**Baddass' Guide to Windows Performance, Optimization, Security and Tweaking**

I know this thread is old, but as XP is still here try this one....

If you do not have all your ide slots full (master and slave on both primary and secondary ide's) and your windows boot up takes longer than 30 secs, the problem is probably auto-detection.

If you go into device manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > Primary IDE controller > Right click and select properties > Advanced Settings > and set device type on either device which is not greyed out from auto detection to none. Do the same for the secondary controller and your boot times will drop.

As i only have one device on each channel i see my boot times drop from 3mins to 30secs. Windows spent 2 1/2 mins doing nothing checking for new drives. This does not stop windows finding them as they are recognised by the bios and subsequebntly windows anyway.
 
For FF 1.5, to switch off the memory leak "feature"

Enter about:config in the address bar

Find preference name browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers

This defaults to -1, which automatically assigns a number of cached pages according to system memory.

What it seems less able to do is to free up virtual memory once a tab is closed (for example, if you are looking at a very image intensive page).

Set it to 0 to disable this altogether.

For a fuller explanation, read here.
 
VOPT XP 7.22 won't reset

Recently I built a new small form factor computer (ASUS T2-AH1) and installed a Samsung 250GB SATA hard drive.

XP Pro SP1, 1 GB RAM, Zone Alarm Pro.

I have been using VOPT since the 1980s, and installed the latest version (7.22) on the hard drive. Initially it performed as usual.

Using one of the optimising options (unfortunately, I cannot remember which one) the software reported "The system must be restarted to restore system settings".

However, when the system is restarted, nothing has changed.

I have removed and reinstalled the software in safe mode; and run "Chkdsk /f /r" as suggested elsewhere. Chkdsk reports no errors on the drive. However, VOPT still refuses to run.

I have enjoyed using VOPT for a number of years, but at the moment it is inoperable.

I have contacted Golden Bow a week ago with a report of the problem, but have heard nothing from them.

Suggestions gratefully appreciated.

Dr J M Evans
 
To complete this thread I began:

Having installed Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005, Vopt XP 7.22 now runs properly.

Vopt responded to an email (their webbased support did not) saying that in the circumstance I quoted, running Vopt in "safe mode" usually corrects the problem.

Kind regards,

John

Dr J M Evans
 
Just a quick note about the antiviruses. It seems that the praised MKS Vir is no longer at its prime. There was a disagreement between the company, and the company building up its database resulting in a split of the two (upon the end of contract). Now the database builders created their own program: ArcaVir (from what I know they're currently working on a 64 bit platform version) that currently seems to outperform MKS Vir. The whole situation is tad unclear though, as some supporters of MKS Vir moved to Arca Vir camp and each party seems to blame the other for MKS's lowered efficiency. As to myself: I'm currently using a 2006 version of Arca and am fairly happy with its built in features.
 
Nice!

Very Nice!

My Shuttle feels sweet as... a lot smoother...

The hard work that has gone into this thread is very much appreciated...

Thx Guys!
 
From http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm -

When all physical RAM in a computer is in use, Windows starts using the hard disk as if it were additional RAM. This is why we have a Pagefile (also called the swap file).


Doesnt that mean the page file size should be very low if not all physical RAM is used?

Because right now, my PF Usage is 689MB, but with 1.3Gb available physical memory.

Should i lower the pagefile sie so more physical RAM gets used? :confused:
 
Windows still uses a lot of pagefile space, it wont just only use it when the RAM is full. It's recommended to have pagefile as 1.5x your physical ram in most cases, but setting it at ~1GB should cover most people anyway.
 
If you have under 2Gb of memory, then 1.5x main memory is recommended (minimum of 1Gb PF though imo), but over that, and i just match the main memory.
For example, i have 2Gb of memory, with my PF on its own partition, and the beginning of a drive, set at 2Gb, with space to expand to 3Gb if i want it to.
:)
 
xp light

Hi i did a install a few days back, i used a extreme light version of xp pro it was only 135 mb and it was a lot faster than the full version i own, the only problem i had was when i tried to install my voyager 1055 usb adsl adapter, initially it did install but i could not enter the mac code as usuall, obviously some files were missing but i dont know which and when trying to go to add remove/add windows components it stated than another instance of this programme has allready started therefore i must wait for it to finish but it never finishes, also when tryin to install optional windows components off the cd i got the same scenario, does anyone know what files would be needed so i can get them on a slave drive and when i reinstall the light xp everything goes well?
 
When copying large ammounts of data or individual files between machines on a network, temporarily disable the "On Access" AVD functionality and half the time it takes to send and receive the files!
 
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