NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

@Les
Mine is running 2Gb DDR2 and is running fine w/o a pagefile. You are right; the pagefile has to be turned off completely.

 

Please don't suggest it is a good idea to use TuneXP on a Vista system. Some of the options there will really hose the OS, in some cases requiring a reinstall. The ONLY option known to be safe was the boot file defrag. And that has been replaced by the simple batch file I provided.

As for moving the files to the front of your drive. It never did that, despite its claims. I ran extensive traces to see what it was doing and it only used the built in defrag routines of the OS. It had zero, nada, zilch code of its own for defragging. And because the OS native defrags don't try to move the files to the front of the drive, TuneXP was never really able to do that. However the entire notion of needing to do that anyway is false. The difference in access time from one spot on the drive to another is imperceptible. With a stop watch, you would NEVER be able to measure the difference in boot times if all of you boot files are clustered together at the front, middle or end of the drive. It just doesn't make enough difference. The key gains in boot time come from reorganizing the bootfiles into the proper sequence, defragmented and on a single spot on the drive.

Gary

 

Until the day you load one too many programs or large documents and something crashes, without warning or recourse, taking with it hours of work. It's a safety net. Do you drive without a seat belt too?

Gary

 

Schmi - And with 2gb of memory, have you actually measured or noticed any difference between on and off? I ran a week without pagefile, did not notice any difference and turned it back on (as Gary stated, better safe than sorry for little to no return) and noticed no difference.

 

@ Scud -
I was only suggesting the Boot files being moved to the from to the disk as you would know. All I do know is that my system ran smoother with the boot optimization tool that Tune XP offered. Nothing more, nothing less. I personally used all the tools and I personally noticed no ill effects. I also made changes to my system registry which were aimed at improving system performance. I also cut down my services that were not being used so my computer wouldn't use what mediocre amounts of RAM they would normally use. I have been tweaking my systems for as long as I can remember. Like I stated in one of my earlier posts - I like how it runs. As for my "seat belt" I use a 1 GB USB key for a ready boost drive should my system need it. As you well know, the key acts as a pagefile but with better performance considering the better transfer rate for reading and writing. All I can say is that it works for my system. I don't recommend it for all because it is not for everybody, but it does work on my system. And pagefile is not a safety net either. For should a system crash with it in use the result is the same. Windows Vista Premium uses 512 to 785 even 812 with a pageing executive in use. Without, it uses far less and the most it has used is 1.5GB of my system - but only on a few occasions. In the normal workings of my system it does not reach so high. And believe it or not, this is even with the Folding at home service activated. You can check out my computer specs by checking out my profile. I used to use Fresh UI for my systems to make registry changes but now because there is fewer keys it supports, I go manually into it so I can make the "adjustments". I do not do this without doing some research. Sometimes I do it trial and error. An operating system to me is a tool to learn how it runs, what works and what does not. This is why I own one. And I personally have no need to run 20 - 30 different programs at one time anyway (of my own execution). Although I may not be running the safe amount of Ram that Les runs on his system (4GB), this is a system setting that I have been reading up on for the past 2 years and one that I was very happy to impliment as well as see work properly. I know as well as you do that a pagefile is for systems that do not have enough RAM, where a small portion of your HD is used in place of RAM. Although I know that Vista is not XP in any reguards, I do know that I have read in the past of how people have run similar settings and had similar results. The microsoft page states that this: " When your computer is running low on RAM, and you must have more RAM immediately, Windows uses hard disk space to simulate RAM. This is known as virtual memory. It is also known as the paging file. By default, the virtual memory paging file (named pagefile.sys) that is created during installation is 1.5 times the RAM on your computer." When a system has a far greater quantity of RAM and system resources than I am used to using, such an option is viable. It is about good memory management.
And Bubba, I have noticed a better performance in the programs that I use and better performance in files being retrieved. I have cleared the Startup folder which is a commonly used tweak and eliminating unnecessary Programs from starting up with windows in the HKLM and HKCU run and run once folders. I run Advanced windows care, among a few other programs that improve my systems performance so this can be done. Having all windows services running from RAM works fine for me.

 

But ScuderiaConchiglia you are right on the fact that it can be an inperceptable amount of time cut down. But in all fairness would you like to know what i really run on my system and what programs and tweaks I use to keep these "mad hatter" settings going? I have no doubt that you would know far better than I when you see what I am doing, which is nothing special.
But another thing to consider is how the system is being used. Yes I will agree that should I use a memory heavy program it is a possibility that your scenario may happen. And the proceeding argument in favor of my view is nothing more than presenting the facts and logic behind my choice for such a decision reguarding memory management. Do I have enough space on my HD for a pagefile? Quite simply put, Yes. But all the same I run nothing memory intensive save windows itself.

 

And I can assure you that TuneXP did NOT move your files to the front of the disk. I spent two days very carefully analyzing EXACTLY what TuneXP was doing. I was very meticulous about this, to the point of creating a baseline image of the entire partition and restoring back to that between each round of testing. I am sure it did run smoother. It did a great job of using the built in functionality of Windows XP or Vista to reorganize and defragment the boot files. But it ran no code of it's own to do so. I used process explorer and diskmon to monitor what it was doing and all it did was call the built in functions, passing the correct parameters to get them to invoke the special boot file defrag. Exactly the same thing the batch file replacement was.

You dodged a bullet then. Les had numerous reports of people having, shall we say, less than optimal results, with the other functionality of TuneXP under Vista. That's why I set out to demystify what TuneXP was doing right and build a replacement.

Ready boost is not exactly the same thing as the page file. Granted I am picking nits here, and will say it is however a good choice if you insist on not running a page file. I never suggested that the pagefile was a panacea for a system crash. All I said was it was a safety net for running out of memory. A situation that is far easier to occur than you or the folks who suggest turning off the page file care to admit. That is why I bring it up, and will continue to do so, every time it is suggested as a great tweak. Folks need to be aware of the potential data loss. If this were mentioned by the folks suggesting this so called tweak, I would sit down and shut up. But they don't, so neither do I.

Sorry, I know no such thing. It is NOT for systems that do not have enough RAM. It is for the OS to use to free up ram by paging it to the hard drive as it is needed and recover that paged out memory without having to go through the normal initialization that is required if it were to be reloaded from a DLL or executable. It is there so there is never a need to determine if the system has enough RAM. Without a page file, the only way to ever find out if you have enough ram is to suffer the application crash that results from not having enough. With a pagefile, you can find out by monitoring the performance statistics and not have to suffer any data loss in doing so.

All of this is even MORE important under Vista, which uses SuperFetch to try to keep in memory bits of code that Vista anticipates will be needed. Without a pagefile Vista is crippled somewhat by the fact that it now has to throw out parts of the Superfetch cache, when an app requests additional memory. With a page file it can just page them and quickly reload them when it can.

"Noticed"? Just more anecdotal "statistics". Post some REAL bench marks. Prove it is faster. So far no one has done so.

Schimi, I am not trying to pick a fight with you. I am only trying to point out to other folks who stumble across this or any other "kill the pagefile" thread that 1)this is still an unproven tweak, only backed up by anecdotal "evidence" and 2)there is the potential for catastrophic loss of data if you use it.

If it works for you fine. And if you want to suggest it to others, fine. Just present the entire picture. Tell them that no one has MEASURED the improvement it just "seems" better and tell them that there is a chance that an app will die, taking data with it.

Gary

 

Boooooooooooomshakalaka!!!! =p

 

Again, a wonderful thread and posting of yours first up!! Thanks a lot..

 

Dammit, I just bought a Asus M50sv-a1 and it came yesterday. As soon as I got it I started applying some of these tweaks (didn't disable UAC and Security center, don't know enough about computers to disable security features) and now I have no point of reference as to how fast the system "normally" is. LOL

Thanks for all the tips! Off to the freeware programs thread.

 

Scud,

Sorry i did not respond earlier. I wanted to review some of the articles that I had found in the past that I ues for reference. So pardon the delay. How would you suggest I get your evidence. There are some who will take the word of another and others that take evidence. So please tell me how I can get you your evidence.

 

You tell me, I am not the one claiming it is faster. Other folks say they saw no change in speed so they turned their page file back on. If you see something different, you should be able to quantify it. Right? If it is faster, it should not be too difficult to measure and show that difference.

When it comes to tweaks that make claim of being faster (despite other reports to the contrary) and also present an opportunity for catastrophic data loss, put me firmly in the camp of needing evidence of the speed before I would risk the data loss. I make no bones about that.

Again, I want to be clear. I am NOT trying to pick a fight with you. I just want to know what difference you are actually seeing.

Gary

 

For those who might still be on the fence about turning indexing on or off, I found this to be a good article blog post: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=466

I personally turned Outlook indexing on the day I got my FZ and after some consideration/reading, I went ahead and turned it on for my data partition. I have noticed no ill effects to performance becuse Vista is pretty darn smart when it comes to managing the indexing process.

 

As long as you make sure indexing is limited to Outlook and your documents folder it is really unintrussive. Some folks started playing around with it, including me, and inadvertently got it indexing everything, which makes no sense and does make it a bit of a pig at times. The other cool feature is it backs off indexing when it sees you are using the machine.

A few days ago I upgraded to the new 4.0 index/search engine. And let it totally rebuild all of my indexes. I was monitoring it's status window and it reports when it is throttling back because of my use of the system. To index my 12,000+ files and 8000+ outlook items, took about two hours. (I am not sure as I went to bed, but based on how much it had done and how much remained, that's a good "guess".)

Gary

 

@Scud - To be honest I think you are. You have said that you have asked others to present proof - but you don't get anyone to go along. You seem confrontational, but i was willing to go along. I fyou have to say that you are "not picking a fight", Then what are you doing? We come here in a spirit of cooperation to work together, not bite others who are willing to give what you have asked for. So I shall ask, In a polite manner, what form of evidence will be good for you and how should I go about getting it? We are adults here and we can communicate in a rational sense. Let us do so. Sans insults. it is childish.

 

In Scud's defense, he probably sounds a bit confrontational because it's not like you're the first to boldy claim removing the pagefile increases performance (in such a way that every n00b will close their browser and do the same just b/c they saw it in a forum)...in fact you probably aren't the 50th person who has claimed such w/o giving evidence.

I've seen him respond to such claims at least 15 times in the past 6 months.

That said, I've removed my pagefile here and there and I don't see any real difference either way.

 

Scud - here is a few article to check out that might be good reading for anybody:
Disable Pagefile-Smallvoid
Virtual Mem http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.phpory in Xp - (yes I know that this is an Xp version, but Principals are the same.)

Would a benchmark test work as a form of evidence? Such as 3dMark? i am willing to be crazy enough to prove it in evidence. You should have it tomorrow or tonight.

 

I don't think 3DMark would be the appropriate benchmark test since that focuses mainly on your GPU.

 

@Meatloaf
I respect your answer, but 1) it should be realized that I am not the past 50 or so people claiming this, 2) I am willing to supply evidence should he name the test and 3) i am no noob to the computer arena (I have been configuring and building computers for the past 10 years and have yet to have a crash due to basic system settings). I am willing to us the 3dMarks test to benchmark my system, but if there is a better benchmarking system out there let me know. I ask because I want it to be accurate. I honestly have never had to benchmark my computers at any point so I usually don't use them. If there is a case where there is a question as to speed of a computer - I let the person questioning it come and check out my computer or the computer in question firsthand any way they want to. I have rarely had any complaints.

 

@ crash

What would you suggest?

 

If you are arguing that pagefile is not necessary (and I think you are), why would you pick out an article that really is opposite of your position? It starts out: "It is possible to disable the page file, but it is not recommended."

 

Can I suggest maybe we start a separate thread for this discussion? This has gone on for pages and still the same.

We have our own views so lets just express it and leave it.

 

I supplied these articles for the benefit of others to read and come to their own conclusion. I picked a couple of them so it wouldn't be biased on my part. I am trying to be fair on this issue.

 

But maybe starting a separate thread is a good idea.

 

@ bubba
I also chose these because it is not right for everyone. I will supply more when i get a separate thread for this.

 

Here is the new thread: here is to a fun venture!

 

Off Topic, but you didn't happen to just by 2x2GB of ram on ebay did you?

---

Back on the topic, is the 1st post updated, as in, still perfectly good tweaks as of June 2008?

 

Hey, I just tried Gary's defrag method. I copied his .BAT file to my desktop and ran it as an administrator. The command line came up but my computer doesn't seem to be doing anything. I checked the processes and and I don't see Defra or DgrfNtfs running? It's been like this for 10 minutes or so.

Update:
Well it's been well over an hour and nothing has happened. Should I just close the command prompt myself?

Update # 2:
After giving it about 2 hours and nothing happening I closed the command prompt and restarted my computer. I ran the the .bat file again and it's working now. The first time I tried I guess it was hung on the first line with the Rundll.exe commmand. It never got past that to actually start the defrag process. I don't really know why that happened though.

 

@ShIzNiTs
No i have not been on ebay for about a few months - Handle: V_Kodesh

 

Oh, cause I just sold 4GB of sodimm 667mhz ram on ebay to a person in Brighton, MI. Thought it ironic, especially when I saw your system specs were 2GB I thought you did a grade... My bad!

 

Thanks for putting this together Les and to all who helped.

Múcho appreciated lads!!

 

Glad u like it!

 

By the way you more than likely know but just for some of the new folks that tweak their pc a good bit - pressing the Windows key and pause-break will get you into systems properties instead of right-clicking My Computer and properties.

Just a little thing but it's quite handy when your in there all the time

 

Wow this is great! I will put this on my to do list. By the way, does anyone know of a XP guide like this?

 

Is that kill startup time thing different now?

My registry looks different

 

disregard, it's working now.

 

Hi there,

Is this a one time thing or do you need to do this every once in a while?

Thanks!

 

You really only need to run this if you change your startup programs/processes or use another defrag program.

See this post by Gary: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2825856&postcount=874

 

Dear Les, Gary and everyone else, I have been following Les' guide for the tweaks n tricks in vista, and I have been using Gary's defrag and optimizing tool as well. Its been good and great. I just have a few questions - (1) Is it ok to keep mixing up the defrag options from windows and the one your made (the bat file)? I mean, lets say this week I run the optimizer from Gary and next week I, by mistake, do a defrag from within windows OS? Is this ok? Because I think I notice a small difference (may be its just an illusion!) in the startup time, but where as both you and Les have said the optimizer you made defrags the drive and optimizes it. So can you please be kind to let me know your thoughts? (2) The other day, by mistake, I enabled "compress this drive (C to save disk space".. and then I realized it actually makes it slower because then every time the system has to look in compressed files and blah blah blah. So I went back, disabled it and was applying the changes, when, again by mistake, before the process could be completed, I closed the C: drive properties window :-( So does this mean the 'uncompression' did not complete and some files are still there being compressed? If yes, how do I get it all uncompressed again? Note: I dont see any major difference in the performance of my system though. I still can open files, programs and stuff as fast as it was after I applied Les' guide and your defrag bat process. Please, let me know. Thanks for your time in reading my message and I'm waiting to hear from you. FURTHER, Also, I have used Gary's defrag process once a week till now.. the first time it took a long time (this I can understand because may the C: drive was being defrag'ed for the first time) but then even the second or third time it still takes around an hour or so.. why do you think its that? Because you said in your post, that it took around 7 mins for you, but make take an hour. Is it always that it takes an hour to get done? Or is it because in between I did the Windows defrag and so your optimizer had to do it all over again? So please let me know if its fine just to follow yours? I am following Les' weekly maintenance schedule, and so instead of doing the Windows defrag, may be I will just do the system clean up, restore point clean up, use the CCleaner, and finally use *only* Gary's optimizer. Does doing this sound ok to you? Thanks and please do let me know your thoughts.. Cheers everybody.

 

Your questions on Gary's defrag program are answered in my post right above yours.

About the compressed drive... I'm don't really know the answer. I suppose you could compress it again and then decompress it to make sure all the files are decompressed.

 

Thanks @ Crash for your reply. Yes, I saw your post and answers... Following up on it, lets say, I run Gary' defrag once and then I dont change my startup programs or services for a couple of months. Will the C: drive still remain in the optimized/defragmented way? I mean (Please forgive my lack of knowledge in these things, I'm not into computers) won't the new files or whatever I do be placed around in the C: drive just like windows normally does? So then I guess I assume we would have to defragment at regular intervals right? Also, Les, in this first post, as part of his recommended weekly maintenance schedule has "defragmentation" as one of the steps. So?!?! I am wondering.. (By the way, @ Les, when you said defragmentation in that part, did you mean Gary' defrag/optimizer tool or the one within windows? Thanks again.

 

Gary's defrag only defrags your boot files, not the rest of your drive. So, if you don't change anything related to your startup, your boot files should remain defragmented while the rest of your drive becomes fragmented. Therefore, you should defragment your HD on a regular basis (I think once every 2 weeks is enough).

Since some defrag programs might mess with the defragmented boot files, run Gary's defrag right after using whatever other defrag program you use and you should be fine.

 

Thanks again, Crash. So here is my understanding - I do Gary' defrag only if I change anything related to my startup. But for the weekly or once-in-two-weeks maintenance, I perform the windows defrag, which will defrag C:, and then run Gary'. Is this right?

For the second part of your reply, does this "some defrag programs" include the windows vista builtin defrag? FYI, I am not using any outside defrag program. Just the windows' and Gary'. Thanks.

 

Btw, @ Gary, some times I get a second line in the command prompt that goes like "C:\Windows\system32>defrag -b C:". Is this normal? If I understand right, I remember reading in your post, that the program looks like its stuck on the first line, but looking into the task manager, the defrag can be seen running.
@ Crash - since this says "defrag -b C:", does this mean its defragmenting only the boot files on C:? Or is this what you meant?

 

By the way people, I am still waiting for info. on the compressed/uncompressed drive issue/doubt I had. :-( Hope someone could clear me up on that. Thanks again.

 

First, lets' be clear, "Gary's defrag process" is just a batch file to invoke the built in Vista processes for defragging the boot files. There is no magic there. Second, it ONLY defrags those files. If you want to defrag the rest of your drive you need to use the "normal" defrag app in Vista or a third party tool. I have no idea if either of these will affect the boot file defrag that had previously been run, but suspect they might. So as Crash suggests you might want to run "Gary's defrag batch" after you do a full defrag.

Re: the aborted compress folders question, I haven't a freakin' clue. Sorry.

Gary

 

Yes that is normal. And to answer for the question to crash. That is EXACTLY what it means. My batch ONLY defrags the bootfiles, nothing else.

Gary

 

So, to sum it up:

• Gary's defrag batch ONLY defrags the boot files using Vista's defrag process
• The rest of your HDD will need to be defragmented with another defrag program
• Other defrag programs (including Vista's) might affect the defragmented boot files, so run Gary's defrag batch process afterward.
• If you change your startup programs, run Gary's defrag batch to defragment the files

Let me know if anything seems amiss.

 

I don't have any idea, but as I said before, I would compress the drive again and then decompress it to make sure everything is decompressed.

 

That was super good and thanks a ton for your patience in replying to my questions @ Gary, Crash.. Now its all clear and I will follow everything accordingly

re: compress abort question, I have no idea as well. I did try a lot to google as much as I can, but could not find an answer :-( Hope someone else here will throw some light on this and help me out. MEANWHILE, Yes Crash, I will try doing what you said - sounds pretty meaningful and this time I will make sure it does the job completely. Lets see. Thanks again people.