Early optimizations

Once all my software is installed, I can go make my first pass optimization. I’ll go into system properties and make the following changes.

1. Under visual affects, I’m happy with just disabling fade and animation. This speeds everything up while keeping things looking nice. I leave all the other miscellaneous effects on. I still remember when I saw “Show Window Contents While Dragging” for the very first time ever. It was on a PowerPC running Windows NT.

2. Under advanced, change your virtual memory settings to have a custom sized paging file on your second temporary directory partition. I have the initial and maximum size set to be the same number (fixed size) and remove the pagefile from my main C: drive. In general I think 1GB is good for 512MB systems, 1.5GB is good for 1GB systems, and 2GB is good for 2GB systems.

3. If you’re running an Athlon 64/Opteron or other DEP enabled system like I am, I change the setting to turn DEP on for ALL programs and services except for those I select. This adds extra security and is rarely a hassle.

4. Under startup and recovery, I disable all debugging information and uncheck logging of system failures. It’s not as if I’m going to use this anyway, and it’s not as if my systems crash. :)

5. Under environment variables, change TEMP and TMP to point toward my second partition (i.e. D:\\TEMP). Be sure to do this for system variables as well.

6. I then disable Error Reporting.

7. I disable remote assistance and remote desktop.

8. It’s up to you whether to leave System Restore enabled or disabled. I usually disable it and just leave it on for the scratch drive.

9. I keep automatic updates on and set it to a time during the day when I know I’m away at work.