How to - Windows Fast Edition

ChrisGTL

ChrisGTL

ChrisGTL

Associate
Joined
22 Jul 2010
Posts
548
Location
Huddersfield, W. Yorskhire
Just wondering what people to their Windows installation to make it as quick as possible?

Here is a list of what I do - but is there anything else I'm missing?


Install Win7 64 to C: (in my case Vertex 3 SSD)
Latest Drivers for all hardware
Disable hibernation and delete hiberfil.sys
Disable Windows Defender
Uninstall Indexing Service from Windows features options
Disable Firewall (I'm happy with my NAT router security)
Install Win7 crucial updates
Use msconfig to disable non-crucial startup items
Disable system restore point and delete any previous backups
Disable Remote Assistance
Disable DHCP and DNS Clients in Services (I have static IP's)
Disable IPv6
Disable Action Centre
Disable Balloon Tips (urg)
Run ccleaner to remove temp files (but not the registry cleaner)
Defrag any non SSD drives
Don't install any Anti-Virus

I also have a Corsair 16GB USB3.0 stick and NEC USB3.0 ports - could I use this to my advantage for anything?


What does everyone else do to make sure Windows stays punchy? Apart from use Linux before anyone says it...lol
 
Going by your specs in your sig most of those things will make a negligible improvement + you've stoked the fire with the 'No AV' and 'No FW'

And as with anything its a pro/con thing. For example I quite like indexing service on my data drives as I like the Windows search feature.

E: Also if you hate temp files that much why not write a script that deletes temp files and set it to run on shutdown. That's what I used to do in my XP days.
 
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"No AV and No FW" is hardly stoking any fire.

AV software today has been rendered so fundamentally useless that it is utterly amazing that people still spend real money on it.
 
I think that the vast majority of these 'tweaks' for speeding up Windows are completely unnecessary unless you have very slow hardware. Half of them make no perceptible difference and the other half make a small speed difference at great usability cost.

ChrisGTL said:
Uninstall Indexing Service from Windows features options
Disable Remote Assistance
Disable DHCP and DNS Clients in Services (I have static IP's)
Disable IPv6
Disable Action Centre
Click to expand...

Of the above, those five in particular are unnecessary IMO. You'll never see any performance improvement from disabling remote assistance or DHCP or IPv6, especially on such a decent spec.

And by turning off indexing, you're disabling one of the most useful features of recent versions of Windows. Why have such a high-spec machine and not make the most of it? What matters with 'speed' is not so much how fast you can make the OS run, but how effectively you can make use of it!

A big reduction in usability for a small increase in speed is a poor trade-off. Otherwise, why not just run Windows 95?
 
NathanE said:
What? Pretty much all viruses that successfully infect PC's today are not removable by AV. That's because any virus worth doing these days is a rootkit, with numerous AV evasion techniques built right into it.

Most recent example this week is: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/
Click to expand...

That's complete and utter tosh - if it isn't please find me a source so I can remove several £k's worth of AV software from client machines.
 
Surely the truth is somewhere in between? AV may not always detect some more sophisticated viruses, but it's hardly 'fundamentally useless'. It does detect a large proportion of viruses, including most of the standard keylogger/adware/rogue anti-malware crap that people tend to pick up from the web.

You'd expect a virus designed to infiltrate US military hardware to be quite resilient. That kind of attack is often state-sponsored. Most common viruses don't approach that level of sophistication.
 
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RichIbizaSport said:
That's complete and utter tosh - if it isn't please find me a source so I can remove several £k's worth of AV software from client machines.
Click to expand...

Lock the machines down properly in the first place. But then you'd lose the up-sell commission of "Would you like AV with that, sir?" wouldn't you?

As for sources... http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=anti+virus+software+useless

This isn't a new opinion. The situation surrounding snake oil AV products has been growing year on year since about the year 2000. The situation is now so bad that yes, "fundamentally useless" a perfectly acceptable way of describing them.
 
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Mattus said:
Surely the truth is somewhere in between? AV may not always detect some more sophisticated viruses, but it's hardly 'fundamentally useless'. It does detect a large proportion of viruses, including most of the standard keylogger/adware/rogue anti-malware crap that people tend to pick up from the web.

You'd expect a virus designed to infiltrate US military hardware to be quite resilient. That kind of attack is often state-sponsored. Most common viruses don't approach that level of sophistication.
Click to expand...

Except that it is just a run of mill rootkit-based keylogger. Not a state sponsored attack. And yet the US Gov is still struggling to remove the malware despite employing the services of Kaspersky, and presumably many others.

There are always ways to remove rootkits. The problem is that they can almost never be done with traditional AV software whilst the OS is live. Rootkits are most successfully removed by booting into an alternate OS and then deleting the relevant .sys and .dll files, amongst any other crap, manually from the system directories. But this approach doesn't sit well with commercialised AV products because they need all the posh user-interfaces and automation and all that "feel good and warm" stuff that seems to sell so well to all the sheep out there.
 
Of course AV software isn't useless.
Unless the AV server informs me of a major issue I regularly check the log files over our 150+ workstations and it's amazing just how many viruses/malware are stopped by the AV system.

I'm sorry - you can keep on believing what you like.
But I'm certainly not removing AV from either the network I look after of my home machines.
 
I disagree. I'd compare it to the lock on your front door. Against an attack with even a rudimentary degree of sophistication (e.g. a bloke with a crowbar or a drill), that lock is ineffective at securing your house.

Does that mean that putting a lock on your front door is a wasted expense? No, because:

(a) it's a deterrent against casual or opportunistic attacks, which constitute a large proportion of attempts to burgle a house
(b) a door with a lock is significantly more secure than a door without a lock, even if it's not especially challenging to defeat
(c) even if a burglar breaks your lock, it might provide enough resistance to at least alert you to the fact that somebody's trying to burgle your house

AV is just the same. Any attacker with non-trivial knowledge or determination could get through it, but that doesn't mean it's not of value in preventing 'casual' attacks, or even making people aware that they have a virus.

NathanE said:
Rootkits are most successfully removed by booting into an alternate OS and then deleting the relevant .sys and .dll files, amongst any other crap, manually from the system directories.
Click to expand...

Yes, but if you told the average user to boot their machine into an alternate OS and delete .sys files, they'd look at you very blankly indeed. Of course an AV is trying to do something which you could do better yourself with a high level of knowledge. That doesn't make it useless, because most people don't have that knowledge.
 
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Mattus said:
I disagree. I'd compare it to the lock on your front door. Against an attack with even a rudimentary degree of sophistication (e.g. a bloke with a crowbar or a drill), that lock is ineffective at securing your house.

Does that mean that putting a lock on your front door is a wasted expense? No, because:

(a) it's a deterrent against casual or opportunistic attacks, which constitute a large proportion of attempts to burgle a house
(b) a door with a lock is significantly more secure than a door without a lock, even if it's not especially challenging to defeat
(c) even if a burglar breaks your lock, it might provide enough resistance to at least alert you to the fact that somebody's trying to burgle your house

AV is just the same. Any attacker with non-trivial knowledge or determination could get through it, but that doesn't mean it's not of value in preventing 'casual' attacks, or even making people aware that they have a virus.



Yes, but if you told the average user to boot their machine into an alternate OS and delete .sys files, they'd look at you very blankly indeed. Of course an AV is trying to do something which you could do better yourself with a high level of knowledge. That doesn't make it useless, because most people don't have that knowledge.
Click to expand...

The issue is that the AV products don't achieve it. They claim automation of removal but in practice it rarely works except for the absolute simplest of malware. And this type of malware is a dying breed.

AV isn't a lock. Windows security policies and things like UAC are a lock. AV is more akin to a private security guard, with no legal powers and no gun. All he can do is attempt to chase away the thugs. Tell the residents the problem is resolved. Only for the residents having to put up with the same thugs returning the next day.
 
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Windows security policies are a lock which usually only exists in corporate environments and isn't applied by home users. UAC is a lock which many average users unlock unquestioningly every time a program rings the doorbell, without first checking who's outside.

If everybody locked their machines right down and was very judicious about which code they allowed to run on their machine, then there really would be no need for AV. But in the real world, where that isn't the case, AV is at least better than nothing.
 
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