Performance

Faster Booting

Faster System Operation

Faster Booting

Part 1

The biggest improvement I've found (about 25 seconds on my system) is dropping ndis2sup from the system startup. If you want to do this, use Boot Log Analyzer to check for load failures. If you see a line that says "Loadfailed =ndis2sup.vxd", your system is not equipped to use this file so it's safe to dump it. Follow these steps:

  1. Use the Registry Editor to drill down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\NDIS

  2. Save a copy of the registry key by using File/Export Registry File (make sure "Selected Branch" is checked and give it a name like "OrigNDIS.reg")

  3. Now, highlight the key StaticVxD (in the right panel), and use Edit/Modify to pop up the editing dialog box.

  4. Edit out the reference to ndis2sup.vxd (and any superfluous commas) and close the box.

  5. Exit and reboot.

Recovery:

If your system (particularly networking) misbehaves immediately after this, you can restore your original settings by:

  • - from Windows, simply double-click on "OrigNDIS.reg"

    - or -

  • -from DOS, type SCANREG ORIGNDIS

I spent a full day testing and timing various configuration changes, registry hacks, and other tips and have found significant improvements in these two changes.

Part 2

Using the System Information utility, I disabled Scan Registry.

(SYSINFO.EXE/Tools/System Configuration Utility/Startup) or more directly (MSCONFIG.EXE/Startup) This cut another 18 seconds off my startup time.

Warning! This will disable automatic daily backup of your registry! You must assume reponsibility for running ScanReg regularly, or risk losing the system if the registry is corrupted.

This change will prevent daily backups of the registry from being made (something the Win98 does in its default configuration). However, I manually force backups as part of my usual day-end shutdown, when I also optimize the registry (using RegClean and Norton's WinDoctor) and defrag the drive (using Norton's SpeedDisk).

To make manual backups easy, you can create an shortcut for scanregw.exe, and using properties add "/backup" to the end of the command line. Clicking on this will cause your current registry to be backed up immediately.

This is extremely useful just prior to making a major installation on the system.

Click here to download a desktop shortcut that will back up your registry.

Faster System Operation

You can cut the amount of time dedicated to defragging way down by using Norton Speed Disk and setting it up with some consideration for keeping its workload down.

First, fix your swapfile minimum size at 2-3 times the size of your RAM. (I have 128M RAM, and an 8GB drive formatted in a single partition, so I set my swapfile min and max both at 384MB.) Speed Disk moved this down to the bottom of the drive where it gets fast access when needed. Since the size is fixed, it never gets fragmented and, more importantly, never contributes to the fragmentation of other files on the drive.

Second, configure Speed Disk to put the drivers and program files (*.exe, *.dll, *.386, *.sys, *.ocx, *.vxd) at the beginning of the drive for fast access, and since they change infrequently, they'll rarely become fragmented if they're stored together.

Third, set parameters in Speed Disk to move the bulky, unchanging files on the system to the top of the drive. These files (*.hlp, *.zip, *.chm, *.cab, *.gid, \windows\help\*\*) include help files and compressed installation files that are not frequently accessed and rarely (if ever) changed.

Since large portions of the drive no longer become fragmented, system performance stays high, and these areas don't require any attention during defrags, cutting down defrag time. All that's left is the middle section of the drive which contains the files that do get regularly updated, and they can be cleaned up quickly.

After doing this to my own system, fragmentation is now such a low level issue that it needs to be done only every week or two, and it usually takes only 10 or 15 minutes.

Works for me . . .

To fix your swapfile minimum size, follow these steps:

  1. in Control Panel/System, select the Performance tab

  2. click on the Virtual Memory button
  3. click on "Let me specify my own virtual memory settings", and set the minimun size to 2.5 or 3x the amount of your RAM, then click OK
  4. ignore the dire warnings about manually setting your swapfile, and your new settings will take effect after re-booting