Windows XP cleanup/speedup guide for Beginners, Experts and DAW-users


Please note that most of the tips here apply equally well to Windows 2000 ("win2k"), and many also apply to other Microsoft operating systems such as Vista or Server 2008.
Also, there are few, if any, optimisations, in existance, for general XP which do not apply equally to DAWs (digital audio workstations), graphics workstations and other computers in specialised scenarios. I have listed a few specialised tips for audio workstation users at the bottom, but these are the minority.

Easy Stuff

  1. First of all, go into control panel/system/advanced/performance and set switch to 'adjust for best performance' (turns off a lot of stuff).
  2. If you don't have Service Pack 3 already installed, install it. Some people will, of course, disagree with me here- but as long as you've got the firewire fix installed it's much better - one hell of a lot more secure too - plus there are significant performance increases in some areas with SP3.
  3. Right-click each hard drive and turn off indexing for all files and folders (indexing saves inconsequential amounts of time when doing user searches for files, but overall slows system down). Note: you don't need to do this if you're also turning off the indexing service in the advanced section below.
  4. Backup old projects and data on CD/DVD/External hard drive and delete from HD. The less files you have, the less time the drive spends searching through the file system. And less clutter of course, so you can focus on what's new.
  5. If you're using Internet Explorer, change to Firefox or Opera (both are more secure, less-resource-heavy and faster).
  6. If you're using Outlook or Outlook Express, change to Thunderbird or Eudora (both are more secure, better spam-filtering).
  7. If you're using Windows Media Player, change to Winamp and/or Media Player Classic (faster, less bloat). Remove Windows Media Player, cause it steals associations periodically (follow my method or buy XPlite). The Windows Media Codecs themselves can in fact be installed separately, without installing WMP, via Windows Media Lite.
  8. If you're using Quicktime or Realplayer, uninstall, then replace with QuicktimeAlternative and/or RealAlternative (both are faster, with less bloat).
  9. If you're using an Anti-virus program of some kind, turn off any "Shield" options i.e aspects which scan a file before you can use it or before running a program. Unless you or your family are complete 'tards ie. downloading programs and running them without virus-scanning them first, all that these "Shield" programs do is slow down disk access and overall system performance.
  10. Turn off action sounds in 'control panel/sounds and audio devices' (less incidental CPU & ram use - oh, and no annoying sounds).
  11. Use Tweakui from microsoft to turn off any things which annoy you.
  12. Finally, remove/uninstall any software you don't want/need (control panel/"add/remove programs"), deleting directories where the app doesn't clean up after itself (fewer files means faster disk access and more space, plus cleaning up means less junk in the registry). If you have a lot of preinstalled software from, for example, HP or Dell, you might want to download and run the PC decrapifier, which will automatically uninstall all bloatware that got preinstalled with windows. Of course, you might want to keep some of that, so use your discretion.
  13. Then download Regclean, Free Windows Registry Repair and JV16 Power Tools (1.4, from oldversion.com). Run the registry cleaners on all of them (means less junk to seek through when the OS or program is looking for a given registry entry).

    Though I myself have never had problems with the registry cleaning programs listed here, it can sometimes be worth making a backup of your registry before you do any optimisation, just-in-case. A program for doing so easily and without hassle is the freeware app Erunt (by the same guy who makes the NTREGOPT program below).
  14. Use the Registry/Starting Programs portion of JV16 Power Tools to remove miscellaneous startup programs that you don't want (e.g MS Office or Quicktime "Quickstart" ram-hogger apps, designed to make the program appear to start faster, when actually all they do is load a portion of the program at boot-time).
  15. Download CCleaner Slim (also known as CrapCleaner) and run the cleanup wizards on that (both registry and file).
  16. Then download and run NTREGOPT - and reboot (defragments the registry, removing the 'dead spaces', saving time and ram).
  17. Scandisk all hard drives (tick the option 'automatically repair errors" when you do this - it may ask you to reboot).
  18. Defragment every drive - an easy way to do this is to download the freeware tool JKDefrag which uses the windows defragment system to defrag all drives without you having to lift a finger - and it also does a better job of it, too!
    (BTW JKDefrag is a necessity on systems using FAT32 drives, as the Windows Defragment tool will refuse to defrag large FAT32 partitions).

Slightly more advanced stuff

  1. Check out a windows services guide for your operating system and disable the ones you don't need (black viper's services guides are excellent references). In particular disable themes (16MB memory usage) and the indexing service.
  2. Turn on UDMA66 (Ultra DMA) support. By default in Win2k and WinXP UDMA66 support for PATA/IDE drives is turned off, limiting the speed to the lesser UDMA33 standard. I don't know why this is, and Microsoft does not explain why on their guide on how to turn it on, save to say that this is by design. I don't know what the setting is by default in Vista.
    MDGx's guide on how to turn it back on is the most accurate one (see further down his page). Please note that unless you're using ATA66 cables and both drives on any given channel are UDMA66-capable, this setting won't have any effect on your system.
  3. Virtual memory settings: Control panel/system/advanced - go to the virtual memory settings and set the pagefile to a fixed size approximately 1.5x the amount of RAM in your system (1536MB on a 1GB ram system) - a healthy size and one your system is unlikely to ever need, but it's worth having it that high just in case. This is simply a rule of thumb, if you want to be more specific about your exact virtual memory requirements, load up as many apps as you're likely to use at once, or your most ram-hoggin apps, then hit ctrl-alt-delete, go to the performance tab and check out PF (pagefile) usage on the left.

    Max and min pagefile sizes should - typically - be the same - this typically prevents pagefile fragmentation, unless your drive is already too fragmented to allow you to create a single, unfragmented file that size.
    Turning off pagefiles, even if you have a large amount of ram, is typically detrimental to your system's performance (more information: 1/3rd of the way down this page). Also, some apps won't run (eg. photoshop 6.*) without one.
    Putting the pagefile on a drive other than the drive that your system partition is on, is ideal (separate partitions on the same disk will not make a significant difference), as most of the time data is being transferred from the system drive and into the pagefile.
  4. Control panel/system/system restore and tick 'turn off system restore for all drives'- NOTE: don't do this if you don't have an alternate method for restoring your system drive in the event of a system crash/power surge/hard disk error (I recommend Savepartition - a freeware app for 'ghosting' (backing up) any partition into a file on a FAT32 drive).
  5. Make sure disk performance counters are disabled (a server feature that is useless on desktop machines) by going Start->run and typing "diskperf -n".
  6. If you have the money, download XPlite from www.98lite.net and remove IE, Windows Media Player, Outlook Express and anything else you don't need.
    If you don't, Nlite is an even better option (see "Misc stuff", below), but of course requires re-installation of the operating system, from scratch.
  7. Go through your directories and delete any miscellaneous files you've created and left lying around.

Networking stuff

  1. Go Control panel->Network Connections and right-click the specific network you want to alter, click properties. Click the network device "Configure" on the right. Go to the 'advanced' tab. Here you can edit and alter settings to do with your network adaptor. These are specific to your particular ethernet adaptor, so cannot be entirely generalised. However, generally some will reduce CPU load by using the adaptors own internal chipset (any 'offload' options), and some can drastically alter your network performance (jumbo frames, interrupt moderation rate, etc). Look up the various settings on the net and see whether the defaults are what they need to be, then alter accordingly.
  2. Download TCP/IP optimizer from SpeedGuide.net, run and set the settings to "Optimal" for each of your network adaptors. This will enable and change window's settings for that specific network connection, resulting in, in some cases, major increases in thoroughput and overall speed. I have found that changing the values to anything greater than the settings for 2500Kbps does not result in any speed increase - for my two gigabit networks.
  3. NOTE: TCP/IP connections may sometimes benefit from creating static IP's, in the case of internal networks rather than internet connection networks, however this is more of a trouble-shooting tip than an optimisation.

Misc Stuff

  1. I don't recommend defragmenting your drive (or doing registry cleans) more than once every three months. More often than that is certainly a waste of time in the vast, vast majority of cases. Personally I recommend defragmenting every six months to most users. Maybe if you're doing a lot of shifting around of files or reinstallation of operating systems etc etc then maybe you will get additional benefit from defragmenting every month or so, but this would be a special-case. Note: The NTFS file system is not as heavily affected by defragmentation as FAT32 file systems are.
  2. Processor scheduling: there are a lot of sites which will tell you to set this to background services for audio applications and other specialised activities - I can't say I recommend this at all, except on a per-user basis. If you find your particular program that you use most of the time performs better/more reliably then go for it - otherwise, leave it alone. I've seen no evidence of performance increase with it changed to background services for any activity.
  3. If you're installing XP from scratch I heartily recommend creating an Nlite'd version of your XP installation disc (you will need a running windows installation with Microsoft .NET 2 installed to run Nlite, as well as your Windows XP disc and the "Network" (full) Installation version of Windows XP service pack 3).
    Firstly, this enables you to configure everything the way you like it in the base install without having to do it in a gazillion different locations within windows later on. Secondly you can strip all the irrelevant stuff you don't use out safely.
    And thirdly you can integrate (slipstream) service pack 3 into the installation so that you're not stuck with lots of redundant dlls on your HD later on.
    Example: my current (non-nlite) XP installation is 1.3GB for just the windows folder, with SP3 installed and all service pack uninstallation directories removed. However, my nlite'd xp install with service pack 3 integrated creates only a 512MB windows folder, total.
    So there's a considerable difference right there.
    There are more pages on the web than I can count on how to optimise an Nlite installation, so just use google it if you're worried. The version of nLite for Vista is called 'vLite'.

Drive and Partitioning Stuff (for experts)

About WINXP file systems:

About drive controllers, disk access and partitions

Using this information, make up your own mind about which file system(s) you feel you should use for each drive, and format/repartition according (warning for neophytes: formatting deletes all data on a drive - don't do it unless you know exactly what you're doing). You can essentially have as many partitions per drive as you want, but four or fewer primary partitions is ideal from a data recovery point-of-view (in case of accidents).

Partitioning tips:

  1. Make your system partition small (6GB is typically enough) and have it at the start of your fastest drive (e.g a 10krpm drive is good). Only use it to store your operating system and programs. Move your 'My documents' and other 'special folders' to another drive using Tweakui from Microsoft (My computer tree/special folders).
  2. Put your least-used data (e.g program installers, backups) on partitions at the end of drives. This ensures that the faster data areas get used by the more frequently-used data.
  3. Change your system partition to 64kb clusters NTFS, and your data partitions as 32kb clusters (FAT32 or NTFS). From my tests I can say this improved performance - on my system at least. If you can't repartition your drives, a more expensive partitioning app such as Partition Magic can change the cluster sizes without deleting the partitions.
  4. If you can, make a partition dedicated solely to the windows pagefile (virtual memory file) at the beginning of a disk which isn't the same disk that the system partition is stored on. It doesn't need to be any larger than the pagefile itself.
    Format it as FAT32 with 4kb cluster size - it doesn't need the extra security of NTFS, needs all the speed it can get, and 4kb is the default windows memory page size, which makes writes a little more efficient.
  5. I generally don't recommend multi-booting to different installs of XP/Vista for different tasks - the performance difference is nil if you've set up your installation correctly, but the overhead of rebooting every time you want to do something different is huge, and a big time-waste. Not to mention losing twice as much space as well as having to build and maintain two separate installations. You're better off with one customised installation which works well as a whole, than two or more customised installs.
  6. Good free partitioning software comes and goes (typically the really good stuff becomes payware, e.g BootIt NG), so just google to find current partitioning freeware.

Digital Audio Workstation-specific Stuff

  1. If you're getting problems with audio glitching, latency & dropouts, try this: edit c:\boot.ini (NOTE: this file is system & hidden, so you'll need to turn off 'hide system files' in explorer/tools/folder options/view to see it, and you may need to edit it's attributes (right-click files & click "properties") to make it non-readonly & editable) - change the '/NoExecute=..." entry to just '/execute'. This turns off data execution prevention (which can cause problems/performance-issues with some drivers/firewire)- doing this from the control panel in windows (control panel/system/advanced/data execution prevention) doesn't work.
    WARNING: If you screw up or delete the boot.ini file, XP WILL NOT BOOT.
  2. If using firewire, revert to the original sp1 firewire drivers to re-enable proper firewire behaviour, or install the Microsoft hotfix (not recommended) - firewire support was intentionally crippled in sp2/sp3 by Microsoft (who have huge financial stakes in competing standard, USB).
  3. Download & use PCI latency tool (freeware app) to change any high existing values (ie. larger than 64) to 32 - except for video, which can be set to 64 (pci latency settings for AGP are typically set unusually high for consumer video cards, which can cause audio problems/glitchs in some systems)- (NOTE: this can sometimes reduce performance in graphics-related applications such as games and visualisation-generators - but this is dependent on the game/visualiser in question).
  4. If you work with a lot of VST plugins, and have the time and the money and an extra machine(s) you're not using (or using intermittently), the FX-teleport plugin from FX Max can save a lot of CPU and work time.
  5. Consider having a small partition near the beginning of a disc for plugins (2GB or smaller, FAT/FAT16, 32k-cluster sizes best), as well as a separate partition (NTFS, 32kb cluster size) specifically for samples (note: keep audio projects and project audio files on a separate disk from your sample partition if possible, as this will create faster access if a project is using a sampler and normal audio at the same time).
  6. Having a system which doesn't connect to the internet does not make your system even slightly faster for DAW work - that much is a myth. The small amount of files which make up an internet browser's cache do not impact significantly on system performance. Not being connected to the internet does mean you can remove virus programs and firewalls, however if you read my notes on virus programs above, you'll find that the only aspects of these programs which harm system performance are the "Shield" aspects, which in most cases can be turned off with no risk to your computer unless you are a complete moron and download programs without scanning them (or if you use insecure programs like Microsoft's Outlook and Internet Explorer).
  7. If you're running Tracktion, I have a separate page for getting performance out of it here.

Hardware Stuff

  1. A system optimised using all the directives above will not require more than 512MB of RAM to run well, and will not benefit from more than 1GB of RAM unless you have specific applications or plugins (eg. samplers, computer games) which require or benefit from more ram.
    Regardless of how much ram you have, the above directives (particularly disabling specific services) will free up more of your existing memory.
  2. More than 3GB of ram on a 32-bit system is often a partial waste of money. Please read my extensive guide to Operating systems, the 3GB memory barrier and the various OS memory limitations here for more details. Also, many 32-bit applications are not, by default, able to access more than 2GB of memory (virtual or physical). This can, however be addressed by using the freeware laatido tool to patch executables and dlls to be large-address-aware (access more than 2gb of memory).
  3. Contrary to what many musicians seem to think, no one motherboard manufacturer is necessarily better than the other. It comes more down to the class of board you buy - Asus, Gigabyte and most of the others have entry-level boards, middle-range boards and server-class boards, as well as a range of other types. Not only that, but entry-level boards are not necessarily worse, slower or less stable than server-class boards (though typically they will be). It pays to know your specifications well and to know what you're looking for in terms of features, what the best chipsets are and so on and suchforth. Motherboard "roundup" reviews can be helpful for initial selection.
  4. 10krpm hard drives are of course great, but many 7200rpm drives come close in terms of overall rate-of-transfer performance nowadays, if not in terms of actual seek times. Look up recent drive roundups on google to see what's best recently.
  5. Your power supply (PSU) is important. More important than you think. A cheap one is fine for household machines, but not for power-hungry daw or gaming setups. Most cheap power supplies fail at even 80% total loading e.g See this video (yeah, it's corsair, a PSU manufacturer - but other people have done similar tests with the same results).
    The guide here will tell you how much power you need for your system, but ultimately it's the brand and quality of the PSU that's more important than the power rating. A good 400w Acbel, Corsair or Thermaltake (for example) PSU is going to be far better than a 500w no-name brand, hands-down, when it comes to system stability and actual power delivery.

Additional Information




All advice given without guarantee - use your brain - if anything dies/fries/stops/explodes, see a doctor (but don't talk to me).
Having said that, my contact email can be found here. If you think I've got something wrong you're welcome to tell me-
M@


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