You are here > Home > Windows > Windows XP Optimization

Optimizing Windows XP

Software Updates

    On the official release of Windows XP, Microsoft released a number of patches to the Operating System at Windows Update. Check back regularly for any future updates.

Virtual Memory

    In the hardware department, ensure that you have 256MB of RAM. Only now will that excessive disc swapping be minimized. No page file tweak can come close to adding more RAM. Windows XP allows the page file to be split over multiple partitions on multiple hard drives. If you have one hard drive, place the page file on the first partition of the drive. This is where the drive is fastest at data transfer. Do not try to disable the pagefile nor set it to a very small value. This will increase the usage on the pagefile. Remember to adjust your settings when RAM is added or performance may actually drop with more RAM.

Recommended minimum page file size is 300MB or RAM + 64MB, whichever is larger.

    Should you have two hard drives, the best course of action is to create a split page file. On your bootable hard drive, create a 300MB or RAM + 32MB page file on your boot partition, that is the partition with boot.ini and ntldr. On the second hard drive, create a page file that is 1.5 times the size of your RAM. Set the maximum to disc space available. Place this page file on the first partition of the drive, as it is the fastest. The reason for including the page file on the boot partition is that should a crash occur, Windows XP creates a memory dump file which is stored in the swap file on the boot partition. This feature can be disabled, but is a needed option for diagnosing system errors.

To configure the page file, go to Control Panel>System>Advanced> Performance Settings>Advanced>Virtual Memory and click Change.

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.

Folder Options

View tab - Show all files

    Select "Show hidden files and folders"
    Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"
    Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files"
    Uncheck "Show pop-up descriptions for folder and desktop items"

View tab - Check "Launch folder windows in a new process"

Mouse

Pointers tab - uncheck "Enable Pointer Shadow".

The only video card that supports a pointer shadow in hardware is the ATI Radeon. I am currently unsure if the GeForce 3 supports this feature.

Phone and Modem Options

Modems tab - Select your modem and select properties

    Modem tab - For "Maximum Port speed", select the highest available.

    Advanced tab - Advanced Port Settings - Select "Use FIFO buffers". Set buffers to maximum.

Network Connections > Dialup Modem Connection.

    Right click on your dialup connection and select properties.

    General tab

    Options tab - Select "Redial if line dropped"

    Advanced tab - Enable the Internet Connection Firewall

Power Options

Hibernate tab - check "Enable hibernation"

Hibernate is useful for quick booting or if you regularly power up and power down your system.
The contents of RAM is stored to a file on the hard drive for quick resumption, so this will only work if you have free space on your C:\ drive equal to the amount of RAM in your system.

APM tab - check "Enable Advanced Power management support"

APM reduces power usage and will automatically power down your system when shut down.

Sounds and Audio Devices

Sounds tab - select "No Sounds" as the sound scheme.

Sounds have to be loaded from the hard drive, thus reducing hard drive performance and occupying CPU cycles.

System

Automatic Updates tab - I recommending disabling this as I like to know what is going on in my system.

Hardware tab - Select "Device manager". Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers"

    Select properties for each channel and move to the Advanced Settings tab

        For "Transfer Mode" select "DMA if available"

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.

System Restore tab - Another feature which I disable. The choice is yours.

Remote tab - Security breach waiting to happen. Disable this unless absolutely needed.

Advanced tab - Performance Settings -

    Visual Effects tab - Select "Adjust for best performance"

GeForce 3 users have been given hardware acceleration of some of the XP eye candy with the Detonator 4 drivers. Despite this, I still prefer no special effects.

Registry Tweaks

Memory Management

Browse over to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

SecondLevelDataCache - Default is 0. Set to the amount of L2 cache on your processor. Windows XP should auto detect this correctly, but it pays to be exact.

DisablePagingExecutive - Default is 0. This setting determines whether the NT core files are paged to the hard drive. Set to 1 for a slightly speedier Windows XP. This setting will reduce performance on RAM limited systems. As such a tweak for 128MB+

Enable UDMA66. This has to be done through manipulation of a DWORD value. Go to

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10319}\0000

Create a new DWORD named EnableUDMA66. Set to 1 to enable. Set to 0 to disable.

Disable CD autorun. This setting will disable autorun on all CDROM/DVDROMs. Go to 

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom

Set the AutoRun value to 0 to disable autorun. Set to 1 to enable autorun.

Text File Editing Tweaks

Increase the number of components available in "Windows Components" in "Add/Remove Programs" in Control Panel. Edit the sysoc.inf file contained in %System root%\Inf, usually C:\Windows\inf. Remove all traces of the word "Hide".

Viewing the non frames page? Start from the front page.

View Page Stats See who's visiting this page.