The Geek Guide : Creating a Windows 95/98 Speed Demon

The Geek Guide Volume 2.4 : Creating a Windows 95/98 Speed Demon
Created by Angst - 12/00

It's really hard to tell just how fast your computer is, when you constantly upgrade hardware and software, but I'm here to tell you that it can be MUCH faster if you are running Windows 95 or 98 operating systems.

Quite often when people buy PCs, they are pre-loaded and configured, or they are build from the ever-popular "recovery" cds. Let me tell you, your PC couldn't run Windows much slower than the pre-configured version, with the exception of some terrible mishaps. So, let's take a look at some ways to speed things up a bit.

I. Role Playing

The role that your computer is defined, could have significant impact on the way windows caches your paths and files. What the hell is a role, you ask? Well, it is basically the classification of your system…Will it act like a desktop computer, a file server, a firewall, or something else?

By default, Windows sets the typical role of the machine to "Desktop computer" which only reserves enough memory to cache 32 paths and 677 files. To get the optimum level of performance, change the typical role to "Network server" which will effectively increase the cache to 64 paths and 2,729 files.

        1. Click Start/Settings/Control Panel
        2. Double-click on the System icon
        3. Select the tab for Performance
        4. Choose the selection for File System
        5. For Typical Role of This Computer, change this to Network Server

For Read-ahead optimization, you should set the bar all the way to the right to allocate 64 KB to the read-ahead buffer.

This will reduce the number of times your system has to access the hard disk by loading the extra data into memory, reducing disk operations.

II. CD-ROM

Changing the size of your CD-ROM is also useful for increasing the amount of extra data that can be read when Windows accesses it.

        1. Choose the CD-ROM tab
        2. Before changing the slider, choose the drop down list and select the
            Quad speed or higher option
        3. Next slide the bar all the way to the right for the large cache setting to
             increase the amount of data that can be read.
        4. All Done! Click APPLY/OK

III. Virtual Memory Swapping

The last step before exiting out is to speed up the access time on the current swap file. When you allow Windows to handle the swap file automatically it sometimes leads to periods of hard disk activity where your mouse and keyboard become virtually frozen.

        1. You should now be back at File Properties
        2. Still under the Performance tab
        3. Click on the Virtual Memory tab

In the virtual memory dialog box, you should see two options. "Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings" is the default setting.

        1. Choose Let me specify my own virtual memory settings

If you have multiple hard drives choose the fastest one to create your swap file on.

The general rule of thumb is to set the minimum and maximum size, 2 ½ to 3 times the size of your physical memory.

So, if you have 64 MB of RAM, you should set both settings to either 160 MB or 192 MB.

This one step will minimize the swapping of drivers and applications between virtual memory and the hard disk, which chew up big-time cycles on your CPU.

IV. Cache!

Power gamers and casual users alike usually have more than 16MB's of RAM. If so, you can improve the performance of the programs you use by changing the allotted amount of RAM Windows provides to Vcache.

Vcache is what Windows uses to hold the hard disk information you've accessed most recently. It can grow or shrink dynamically, using as much of your system memory as it needs. In some cases this can be a good thing because it lets your PC reduce the number of times it has to access the disk.

On the other hand the cache can easily take more than half of your system memory, increasing the amount of information that is sent out to the swap file on your hard disk. And reading information from the hard drive is much slower than reading from memory.

To limit the size of the cache, we must edit the System.ini file. To do so:

        1. Go to the Start menu and choose RUN
        2. Type in SYSEDIT
        3. Click on OK and bring up the SYSTEM.INI file.
        4. Search down through the file until you find the section called [Vcache].
        5. Edit the lines below it or add the following if it does not exist with value
            equaling a specified number:

MinFileCache=value
MaxFileCache=value

Below is a sample chart you can use to help determine what values to place in your SYSTEM.INI file. The rule of thumb is for the maximum cache size to be about 25 percent of the total memory you have available in your system:

Amount of RAM Available	MinFileCache	MaxFileCache
16	1024	4096
32	2048	6144
64	4096	16384
128	4096	32769

Performance improvements will depend on the types of applications you run. If you keep a large amount of applications open but they don't use the hard drive heavily, it may benefit your performance if you use a lower setting for MaxFileCache value.

Use your best judgment when configuring the setting, since you have a feel for the use of your system.

V. Find Fast? I don't think so!

If you use Microsoft Office, you've probably noticed your PC slowing down every couple of hours while the hard drive thrashes about. The reason? Probably the Find Fast utility building indexes of all Office documents for searches. To keep these indexes current, Find Fast will update them every 2 hours by default. (This is probably the time you hear your floppy drive whirring like crazy, if you have ever saved an office file to floppy disk.) If you work with a large number of documents or have a fast PC, then it may be ok to keep running it. If not, you can disable it, change the update interval or update the indexes manually.

To disable it completely, You can use one of the following methods.

        1. Choose Start/Settings/Control Panel
        2. Double-click the Find Fast icon:

Once in the Find Fast window,

        1. Choose Index, and the Delete Index option.
        2. From the In and below drop-down list, select an index and click OK.
        3. If the list has multiple indexes, repeat until they've all been deleted.
        4. Next, find and delete the Microsoft Office Find Fast Indexer shortcut by
            right clicking on the Start button and moving to the StartUp folder to delete
            it.

Another way to get to the same spot is by using Windows' Explorer to look in:

        Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

        1. From here, delete the Find Fast Indexer shortcut.
        2. If you're sure you'll never need Find Fast again, you can run Office's
            setup and have it remove the utility completely.

If you are using Office 97 or higher, you change the interval so it doesn't interrupt you in peak work times.

        1. To start, open the Find Fast window from Control Panel as earlier.
            Choose Index, Update Interval.
        2. Type an interval in hours then click OK.

Finally, to update the indexes manually:

        1. Open the Find Fast window from Control Panel.
        2. Choose Index, Create Index to make a new index for a hard disk or
            folder.
        3. Type the path in the In and below box, and select the file types you
            want indexed from the Of type drop-down list.
        4. Be sure that Continue to update automatically is not checked, then click
            OK.
        5. To update existing indexes, choose Index, Update Index.
        6. Select an index from the In and below drop-down list, again be sure that
            Continue to update automatically is not checked, then click OK.

VI. Faster Startup

Windows will usually pause a few seconds to allow you to switch into DOS if needed. To shave those extra seconds off the startup time you can edit a protected system file called MSDOS.SYS.

DO NOT CHANGE ANY SETTINGS, YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH!

Removing the protection
        1. Click Start/Find/Files or Folders
        2. In the box labeled NAMED: type MSDOS.SYS
        3. If more than one of these files is found, you will need to edit the one
            located on C:
        4. Right-click on the file and choose Properties
        5. Remove the checkmark from Read-Only

Now you will need to edit the file.

        1. Using the same FIND window, double click on MSDOS.SYS
        2. If the Open With windows appears, scroll down the list a choose NOTEPAD and click OK.

DO NOT CLOSE THE FIND WINDOW

        3. Scroll down until the [Options] section is located.
        4. Add the command BootDelay=0 or BootDelay=1 depending on how much faster you want it to load.

The Boot Delay option tells Windows to boot directly into the graphical user interface without pausing (for the 0 setting) to give users the opportunity to switch into DOS.

        1. Back in the FIND window, right-click on the MSDOS.SYS file and choose Properties again.
        2. Place the checkmark back on the Read-Only option.

For an additional boost of speed you can also add the Dblspace=0 and DrvSpace=0 commands under [Options] Section.

Dblspace=0 disables the loading of the DBLSPACE.BIN driver (Microsoft's old disk compressor) and DrvSpace=0 disables the loading of the DRVSPACE.BIN (Updated version of disk compressor), so if you don't use compression go ahead and stop these from loading.

VII. Miscellaneous Tweaks

During Startup, Windows loads all the FONTS that you've installed which makes startup tedious and takes up memory. You can cut start time by limiting yourself to the number of fonts you depend on.

The easiest way? Create a directory under windows i.e.>c:\windows\fontextras
and copy all the fonts you won't use into it. If there is ever a font you need, then copy it from the backup fonts directory, use it then remove it.

Some fonts to consider keeping: Marlett, Arial, Times New Roman, Courier, Wingdings, and Veranda, all of which Windows and Microsoft Office use more often than not.

That's about it for now, hopefully your system is running much cleaner than before, and you are ready to dive into your hardware. There are other things you can do, like make sure you aren't running in "MS_DOS" compatibility mode, etc., but I'll leave that for next issue: Optimizing Hardware Configurations. Coming in January. That issue will also cover some problems specific it Compaq computers.

--Angst.

Thanks to all of the random websites which offered some of the above information. I'm sorry I don't remember a single one of your addresses. Everyone can feel free to contact Angst for whatever reason...no spam please.

<%'Created by Angst AKA E.Stegner, December 2000%>