www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm is down, and I really wanted yo check this out. Is there a mirror of thise site anywhere? I couldn't find any.
Black Viper Windows XP services guide...
- Thread starter Zucarita9000
- Start date
BlueWeasel
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
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It's been down for several days now. 
Elder Geek XP Services Guide is another guide similar to the one at BV.com.
Elder Geek XP Services Guide is another guide similar to the one at BV.com.
BlueWeasel
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
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I've disabled a few services and perform some of the tweaks mentioned in these guides. My system is a bit better now, boots faster and have more free memory after boot (about 1.7GB).
I wasn't really sure about configuring the pagefile. It seems a lot of people think they know more about the Windows pagefile than MS engineers themselves, and give all sort of advice.
I didn't change anything, as I don't know what the best setting is. I have 2GB of RAM and a dedicated hard drive that I use for Photoshop scratch and misc. stuff. Some guides say that the pagefile should go in a separate hard drive when available, but... I'm not sure what to do.
I wasn't really sure about configuring the pagefile. It seems a lot of people think they know more about the Windows pagefile than MS engineers themselves, and give all sort of advice.
I didn't change anything, as I don't know what the best setting is. I have 2GB of RAM and a dedicated hard drive that I use for Photoshop scratch and misc. stuff. Some guides say that the pagefile should go in a separate hard drive when available, but... I'm not sure what to do.
Here is an excerpt from 10 Ways to Make XP Run Better :
"On its own, Windows places your "swapfile" or "paging file" (a portion of your hard drive that's used as a kind of pseudo-RAM) on your C: drive, and sets it up so it can grow and shrink as needed. However, you may be able to do better. For example, if you have more than one physical disk in your system, you may get better performance from either placing the swapfile on the lesser-used disk (assuming it's the same speed as the primary disk) or by splitting the swapfile across two disks. You also may see modest improvements in responsiveness if you set the swapfile to a fixed size, so Windows won't waste time growing and shrinking the file on demand.
Swapfile management has been somewhat of a black art in previous versions of Windows, but the XP Help System actually has good information on the subject (a first for Windows!). Select Help And Support from the Start menu, and do a search for "virtual memory." Be sure to check out the "related topics" delivered by the search for additional good information."
Also FAT32 is slightly faster than NTFS, so putting the swapfile on a seperate FAT32 partition on your fastest drive should speed you up.
Edit:
More info...
XP even allows a limited form of parallel processing to take place if you split the swapfile/paging file across two or more physical drives. Despite the small extra overhead involved in accessing a secondary drive, overall responsiveness can actually improve.
How to Set Page File Performance Options
Try to avoid having a paging file on the same drive as the system files.
? Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive such as a mirrored volume or a RAID-5 volume. Paging files do not require fault-tolerance, and some fault-tolerant computers experience slow data writes because they write data to multiple locations.
? Do not put multiple paging files on different partitions on the same physical disk drive.
"On its own, Windows places your "swapfile" or "paging file" (a portion of your hard drive that's used as a kind of pseudo-RAM) on your C: drive, and sets it up so it can grow and shrink as needed. However, you may be able to do better. For example, if you have more than one physical disk in your system, you may get better performance from either placing the swapfile on the lesser-used disk (assuming it's the same speed as the primary disk) or by splitting the swapfile across two disks. You also may see modest improvements in responsiveness if you set the swapfile to a fixed size, so Windows won't waste time growing and shrinking the file on demand.
Swapfile management has been somewhat of a black art in previous versions of Windows, but the XP Help System actually has good information on the subject (a first for Windows!). Select Help And Support from the Start menu, and do a search for "virtual memory." Be sure to check out the "related topics" delivered by the search for additional good information."
Also FAT32 is slightly faster than NTFS, so putting the swapfile on a seperate FAT32 partition on your fastest drive should speed you up.
Edit:
More info...
XP even allows a limited form of parallel processing to take place if you split the swapfile/paging file across two or more physical drives. Despite the small extra overhead involved in accessing a secondary drive, overall responsiveness can actually improve.
How to Set Page File Performance Options
Try to avoid having a paging file on the same drive as the system files.
? Avoid putting a paging file on a fault-tolerant drive such as a mirrored volume or a RAID-5 volume. Paging files do not require fault-tolerance, and some fault-tolerant computers experience slow data writes because they write data to multiple locations.
? Do not put multiple paging files on different partitions on the same physical disk drive.
You can get a better boot time from disabling services, yes, but besides that there are no performance gains from disabling services.
Correct. Leaving the pagefile System Managed would be fine. With 2GB of RAM I doubt moving the pagefile to another physical drive would be benefitial if the pagefile is not used much.
I know nothing about your usage patterns really though. If you want an idea of how much pagefile is actually used you could go run some intensive applications you ussally have running then go into perfmon or run this
It doesn't "waste" time growing and shrinking. Setting it a fixed size is just stupid.
FAT32 is not at all faster then NTFS.
daniel1113
Diamond Member
- Jun 6, 2003
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"For small volumes, FAT16 or FAT32 usually provide faster access to files than NTFS"
"When very small volumes contain mostly small files, the overhead of managing NTFS may cause a slight performance drop in comparison to FAT."
NTFS is usually faster due to fewer reads/writes to disk, unless the above conditions are met.
"When very small volumes contain mostly small files, the overhead of managing NTFS may cause a slight performance drop in comparison to FAT."
NTFS is usually faster due to fewer reads/writes to disk, unless the above conditions are met.
Exactly. That statement said FAT32 is faster then NTFS, which is not true in all cases. It also said to put the pagefile on a seperate FAT32 partition and fastest drive. What if my fastest drive is the drive with my Windows installation? That is telling me to make a seperate partition on the same physical drive which would obviously not "speed you up."
This is good advice, but it contradicts with what you posted before that.
"...so putting the swapfile on a seperate FAT32 partition on your fastest drive should speed you up."
BlueWeasel
Lifer
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Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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The pagefile isn't accessed like a normal file so the filesystem in use has little affect on it's access speed. And if you're creating a seperate partition just for the pagefile you're making things worse by increasing seek time required when the pagefile is accessed.
Since every system is different, not every page/swap file tweak will work for everyone. Blindly following my (or anyone's) advise is a recipe for disaster. The debate on which is faster for a swapfile, FAT32 or NTFS, is analogous to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin... and whether it is a slow dance or the Macorana.
Nothinman is absolutely correct that you never want to make a separate partition on your C drive for the swapfile, though you might try making one on your Photoshop scratch disk.
And since my last tips were such a hit, I got a few more:
How can I optimize the Windows 2000/XP/2003 virtual memory (Pagefile)?
Nothinman is absolutely correct that you never want to make a separate partition on your C drive for the swapfile, though you might try making one on your Photoshop scratch disk.
And since my last tips were such a hit, I got a few more:
How can I optimize the Windows 2000/XP/2003 virtual memory (Pagefile)?
So, according to that guide, you're saying that I should put the pagefile on the scratch disk and set it to 1.5 times the physical memory... that's a 3GB initial file.
What about letting Windows select the size of the pagefile for the sratch disk?
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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Depends on your workload, if you have enough memory that the pagefile isn't being used much it won't matter too much. But if you're actually using a decent amount of pagefile space then you should really get more memory. But failing that it would ideally be on a seperate physical disk from where your main data is kept.
That is why the majority should just leave it System Managed and forget about it.
Then is the pagefile needs to grow it cannot.
- Oct 25, 1999
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One of the fascinating things is to see how people can Not let go of old ideas that needed to be dealt with in the past when the OS was different and the average Hardware capacity was much lower.
If you have a regular main stream computer with adequate memory and hard drive, you gain nothing from disabling services.
Or as an example the notion mention above about page file.
The page mention above was written 2 years ago and states: ?Optimizing your page file when you're running low on RAM is always a good idea?. ( http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm ).
A lot Applications when installed assumes that you have a default or better computer. People disable services and then some time down the line something new (or old) does not work and they can spend days not finding the reason and then end up with the Infamous ?I reformatted the hard Drive and re installed Windows.?
:sun:
If you have a regular main stream computer with adequate memory and hard drive, you gain nothing from disabling services.
Or as an example the notion mention above about page file.
The page mention above was written 2 years ago and states: ?Optimizing your page file when you're running low on RAM is always a good idea?. ( http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm ).
A lot Applications when installed assumes that you have a default or better computer. People disable services and then some time down the line something new (or old) does not work and they can spend days not finding the reason and then end up with the Infamous ?I reformatted the hard Drive and re installed Windows.?
:sun:
I totally agree with you, but I don't see why you should run services you don't need just because your computer "is able to handle it".
As for the pagfile, everyone gives opinions about the subject, but it seems to me that there is no "correct configuration". I do find logical that a slight performace increase can be obtained by setting the pagefile to another hard drive, though.
BTW, I set a small pagefile on the C: drive (system hdd) and another pagefile in a different hard drive, managed by the OS. I'm only using about 190MB after boot.
Because if something fails to work you ahve the hassle of trying to figure out what service is causing the problem. You also don't gain anything from disabling services so in the end it is just a big waste of time.
Don't judge PF usage by the stupid graph in the task manager. It is not actual PF usage oddly enough. It includes things in RAM. If you want to find out the real PF usage use perfmon or this
How do you know you won't need it? How do you know you don't need it now?
Chances are the default is fine for most people. I follow the line of thought that if I don't understand what I'm doing and why I shouldn't do it. If I have to ask, I don't understand.
The defaults aren't necessarily the fastest, but they're probably the best for a large number of people. I'm interested in seeing benchmarks for different configurations of the pagefile though.
I think it's funny that you don't even know how to quantify the results you got from all that fiddling. I'm with the "why bother?" camp....
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