known as scanreg (for DOS) or scanregw (for Windows). Scanregw runs after each bootup and will create a compressed archive of startup file such as system.dat, user.dat, win.ini and system.ini. By booting into DOS and running scanreg, a manual backup may be created, or a backup restored. A noteworthy switch is /FIX

scanreg /FIX will remove damaged portions of the registry, and rebuild it while removing unused space. A smaller registry will load faster and have your system more responsive. Norton Utilities comes with a similar registry optimization tool, but scanreg does a better job.

For more information on scanreg, check out KB article Q184023

Control Panel Settings

The logic behind some of these tweaks is that these features require CPU utilization and hard drive accesses, both of which will reduce performance when encoding those MPEG4 movies.

Display

Effects tab -

    Uncheck "Animate windows, menus and lists"
    Uncheck "Show window content while dragging"

Web tab -

    Uncheck "View my active desktop as a webpage".

Modems

In the general tab, select your modem and select "properties".

General tab - Set "Maximum speed" to highest available.

Connection tab -

    Port Settings - Check "FIFO Buffers". Set transmit and receive buffers to maximum.

    Advanced -

        Check "Use Error Control"
        Check "Compress Data" (If you do internet gaming, do not use this setting. It will increase ping times)
Check "Use flow control". Select the hardware option.

Sounds

Select "No Sounds" in schemes.
Sounds have to be loaded from the hard drive and will utilize CPU cycles.

System

Device Manager tab -

Enable DMA for IDE devices. (People with VIA chipsets should ensure you have the VIA 4 in 1 drivers installed. Other non-INTEL users should also check for updated chipset drivers.)

    Expand  CDROM and Disc Drive.
    In the properties for each device, select Settings and check the DMA setting.

DMA, Direct Memory Access allows IDE devices to read and write directly to and from RAM, bypassing the CPU. CPU usage is significantly reduced as compared to PIO, Programmed Input Output mode. DMA also has the added advantage of increasing the data transfer rate of the IDE device.

Performance tab - 

    File System -

        Hard drive -

            select "Network Server" This increases the size of the Name and Path caches.
            Read-ahead Optimization - Set slider to "Full"

        Floppy Disk tab -

            Uncheck "Search for new floppy disk drive each time your computer starts"

        CDROM tab -

            Supplemental cache size - Largest
            Optimize access pattern for - Highest setting

Other Settings

Folder Options -

Start>Settings>Folder options

General tab -
    Select "Classic Style" or "Custom" if you wish to change the classic settings.
    I use single mouse clicks.

Advanced users may want to show all files.

View tab
    Click "Show all files"
    Uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types"

Move the Temp folder

To move the temp folder to the E drive, for example, Create a folder named TEMP in E:\ Add the following lines to the autoexec.bat file

SET TEMP=E:\TEMP
SET TMP=E:\TEMP

Move the Temporary Internet Files to E:\TEMP 

Go to Control Panel>Internet Options>General. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click on Settings>Move Folder Select E:\TEMP and restart as necessary.

Move My Documents

Then right click on My Documents on the desktop and Change the target to whatever you want. Remember to move our files.

Move the Outlook Express

Open Outlook Express. Goto Tools>Options>Maintenance>Store folder
Note the current location. Change the location to what you desire.
Copy the contents of the old location to the new location.

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