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Hack 93 More Power: Registry Hacks to Speed Up XP
Put your Registry-hacking knowledge to good
use: hack your way to running Windows XP at top speed.
Creating and marketing tuning and
customization utilities for the Windows XP operating system is
quickly becoming big business. A Google search will turn up hundreds
of sites and programs dedicated to tweaking Windows XP. But no matter
what type of interface is developed to make system tweaking easier
and safer for the average user, the end result is that the changes
are reflected in XP by modifying the Registry. For some people,
commercial tweaking utilities may be the method of choice, but with a
few precautions and safeguards it's possible to
enhance system performance without any tools other than those
supplied with Windows XP.
As you learned in Chapter 7, you can use Regedit
[Hack #68] to edit the Registry.
Make sure you take the precautions outlined in that chapter and back
up your Registry [Hack #71], no matter how
comfortable you are editing the thing.
No single tweak is going to take an ancient PC and turn it into a
gamer's dream machine. It's even
unlikely that a number of tweaks will achieve substantial performance
gains, but every little bit does help. As long as you keep your
expectations realistic, you'll learn something about
the Registry and hopefully see a performance increase in the process.
11.4.1 Menu Speed
When XP first appeared, there was
a lot of conversation about the new interface, both good and bad. In
spite of the initial complaints, most users stick with the default
settings rather than reverting to the Classic interface found in
previous Windows versions. But you may want to change the delay you
notice when you click on the Start Menu. I see no reason for there to
be any delay when I click on the Start Menu. Effects are pretty, but
I wouldn't click on it if I didn't
have business inside, so let's get it open and get
moving. The default speed can be adjusted with a quick Registry hack.
Go to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control
Panel\Desktop\MenuShowDelay. The default value is
400. Set it to 0 to remove the
delay completely, but if you do that it will be nearly impossible to
move the mouse fast enough not to activate All Programs if you mouse
over it en route to your final selection. Pick a number that suits
your style, make the change, then test it until you find a good
compromise between speed and usability.
11.4.2 Place Windows Kernel into RAM
It's a given that anything
that runs in RAM will be faster than an item that has to access the
hard drive and virtual memory. Rather than have the
kernel that is the foundation of XP
using the slower Paging Executive functions, use this
hack to create and set the DisablePagingExecutive
DWORD to a value of 1.
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Edit the Registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive to
1 to disable paging and have the kernel run in RAM
(set the value to 0 to undo this hack). Exit the
Registry and reboot.
11.4.3 Alter Prefetch Parameters
Prefetching
(the reading of system boot files into a cache for faster loading) is
a commonly overlooked component that can have a significant impact on
system boot time. This tweak allows you to select which components
will make use of the prefetch parameters. To see which files are
gathered using each of the settings, clear the prefetch cache located
at C:\Windows\Prefetch and then enable one of
the settings listed in this hack. Clear the cache and repeat for each
setting.
Set the Registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher
to 0 to disable prefetching,
1 to prefetch application launch files,
2 to prefetch boot files, or 3
to prefetch as many files as possible.
11.4.4 Disable 8.3 Name Creation in NTFS
Files
that use the 8.3 naming convention can degrade
NTFS drive
performance. Unless you have a good reason for keeping the 8.3
naming convention intact (such as if
you're using 16-bit programs), a performance gain
can be achieved by disabling it:
Set the Registry DWORD key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro
l\FileSystem\NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation
to 1. Exit the Registry and reboot.
Jim Foley
