---- Perry's guide to installing & maintaining a fast windows environment ---

[HeXploiT]

---- Perry's guide to installing & maintaining a fast windows environment ---


There are two keys to having and maintaining a fast windows environment.
Firstly is keeping the windows partition clean and defragmented and secondly is keeping it lightweight.

We begin with the windows install. It does not matter whether you're using Xp, Vista or a future OS and we will make the assumption that this system has one hard drive and one OS.

We will be shooting for a minimum of three partitions.
When installing the OS create your first partition. 20GB is more than sufficient for XP(Other Os's such as Vista might require slightly more).
Install the OS and follow up with all windows updates. You may need to install a network driver at this point but refrain from installing all other drivers. You should now have approximately 10gb of free space remaining on drive C:.

Next create two more partitions. One will contain program files/games and the other downloads. Adjust their size to your own specifications. If you are not a big downloader and don't use apps like bittorrent then you can skip the third partition and create a second with the remaining drive space. If you do use bittorrent or other p2p apps a third drive for downloads is very important as these programs cause extremely heavy drive defragmentation.

Now you have three partitions. XP, Downloads & Program files/Games.

Go to the command prompt and open "regedit".

Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
2. Find ProgramFilesDir -- the default will be C:\Program Files
3. Change this to the drive letter of your partition that will contain your games & applications "D:\Program Files" (example)
Close regedit.

Now click on the start menu and right click on my documents. Change the target directory to the same drive letter as your program file/Games partition but leave the directory structure intact. So if "E" is you're program files drive it wil look like this "E:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents".

Now defragment drive c: and reboot.
You are now ready to install the remaining drivers and begin installing applications and games which will now by default install to your program files/games drive.
Remember to set up your torrent/p2p applications to download to your "download" partition/drive.

Now we get to the second part of the guide which is just as important and is ongoing. Many of us know not to let programs begin at startup and this slows down boot time and bogs down memory as well as precious cpu cycles but I can't tell you how many "experienced" computer users I find that miss the next one.
When installing applications refrain from integrating them into the shell. Office software, compression utilities, antivirus software etc etc etc...
It's just not necessary to ingrate these programs into the shell. Again this adds to the weight of windows and the OS loses it's quickness. Instead after installing an application simply associate the applications with their file types manually. It only needs to be done once with each file type. With antivirus and compression programs you merely open the program itself to use its functions. By following this simple step you can install a hundred applications and still have a snappy windows and a quick boot to boot.
You now have a blazing fast windows that will last.

Happy computing!




This has gone too far off topic. It's turned into an insult thread and it's now locked.


esquared
Anandtech Senior Moderator

 

[Crusty]

If this is all on the same hard drive it won't make a difference that's noticeable.

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Crusty
If this is all on the same hard drive it won't make a difference that's noticeable.

I'm sorry crusty but you are dead wrong.
My buddy has dual 500gb's in a raid0 and my machine tromps al over his and is even faster at loading games. I've been doing this for years now and i can tell you from experience after working on hundreds of machines that this is extremely effective even on very small drives.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: Crusty
If this is all on the same hard drive it won't make a difference that's noticeable.

I'm sorry crusty but you are dead wrong.
My buddy has dual 500gb's in a raid0 and my machine tromps al over his and is even faster at loading games. I've been doing this for years now and i can tell you from experience after working on hundreds of machines that this is extremely effective even on very small drives.

Any factual benchmarks to backup your claim?

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: Crusty
If this is all on the same hard drive it won't make a difference that's noticeable.

I'm sorry crusty but you are dead wrong.
My buddy has dual 500gb's in a raid0 and my machine tromps al over his and is even faster at loading games. I've been doing this for years now and i can tell you from experience after working on hundreds of machines that this is extremely effective even on very small drives.

Any factual benchmarks to backup your claim?

No no benchmarks. Guess you'll just have to try it out and prove me wrong.
My experience after a decade plus of doing computer repair will have to suffice. I can build a moderate athlon xp machine with an 80gb hard drive using this method and it will be as snappy and quick as a brand new core2 system. it's just a fact. Don't believe it then prove me wrong.
I should think that most of what I said would be pretty agreeable to someone with even a little knowledge of os's & software.

 

[stash]

Guess you'll just have to try it out and prove me wrong

Fail. Burden of proof is on you.

 

[bsobel]

No no benchmarks. Guess you'll just have to try it out and prove me wrong.

Partitioning in no way will result in a peformance gain here, its in your head.

 

[HeXploiT]

Agreed benchmarks are good.
Aside from that you people are showing your ignorance.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Perry404
Agreed benchmarks are good.
Aside from that you people are showing your ignorance.

No, we're understanding that a single hard drive will show very little performance increase by partitioning it out. You can still only access one part of that drive at a time. All partitioning it will do is make sure your data is physically on a different part of the hard drive. It's still on the same hard drive, and the hard drive can still only access one part at a time.

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: Perry404
Agreed benchmarks are good.
Aside from that you people are showing your ignorance.

No, we're understanding that a single hard drive will show very little performance increase by partitioning it out. You can still only access one part of that drive at a time. All partitioning it will do is make sure your data is physically on a different part of the hard drive. It's still on the same hard drive, and the hard drive can still only access one part at a time.

Partitioning is only one small component here.
By separating the software in this fashion we are eliminating a great deal of the fragmentation.
By refraining from integrating software into the shell we are maintaining OS lightness/speed.
I'm not claiming any miracles. All I'm saying is this;
Look... you can do a bare install of xp on a 40gb drive(SLOWW!!)
and initially even on a 40gb drive with no additional software installed windows will be snappy to boot and quick to move. What we are doing here is merely preserving the quickness of the initial install of the OS.
If you do the same thing on a big raid0 array it's only going to be that much faster. Why some of you are so resistant to this I have no idea.
This is something I have perfected over the years and I am merely sharing my work. By the way I have done this on a raid 0 and it is incredibly fast even after a years worth of software installations.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: Perry404
Agreed benchmarks are good.
Aside from that you people are showing your ignorance.

No, we're understanding that a single hard drive will show very little performance increase by partitioning it out. You can still only access one part of that drive at a time. All partitioning it will do is make sure your data is physically on a different part of the hard drive. It's still on the same hard drive, and the hard drive can still only access one part at a time.

Partitioning is only one small component here.
By separating the software in this fashion we are eliminating fragmentation.
By refraining from integrating software into the shell we are maintaining OS lightness/speed.
I'm not claiming any miracles. All I'm saying is this;
Look... you can do a bare install of xp on a 40gb drive(SLOWW!!)
and initially even on a 40gb drive with no additional software installed windows will be snappy to boot and quick to move. What we are doing here is merely preserving the quickness of the initial install of the OS.
If you do the same thing on a big raid0 array it's only going to be that much faster. Why some of you are so resistant to this I have no idea.
This is something I have perfected over the years and I am merely sharing my work. By the way I have done this on a raid 0 and it is incredibly fast even after a years worth of software installations.

I never claimed that your advice on not integrating 3rd party software into the windows shell was bad. I'm stating that your advice on partitioning the drive will not give such improvements you are claiming.

First off, you can not eliminate fragmentation of files, it's just how the file system works. The partition that the data is stored on does directly affect the choice of whether or not a file gets fragmented. A file is a file and the file system will fragment the file if it so chooses.

Partitioning the drive will separate your data so that the fragments of a particular file might not be as far away from the starting fragment compared to a drive without partitions but it's not going to affect your performance in any great manner(positive or negative).

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: Perry404
Agreed benchmarks are good.
Aside from that you people are showing your ignorance.

No, we're understanding that a single hard drive will show very little performance increase by partitioning it out. You can still only access one part of that drive at a time. All partitioning it will do is make sure your data is physically on a different part of the hard drive. It's still on the same hard drive, and the hard drive can still only access one part at a time.

Partitioning is only one small component here.
By separating the software in this fashion we are eliminating fragmentation.
By refraining from integrating software into the shell we are maintaining OS lightness/speed.
I'm not claiming any miracles. All I'm saying is this;
Look... you can do a bare install of xp on a 40gb drive(SLOWW!!)
and initially even on a 40gb drive with no additional software installed windows will be snappy to boot and quick to move. What we are doing here is merely preserving the quickness of the initial install of the OS.
If you do the same thing on a big raid0 array it's only going to be that much faster. Why some of you are so resistant to this I have no idea.
This is something I have perfected over the years and I am merely sharing my work. By the way I have done this on a raid 0 and it is incredibly fast even after a years worth of software installations.

I never claimed that your advice on not integrating 3rd party software into the windows shell was bad. I'm stating that your advice on partitioning the drive will not give such improvements you are claiming.

First off, you can not eliminate fragmentation of files, it's just how the file system works. The partition that the data is stored on does directly affect the choice of whether or not a file gets fragmented. A file is a file and the file system will fragment the file if it so chooses.

Partitioning the drive will separate your data so that the fragments of a particular file might not be as far away from the starting fragment compared to a drive without partitions but it's not going to affect your performance in any great manner(positive or negative).

What you are doing by using this method is controlling the location of the fragmentation. By not installing software on the OS partition you are drastically minimizing fragmentation over time as new drivers, libraries and system files are installed. Done in this fashion the large majority of the fragmentation occurs on the other drives.
Installing everything on one partition will inevitably lead to such an extent of fragmentation that you will lose considerable speed.
There is just no way around it using a single partition.
Using this method no defrag software will even suggest over time that the OS partition even needs defragmenting because the partition stays 99% organized.

 

[13Gigatons]

I still partition my drives as well but not for what Perry claims it for, I like Windows and my apps on C drive so I can create and restore images faster with Acronis. I keep media and downloads on separate partitions.

 

[Smilin]

"Program files" doesn't tend to fragment much. It's typically a read only structure.

You also need to take care with what you are doing with the physical layout of the disk. Executables are never written out to the pagefile. The .exe file itself acts as the backing store. By partitioning (say exactly in half) you have created two master file tables that will be located at 1/4 and 3/4 of the drive radius.

When you load a program you're going to move the head from wherever it may be to the MFT to .exe on the disk, back over 1/2 the radius of the disk to the other MFT if it needs to load any libraries (likely), then back to the .dll. After load during execution you're going to be flapping the head all over the place jumping between two MFTs (that are REALLY far apart on the disk) plus pagefile, plus wherever the executable may be, plus wherever the data may be. The data is likely to be somewhere other than where the program (and it's MFT) are....

You don't need fragmentation in this situation. You've got a self generated mess.

Things are obviously more complicated than this and there are more variables than can reasonably be discussed. I'm not saying I don't believe you but I am saying I doubt it enough that I would have to see benchmarks before I would consider it. In the meantime I'm going to just rely on Superfetch to pull me out of the grease.

The shell tip is a nice one though. I'm not sure I would go to that trouble during program install but you've definately mentioned a very often overlooked performance hit. Well written programs won't slow the shell down but I've seen some crap ones. Even seen something loading across the network just to get a context menu item.

You can remove shell extensions after the fact too. Probably some 3rd party utility if you don't want to go registry spelunking.

 

[nerp]

I think the impact of fragmentation on performance is terribly overstated in this thread. It simply is not worth the time spent coming up with fancy and overcomplicated installations/partition arragements.

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Smilin
"Program files" doesn't tend to fragment much. It's typically a read only structure.

You also need to take care with what you are doing with the physical layout of the disk. Executables are never written out to the pagefile. The .exe file itself acts as the backing store. By partitioning (say exactly in half) you have created two master file tables that will be located at 1/4 and 3/4 of the drive radius.

When you load a program you're going to move the head from wherever it may be to the MFT to .exe on the disk, back over 1/2 the radius of the disk to the other MFT if it needs to load any libraries (likely), then back to the .dll. After load during execution you're going to be flapping the head all over the place jumping between two MFTs (that are REALLY far apart on the disk) plus pagefile, plus wherever the executable may be, plus wherever the data may be. The data is likely to be somewhere other than where the program (and it's MFT) are....

You don't need fragmentation in this situation. You've got a self generated mess.

Things are obviously more complicated than this and there are more variables than can reasonably be discussed. I'm not saying I don't believe you but I am saying I doubt it enough that I would have to see benchmarks before I would consider it. In the meantime I'm going to just rely on Superfetch to pull me out of the grease.

The shell tip is a nice one though. I'm not sure I would go to that trouble during program install but you've definately mentioned a very often overlooked performance hit. Well written programs won't slow the shell down but I've seen some crap ones. Even seen something loading across the network just to get a context menu item.

You can remove shell extensions after the fact too. Probably some 3rd party utility if you don't want to go registry spelunking.

I think you've exaggerated the situation slightly(not intentionally) when you say that the head has to read the executable and then move to the MFT. The first partition is so small comparatively, especially when taking today's drives into account, that the extra head movement is negligible imho. Also if you're an average user who neglects defrags the program files actually do get fragmented because programs are constantly being uninstalled & modified. If people never uninstalled the program files area would not get fragmented but I believe in most circumstances this is not the case.
Also don't forget about programs such as browsers that have their own cache and don't use the windows swapfile. These are always adding to the mess of fragmentation. Little by little but over time this adds up.

Respectfully.

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: nerp
I think the impact of fragmentation on performance is terribly overstated in this thread. It simply is not worth the time spent coming up with fancy and overcomplicated installations/partition arragements.

Really not that complicated. I work on new 64bit machines frequently that have 2-3 minute boot times and programs move like slugs.

 

[Smilin]

The MFT is always placed at the center of the partition so that it's equidistant from the furthest tracks. If you have a single partition disk this means it's also equidistant from the furthest spots on the disk. The most the head will ever have to move is half the disk width from MFT to desired cluster.

If you partition anything beyond the smallest sliver then you've undone this efficiency becuase it's now possible for the head to have to travel beyond 1/2 disk width.

This isn't the worst part though. The worst part is you simply have two MFTs for two different sets of files (OS components and Application components). Both sets of files will be needed to run nearly any application. Even notepad opens DLLs. This is going to add a lot of random I/O in place of some relatively sequential I/O.

I think the fragmentation is the part that's really being over stated. Program files just don't fragment much unless you go on some uninstall spree. By the time you wake up in the morning your scheduled defrag (Vista?) should be done sorting that out.

We're pretty far into the realm of benchmarks in any case. People will notice crappy shell extensions even if they don't know what's causing it. Few will notice a fragmented hard drive unless it's really bad or they are doing I/O benchmarks.

BTW this place can be a very critical crowd. Even if I'm not sold on all your ideas you are presenting them well and handling the criticism gracefully. Many people would have gone off and flamed someone by now

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: Perry404

Originally posted by: nerp
I think the impact of fragmentation on performance is terribly overstated in this thread. It simply is not worth the time spent coming up with fancy and overcomplicated installations/partition arragements.

Really not that complicated. I work on new 64bit machines frequently that have 2-3 minute boot times and programs move like slugs.

I don't do any special tweaking and that doesn't happen to me on the machines in my sig. They all boot faster than XP and everything is pretty much instant as soon as I'm booted. Even my Celeron M 440 laptop with 2 GB running Vista 32 runs like a top. I've never manually initiated a defrag and let Vista do everything automatically. All systems scream.

If you have Vista 64 machines on modern hardware and they're running like slugs, you're doing something wrong.

 

[HeXploiT]

Originally posted by: Smilin
The MFT is always placed at the center of the partition so that it's equidistant from the furthest tracks. If you have a single partition disk this means it's also equidistant from the furthest spots on the disk. The most the head will ever have to move is half the disk width from MFT to desired cluster.

If you partition anything beyond the smallest sliver then you've undone this efficiency becuase it's now possible for the head to have to travel beyond 1/2 disk width.

This isn't the worst part though. The worst part is you simply have two MFTs for two different sets of files (OS components and Application components). Both sets of files will be needed to run nearly any application. Even notepad opens DLLs. This is going to add a lot of random I/O in place of some relatively sequential I/O.

I think the fragmentation is the part that's really being over stated. Program files just don't fragment much unless you go on some uninstall spree. By the time you wake up in the morning your scheduled defrag (Vista?) should be done sorting that out.

We're pretty far into the realm of benchmarks in any case. People will notice crappy shell extensions even if they don't know what's causing it. Few will notice a fragmented hard drive unless it's really bad or they are doing I/O benchmarks.

BTW this place can be a very critical crowd. Even if I'm not sold on all your ideas you are presenting them well and handling the criticism gracefully. Many people would have gone off and flamed someone by now

Well thank you kindly for that compliment sir.

 

[tcsenter]

If you're going to do something like this for I/O access and fragmentation benefits, use a second disk for the download/archived files along with a paging file on the second disk in its own exclusive partition. If you want successful kernel memory dumps, there must be an adequate paging file on the boot partition as well (2GB + 24MB will be the max for 32-bit kernel memory dumps). Windows will most utilize the paging file located on the partition/disk with the least I/O activity, which we want to be the second disk. If using IDE disks, configure each as master on separate IDE channels, not the same channel (SATA won't matter). For example:

Physical Disk 1
Partition 1 = OS boot/system (with or without paging file)
Partition 2 = Program/application files

Physical Disk 2
Partition 1 = Paging file
Partition 2 = Downloads/archived stuff

This configuration has the best chance of paying any benefits to speak of, and even in the best case scenario, its going to fall short of yielding any 'oh wow' factor.

 

[PrimoTurbo]

While it is a good idea to keep backup or media on separate partitions or drives, separating installed files and windows is not a good idea. Windows is really messy and you will run in to some programs that will not work well or assume things about the location of "Program Files". Plus if your Windows breaks, you programs will not work well since the registry will be gone, backups of registry don't work well because you will get too many missing and messy things on a new install. Furthermore many settings are stored under 'C:\Documents and Settings' like Mozilla profile, etc. I recommend simply backing up settings files for programs.

Best way to have a fast and clean system is to avoid installing things you don't need. Research the application before install, and if you do remove it I suggest going by hand and removing registry entries from regedit. Just make sure you are 100% about the files removed.

The biggest speed increase will can be attained by restricting unneeded services, startup programs, and avoiding any spyware/adware/viruses. You can check your msconfig for these, I disable every single non-Microsoft service and delete the entries from registry. I don't need MSN, driver tools, or anything else starting up. In startup I only have a single entry, Adobe Gamma. I don't use any running Virus protection, because it's slow rather I scan newly downloaded files and using my internet connection wisely. I haven't gotten any viruses since 98 days. Once in a while I will come across a torrent that contains something, but this is why it's important to always scan any downloaded executables.

I also disable restore points, shadows, drive indexing (keep files organized so you don't need to search, error reporting. I don't find any major increase in disabling unneeded Microsoft services, sometime I take the time to do this but I don't think there is a huge gain. Also partition once a month or so.

Here is a screenshot, on a P4 1.6Ghz 768 DDR RAM system.
http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/1856/99719813ap8.jpg

 

[nerp]

Ok, I lied. I do some minor tweaking.

I disable system restore, turn off defender's realtime scanning and limit it to a once-weekly scan and that's pretty much it.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: nerp
I disable system restore

/facepalm

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: nerp
I disable system restore

/facepalm

I understand your concerns and based on my normal comments here you might be surprised. I should clarify.

I disable system restore on my gaming desktop at home.

On my work box, it's enabled, of course. Same as my laptop, which I'm often on the road with and need to keep running in the event of a problem. This is why i always carry a USB stick with my critical documents with me whenever I'm on the road.

At home, my intel box can afford to be reformatted and reinstalled in the event of a problem. I still have piles of computers at my disposal and my work machines are backed up and ready to go at all times.

my MCE box has system restore disabled, too. Installing a fresh copy of the OS --- in the event of a disaster -- wouldn't take very long at all and that machine is connected to a TV, so I'm ONLY using it with a remote control.

For people with only one computer that they do everything on, system restore SHOULD be enabled, obviously. But if you're in a situation like me, there are sometimes systems that can be left somewhat unprotected and exposed to risk because the cost of failure is quite low. I also choose not to run antivirus software on my gaming box. If something happens, oh well. I'll pop in the Vista DVD and start over. Takes about an hour or so and the vast majority of the games i play are on steam, so that's just a 2 second install, minimize, forget about it.

On my work machines and laptop, they are locked down, backed up regularly and wearing the proverbial digital condoms required.