Significant Performance Boost For XP
Do you have obscene amounts of RAM? Do you want to make the very best use of it all? There are tens of thousands of websites offering performance tweaks for XP and you could spend the next week or more researching the ones you might like to perform, or you can save yourself a lot of bother and read this article. There are hundreds of XP tweaks, but you only need the half a dozen listed here to obtain a significant performance boost. The rest of the tweaks afford only minor and often indiscernible performance benefits.
Comments from visitors who have employed these tweaks are included at the end of the page.
Tweak
#1: Graphical User Interface and Themes
I have refrained from expressing opinion on this website but the default Windows XP theme calls out for comment. It is beyond me to comprehend how the person who decided on the ugly and sickly default Windows XP theme may have actually kept their job at Microsoft. It is childish in the extreme and my skin crawls when I see it. In fact, the theme is so bad that Windows XP also crawls when it is being used, even with a high-end video card installed.
Make the following two changes to see a real and perceptible improvement in performance;
Disable XP Themes
1. Right click the desktop and select Properties.
2. In the dropdown listbox under Theme:, select Windows Classic and Apply.
Disable XP Visual Effects
1. Open the System Control Panel applet.
2. On the Avanced tab, select Settings in the Performance frame.
3. On the Visual Effects tab, select Adjust for best performance and Apply.
4. Turn on (select) Smooth edges of screen fonts.
5. Turn on any other options you think you cannot live without and Apply.
Tweak
#2: Enable ClearType
Performance isn't just about the speed of your system. It includes readability of screen text. ClearType provides support for improved font display on color LCD monitors, high-quality TFT displays and standard CRT screens. Change your display from this:
To this:
To enable ClearType and make any adjustments to suit your eyes, go to the Microsoft Typography pages and follow the simple instructions.
Tweak
#3: Use NTFS
NTFS is the recommended file system for Windows XP and provides a number of benefits in terms of functionality, security, stability, availability, reliability, and performance. There are very few reasons to persist with FAT32. Read the NTFS, FAT32 and the Conversion Process article on this site for more information.
Tweak #4:
Disable Last Access Timestamp
Whenever XP reads a file, it stamps the file with the date and time of the access. This feature has its place but is not required for normal use unless you rely on the date of last access for backup purposes. Timestamping a file that has just been read means that a write access has to be made to disk, so every time a read is executed, a corresponding write is also executed.
At the command prompt, enter the following then reboot;
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1
Those of us who read and write real English need to take note of the American spelling of the BEHAVIOR parameter.
To turn timestamping back on, repeat the command but replace the 1 with 0.
Tweak
#5: Memory Management and Processor Scheduling
256MB RAM is the absolute minimum to take advantage of these changes. Those with faster Pentium 4's should see a significant performance boost. You should not perform any registry edits unless you know what you are doing. At the very least, you should consider performing a backup before proceeding.
Memory Management: Kernel Paging and Cache Tuning
The "DisablePagingExecutive" entry in the registry prevents the kernel (the core of the XP OS) from being rolled out to the page file. The effect of this part of the tweak is to cause the OS to cache the OS Kernel and its entourage to RAM instead of to disk, which makes XP far more responsive.
The "LargeSystemCache" registry entry forces XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory, that is system memory, not avaliable RAM, to the file system cache. The remaining 4MB of system memory is used for disk caching, though XP will allocate more memory if it is needed.
A modern hard disk will transfer sequential data to and from disk at up to 40MB per second, or even faster on some drives, but the LargeSystemCache tweak means that effective transfer speeds of 1GB per second or more can be obtained, depending on the amount of RAM in your system and its operating speed. This is achieved because the LargeSystemCache modification causes the OS to store data read from disk in RAM. It means that the OS is always using the optimum amount of RAM instead of leaving it untouched for future use that may or may not occur. Without this part of the tweak, 200MB or more of RAM in a typical 512MB machine goes completely unused.
Some I/O intensive applications may take a hit in performance from changing the LargeSystemCache, so this particular component of the tweak should not be applied to a system that is running either SQL Server or Internet Information Server (IIS) because both of those applications perform their own caching.
Start regedit and navigate to the following key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
Add these two lines, save the changes and reboot;
"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001
"LargeSystemCache"=dword:00000001
To see the effects of this part of the tweak, launch a large, memory hungry application. Any of the Microsoft Office suite of applications will do. Let the application load then exit from it. Fasten your safety harness then launch the application again.
I have a striped RAID 0 array of two ATA100 7,200 RPM disks. The array was lounging around on holiday in the sun and not doing much with a SiSoft Sandra Drive Index of 28,000. The two registry changes above caused the DI to triple from the original 28,000 to an upper mark of 85,000. A similar but scaled down performance increase can be expected for ATA 33/66 disks.
Memory Management: Separate Window Processes
This setting provides significantly faster performance and affords greater application stability. Contrary to popular belief, this part of the tweak causes multiple instances of the same application to execute in their own process and memory space, not just Windows Explorer. Of course, the cost for improved performance and stability is memory since the application and its attendant DLLs are loaded separately for each instance. If you have 512MB of RAM or more, this part of the tweak is highly recommended because if say Internet Explorer or Word crashes, other Internet Explorer and Word instances will remain unaffected.
1. Start Windows Explorer.
2. Select Tools.
3. Select Folder Options then select the View tab.
4. Check the Launch folder windows in separate process box and Apply.
Processor Scheduling
This part of the tweak is impossible to explain without getting into the technical ins and outs of binary values, bit pairs and bit masks. Suffice it to say, this part of the tweak forces short, variable length processor timeslices to be allocated to foreground processes three times more often than those timeslices given to background processes.
Start regedit and navigate to the following key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]
Change the dword value of Win32PrioritySeparation, save the changes and reboot;
"Win32PrioritySeparation"=dword:00000026
NOTE: The Win32PrioritySeparation value of 26 is hexadecimal. this corresponds to 38 decimal.
As with the cache tuning part of the tweak, this particular component of the tweak should not be applied to a system that is running either SQL Server or Internet Information Server (IIS) unless you are certain that you want to slow down those background processes.
For more information on how this tweak uses binary values and bit pairs, read any of these articles on Google.
Tweak #6:
Turn Off
the Indexing Service
The Windows Search Companion has been very much maligned by the technical community, and with good reason. It is, in my opinion, a classic example of software that both uses resources and operates at speeds that are inversely proportional to the function that it performs and the value it provides. It is slow, ineffectual and tantamount to useless for serious searching because it deliberately ignores certain files and directories wthout allowing the user to decide what should and should not be searched. In short, the Search Companion is dysfunctional bloatware.
Whilst the Windows Search Companion will still function without the indexing service, some performance benefits can be obtained by utilising the indexing service. However the indexing service builds a SQL database of keywords it finds in files. This means that to get at the information compiled by the indexing service, the Search Companion sends an SQL query to the database, which then returns the information to the Search Companion. This can be a frustratingly slow process, even on very fast machines.
Besides the feature and performance issues with Search Companion, the indexing service works in the background, scouring almost every file that it finds. On a new system, the indexing service can take days to settle down. This is because the service puts a low priority on its work. Despite this low priority, the indexing service can cause serious performance degradation, especially in lower-end machines because the computer's hard disk runs continuously. If you have Office XP, you may find this Microsoft Office KB article of interest.
A much better searching alternative is to turn off the indexing service and use Agent Ransack by David Vest.
From the Agent Ransack website: Agent Ransack is a free tool for finding files and information on your hard drive fast and efficiently. When searching the contents of files Agent Ransack displays the text found so you can quickly browse the results without having to separately open each file! Agent Ransack provides compelling advantages over similar search tools: Regular expressions that allow complex rule based searches. Immediate contents results view. Various wizards to walk the user through the searching process. Agent Ransack is provided FREE of charge for the benefit of the Windows community. If you find it useful please register it, free of charge.
To disable the indexing service;
1. Click Start, Run, type services.msc then press enter or click OK.
2. Scroll to the "Indexing Service" in the right-hand pane and double-click it.
3. Change the Startup type to Manual or Disable and Apply.
4. Click the Stop button and wait for the service to stop then click OK.
User Comments
W????n S. wrote:
Love this info! Well I have to admit that this thing just freakin rocks right now!!!
Bill wrote: I agree with this poast, on my 1800 AMD XP with 520 meg ram and 32 meg AGP graphics with allready 4 of 6 applied, before the article came, the other two (#4&5) make a difference
Devon Miles wrote: Great article, same for the rest of the site, good advice.
Gravel Rash wrote: A very clear concise guide to the most useful XP tweaks. Some well known, some more obscure, but all seem to have the desired result. Well written and well executed - just what we have come to expect from you. Three cheers!
Lord Gazwad of Grantham - MVP (Special Forces) wrote: Yeah, what I hadn't done already I just did, the system seems snappier, I reckon its down to the disk writes being reduced, I keep the themes and the effects though, even if they are fisher price.
Other Tweaks
Bill wrote: Great article very useful, good background info on how the tweak work's, but how do you think about cleaning up the startup section in the system configuration utility as a performance tweak? Many users load a lot of shit on boot.
AH! Good question. Those who need to halt startup processes do so for one or more of three main reasons, I'll leave out the obvious troubleshooting reason;
A) to recover RAM
B) to increase boot time
C) to recover operating performance
The article clearly states you need to have the RAM to burn, so that puts A) out because if you have RAM to burn, you don't need to waste time trying to recover it.
The objective of the article is operating performance, not faster startup time. You only get the benefit of fast startup once after every start, so that puts B) out.
That leaves C)... Idle processes are just that. Idle. They take up little to no processor time unless they are being used. In other words, it's almost a complete furphy to disable the majority of startup processes and unwanted tasks to get to performance nirvanah. All that unused tasks do is consume RAM. So given A), there is not much point in disabling any of them unless one is misbehaving. See the High CPU Usage Problems article on this site for more information. Of course, this advice will just go unheeded if you are suffering obsessive compulsive disorder and simply have to remove them just because they're there and they annoy you.
If you really must tweak your system beyond the major boost provided in this article, you might find the following resources helpful:
sanx.org contains 140+ tips and tweaks for Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, including performance enhancements, security tips, registry hacks, tuning advice, hardware tuning and many others.
WinTasks Process Library: Use this resource to decide what common Windows processes can be disabled. This link provides a subset of the most popular processes listed in WinTasks Process Library. Scroll down the page to find the list.
User Tip #76 at is-it-true.org lists a number of services that can be disabled. Also provides reason why you shouldn't disable the services.
The Registry Edits for Windows XP page at theeldergeek.com provides enough tweaks to keep even the phreakiest tweakers happy for days on end. There are about a hundred registry hacks listed for applications, desktop, file system, hardware, Internet, logon, network, system and more.
Windows XP A to Z has a page full of performance tweaks for the tweak phreak. Note that the page lists the Intel Application Accelerator (IAA) as a performance improvement. Many users have obtained very significant improvements from using IAA, but others have had significant crashing issues with it, myself included. If you have an Intel chipset and you have applied the "inf installer" that should have been supplied with your motherboard then you should not need the IAA. If you decide to try IAA, you would be well advised to image your disk and ensure the Recovery Console is installed before you proceed.
Force IRQ Priority
This is a tweak that falls into the category of imperceptible, but some may find it useful if a hardware device is being a bit of a laggard. This tweak can be applied to multiple IRQs and the best use you could make of it is to try to improve the performance of devices that share an IRQ over non-shared IRQs.
The effect of this change is to improve the performance of devices on the nominated IRQ. It is often used to boost the performance of the System CMOS/real time clock, normally residing on IRQ8.
To change the priority of a different IRQ, replace 8 in IRQ8Priority with the appropriate IRQ number. To change the priority of additional devices, simply add appropriate keys.
Start regedit and navigate to the following key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]
Create the new entry, save the changes and reboot;
"IRQ8Priority"=dword:0000001
If you are not certain that the System CMOS/real time clock resides on IRQ8 on your system, check it by selecting the properties of System CMOS/real time clock in Device Manager.
Revision Date: 9
July 2003