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is this a write caching problem?

nikko

Senior member
I just installed XP Pro a few days ago and seem to be having a few issue. After making changing certain settings (the desktop wallpaper, location of quick launch, size of task bar, among others) later it reverts back to the way is was before hand, even though Lock The Taskbar is checked. I seem to remember someone saying this had something to do with write caching. Does this sound right? I've installed all the latest updates, by the way. If it is the write caching, how do I go about turning it off? When I go into my hard drive properties, there are two choices under the polices tab: Optimize for quick removal (write cahing disabled) and Optimize for performance (write caching enabled). Optimize for performance is what's selected and it won't let me change it. Any ideas on what is going on/what to do would be much appreciated.
 
I don't know what's wrong, but it shouldn't have anything to do with the write caching selection. That's just there for stuff like some removeable drives. You'd want it on for a hard drive, and even if you could turn it off it shouldn't effect what you're describing.
 
Originally posted by: JackHawksmoor
I don't know what's wrong, but it shouldn't have anything to do with the write caching selection. That's just there for stuff like some removeable drives. You'd want it on for a hard drive, and even if you could turn it off it shouldn't effect what you're describing.

Actually, you are only half-right. Normally, one of the last things written to the HD during shutdown, is the system registry, which keeps track of all of those user settings. One indication that the registry is not getting written correctly on shutdown (HD write-caching/early-shutdown problem), is registry settings getting "lost".

There is a hotfix available from MS, for WinXP SP1 and HDs bigger than 128GiB. Windows fails to issue the "flush cache" command at shutdown, which could be causing this problem. I personally recommend disabling Windows' automatic ATX soft-off feature (power-down at shutdown), and powering off manually. That can also prevent these sorts of problems from happening.

MS KB article, with patch
 
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