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How to get the most out of your machine with Windows 7...

Greetings,

 

There is a lot of speculation and debate on what to do when you have lots of memory, SSDs or both.  Some say not to use a page file, some say to turn indexing off.

 

What I want to know is what Microsoft has to say about it?

 

Does anyone know if such a document exists for Windows 7 64-bit versions?

 

Thank you for taking the time to read,

 

IO

Hi,

don't turn off page file. Let Windows manage the settings.

"Tweaking" your Windows with tools or registry entries may improve the overall speed by 0.5%, but may causes issues.

Leave Windows as it is. If you have any boot trouble, follow my guide here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/trace-windows-7-boot-shutdown-hibernate-standby-resume-issues-t140247.html

If you have high CPU usage follow those guides:
http://www.msfn.org/board/get-cause-high-cpu-usage-caused-apps-t140264.html
http://www.msfn.org/board/get-cause-high-cpu-usage-dpc-interrupt-t140263.html

And look at the diagrams, to see what causes the issues.

If everything is fine, don't touch your Windows 7.

André
"A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

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Some apps are coded to use the pagefile, so if you have the pagefile off some apps may not work. The pagefile is best kept on. With SSDs, since they have a short lifespan with read/write operations, you need to not defrag or index or other activities that involve a lot of moving files, as it is a quick way to wear out a SSD drive.   My"> favorite threads | Computer tips       Contact me | 'Gadget' programs

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Thank you so much for your answer, I was not looking for “Registry Hacks” or  “Over clocking TIPS”.  I agree, with the thought of letting the OS do its job.  However, I just wanted to know if there were things to do in the UI that could help me utilize my machine better.  I have the following machine:

 

Lenovo D20 4158-28U

-         Upgraded CPUs to 2 x W5590

-         Off the onboard SAS controller 2 x Intel G2 34NM 160GB in Raid0

-         Data disk is 2 x 80 GB Fusion IO disks in Raid0

-         48 GB of REG ECC DDR 3 Memory

-         Nvidia Quadro FX 5800 ( I also have a GTX295 but not installed)

 

I find if I look at Perf Mon and the task manager and the usage of any of the applications that I use (Light Room, Photoshop, AoC and MS Office Ult2K7 are the only things on the machine besides WDefender and the current version of McAfee (AV ONLY)) they are not completely loaded into memory.  I know that the machine pages if you like it to or not but I just want to utilize more of the RAM I have.  Maybe the machine would behave differently if I did not have the striped disks and ran with the page file on a separate single disk.

 

I am aware of the shelf life of the SSDs but I don’t care much as I back up my data and configs once a day to my NAS.  I guess with the architecture of the OSes today it is hard not to wonder throwing  SSDs and memory at machines is not a waste of time.

 

Thanks again for you thoughts,

 

IO

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I'm not sure if this tip is still useful for Win7, but I still use it on my machine, I guess it's hard to break old habits, and since I have an *OLD* machine, I figure it still probably applies.

Instead of disabling or letting Windows manage my Swap file, I make the file size the same for both Min and Max size.  I believe the rule used to be 4x whatever your physical RAM is, but that was before we had a huge amount of RAM.  Mine is set to 4GB, because I believe that's the max you can set it at ... at least the max for each individual drive, and even though I have 2 drives, I'm just leaving it at 4GB.  If you are running a laptop and have a "recovery" drive from the laptop manufacturer, that's a good place to stick the Swap file, if there's room.

And yes, I do typically turn off indexing, but again, that's likely because I have such an old system.  I know when the indexing feature first came out (I forget exactly what it was called), there was a broad warning on the internet that it would cause your system to slow down, even if you're using it, even though it was designed to only operate when the system was idle.

One other tip, that I believe would apply to Win7 ... since you have such a huge amount of RAM, you should check your Hibernate setting.  If you are running a desktop, it is likely not necessary to even utilize this feature.  I am trying to find it on my system, and not sure if they removed it, or just removed it for desktops, but if I remember, it will save everything in your system memory to a file, if your pc loses power, which is handy for laptops, but I think it's a waste for desktops.

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Last updated March 15, 2018 Views 1,036 Applies to: