Tuesday, September 30, 2008

64-bit VISTA Tricks

I got a new notebook today with 64-bit VISTA pre-installed. It will replace a Desktop that had 64-bit VISTA on there. My friend Andy Firth provided me with the following tricks to make my life easier (it has a 64 GB solid state in there, so no hard-drive optimizations):

Switch Off User Account Control
This gets rid of the on-going "are you sure" questions.
Go to Control Panel. Click on User Account and switch it off.

Disable Superfetch
Press Windows key + R. Start services.msc and scroll down until you find Superfetch. Double click on it and change the startup type to Disabled.
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6 comments:

  1. baxissimoSeptember 30, 2008 at 7:26 PM

    For those not in the know (like me a moment ago):
    """
    Windows SuperFetch enables programs and files to load much faster than they would on Windows XP–based PCs.
    """
    (Link)

    So why is it a good idea to disable it?

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  2. RorySeptember 30, 2008 at 7:45 PM

    What kind of laptop did you get? I'm interested because I'm in the market for something that will run my DX10 apps.

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  3. Wolfgang EngelSeptember 30, 2008 at 9:58 PM

    Lenovo X301 wiht 64-bit VISTA pre-installed ... has an INTEL integrated chipset that is very slow but it runs all but one DX10 examples in the August DX10 SDK. The one that does not run is the procedural material example.

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  4. Wolfgang EngelSeptember 30, 2008 at 9:59 PM

    regarding the superfetch ... I think we you compile code you generate files all the time. I assume setting up the superfetch with those files takes longer than what you get out of the superfetch.

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  5. Andy FirthOctober 1, 2008 at 9:36 AM

    my laptop is a 2.6Ghz Duo running vista64, 4gb ram and 2x120Gb 7200 HDDs with a 1080p screen.

    The Reason i recommended turning off superfetch was due to the HDD thrashing it causes.

    It essentially fills memory with programs (note... programs ONLY) that it thinks you will need, it stores a runable version afaik.

    thus for me personally i'd be happily running along with a low tide of about 1.5Gb (denenv.exe * 3 + pix + outlook) and then i'd compile say... ps3... compiling itself doesn't use that much but linking uses over 1Gb... as soon as my system required this it had to page out the preloaded stuff before it could use the memory allocated to the linker.

    a rough timing showed that ps3 linking was around 300% faster with superfetch OFF compared to it being on. 360 linkage was less affected but still noticeably so at around 50% faster.

    Further to that i run my laptop as a mobile devstation (sans power cord) on the train.

    with superfetch on i noticed that the HDD would be continuously on which resulted in the batter life being noticeable shorter (i didn't time this).

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  6. LeGregJanuary 8, 2009 at 2:43 PM

    You should disable windows search too (hdd working continuously due to indexing). Unless you use that search feature frequently.

    I've also disabled : Defender, Windows firewall.

    I kept the UAC though (but that's psychology for me as I think I should strive to make things work more easily with UAC on)..

    Your mileage may vary of course.

    LeGreg
    -- In a coder's mind

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