The Net Gate

Optimize Firefox (3.0.x)

Firefox can be manually tweaked by typing ‘ about:config’ in the address bar and then modifying the values of the respective fields of the Firefox control panel (i.e. the page that is displayed).

However, the easier way is to use FireTune, a freeware tool that helps to fine tune network related settings of Firefox.

If that is not enough, then you may consider the Configuration Mania extension to tweak many of the advanced (and hidden) settings.

Disable or remove any unused or unnecessary plug-ins, extensions and add-ons.

To minize page load time, I recommend to install these extensions:

Flashblock (to control Flash animation)

PDF Download (to control PDF files)

While Firefox can be instaledl without (Windows) administration rights, you may encounter problems to install plug-ins. Here is some good advice to install the Flash Player plugin.

iTunes 9 – settings

These settings I have applied on my iTunes 9 software to get the best performance on my Windows system. Some of these tasks (like 1 and 2) may need to be re-run after an iTunes upgrade. This environment work fine for all my iPods (shuffle, nano and classic).

1) Remove the help executables in the windows startup file:

Run ‘msconfig’ and disable (untag) the two lines in the startup file:

2) Disable the Apple Mobile Device (since I do not have such a device)

Run ‘services.msc’ – stop the service and disable this service (right-click on the item and choose modify)

3) Reboot and start iTunes

On the top menu, select Edit, Preferences and review the settings in each of the tabs:

Tuning the Windows environment – Windows XP re-install

Here is a guide to refurbish a Windows XP Laptop system; in other words, re-installing Windows from scratch. In this case, the Laptop was a Toshiba Satellite 1800-514 which has a Celeron 1 GHz processor and 384 Mb RAM (128MB + 256MB) installed and a 15Gb internal hard drive. It is a ‘legacy’ system with limited resources, indeed. However, with some tweaking, it will still perform well for common applications. After customization, the system was able to run iTunes 9, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Office 2003 suite.

1)      Backup all data.
Make sure you are logged on with administrator privileges. Change the folder options to include hidden files and system folders.
Search the system for data files. Not all files may reside under ‘My Documents’, in particular also scan the Shared folders on the system.
An easy way to perform the backup is to use the ‘Sysback’ tool.

2)      Backup user profile specific files.
Custom desktop wallpaper files are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\<user profile>\Local Settings\Microsoft\
Custom account picture files are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\

3)      Backup user mailboxes.
In case of Microsoft Outlook Express, it wise to follow my Microsoft Outlook Express housekeeping steps.

4)      Backup or get a copy of specific drivers for video, sound, modem and network support. In particular, keep a copy of the video drivers; download the most up to date copy from the manufacturer’s site (e.g. NVIDIA or ATI), if necessary. Check if any other specific files or settings have to be saved. Check the equipment model and version in the Device Manager (Control Panel, System, Hardware). The auto detection of some of the devices may not work for older systems, so write them down.

5)      Save your Wireless Network Connection settings, in particular, ensure you note the network name (SSID) and security key.

6)      Set the CD-ROM as first bootable drive in the BIOS and reboot the system with the Windows XP installation CD. Remove all external drives! If not, windows may install them as system drives.

7)      Before starting the windows installation process, check the available partitions. Ideally, you should create a partition to install windows on (with at least 30 Gb) and a partition for the user data files (any remaining space). If the drive is too small (50 Gb or less), just use one partition. More information about partitioning is available in my ‘dedicated data partition‘ post. In this case the system has only 15 Gb, which means that you should remain with only one partition.

8)      Once Windows has been installed, proceed with the custom driver installation. The first to update is the video driver. Then check the Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager: for any device with a (yellow) question mark, you will need to install or update the driver. Use the files from step 4, install from the manufacturer CD (if available) or download from the internet. This step is only successful if no question marks occur in the Device Manager list. You may need to reboot the system after installation of some device drivers.

9)      Start the customization of your windows environment:
Regional and Language Options (in the Control Panel) are a minimum to verify, in particular the keyboard settings (in the Languages tab, Details) need to match the attached keyboard lay-out.
Name and Company Information can be changed in the Registry. Follow the Microsoft instructions.
Apply the items of my ‘Windows XP optimization‘ post.
In this particular case, I applied additional tweaks to improve the performance:

1. Verification if some services can be disabled (refer to my ‘disable services’ post).
2. Prefetch setting was set to value 1-App launch (instead of 3-Both):
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher].
3. Last Access Timestamp was disabled
   [run: FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1]
4. DOS 8.3 filename creation was disabled
   [run: FSUTIL behavior set disable8dot3 1]
5. Performance counters were disabled
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib]
   (run regedit and create DWORD ‘DisablePerformanceCounters’)
   Set the value of DisablePerformanceCounters to 1
6. Disable ‘Automatically search for network folders and printers’ in the Control Panel, Folder Options, View tab.
7. Process idle tasks in the background (this operation may be periodically repeated).
   (run ‘Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks’)

10)   Set the Hard Drive as first bootable drive in the BIOS and reboot the system. Make sure the system is connected to the internet (a wired connection, not Wi-Fi), to allow windows updates to occur. The system may need to be rebooted upon request. In this particular case, only a Wi-Fi adaptor was available.

11)   Install all applications (respect the copyrights) and printers. This may be a good opportunity to upgrade the system with the latest version of the applications. Check on the software developer’s site if any new versions are available. In this case, Firefox 3.5.5 was installed instead of Internet Explorer 8.  Firefox performed better when I checked the performance of the browser, using the Network Tools on my ADSL page.

12)   Create a system ‘restore point’ (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore).

13)   Restore the data from step 1, 2 and 3. Check the user privileges and access rights of the restored data (try to copy a file to an USB key, to check the file access rights).

14)   Perform the five essential steps in XP Maintenance.

Tuning the Windows environment – Windows XP speed optimization

Here is a list of items that I apply to optimize a Windows XP system.

1)      Review the System Properties
Adjust the Performance Options in the Advanced Tab:

1. Visual Effects:
   Adjust for best performance.
   In case you want to keep the look and feel of XP, then tag:
   visual styles, common tasks in folders, show window contents while dragging, smooth edges of screen fonts, smooth-scroll list boxes.
   
   Additionally, you may disable the Start Menu delay in the registry:
   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\]
   set MenuShowDelay to 0
2. Virtual Memory (Advanced Tab):
   Adjust the pagefile size used for Virtual Memory (a.k.a. swap file). The recommended size is equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of physical installed memory (RAM) on your system.
   In case you have a (fast) secondary or subsequent physical internal drive installed in your system (not an external drive), you may opt to move the paging file to one of these drives.
   
3. Disable Error Reporting (Advanced Tab)
   
4. Adjust Environment Variables (Advanced Tab)
   Match the location for the ‘Temp’ directory in the ‘User variables’ and in ‘System variables’
   
5. Adjust the Automatic Updates selection to Notify only.
   
6. Review the Device Manager IDE controllers (Hardware Tab)
    Enable DMA on primary IDE channel
   

2)      Disable indexing services
In Control Panel, choose Administrative Tools, Services, Indexing Service.
By default, indexing is disabled on my System Hard Disk partition. Other drive partitions should also be considered, if the Search function is not or seldom used.

3)      Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile
The Virtual Memory Pagefile (a.k.a. swap file) may become fragmented.
I use two options to keep this file ‘tidy’:
option 1: Regularly perform a pagefile defrag (see ‘Five essential steps in XP Maintenance‘).
option 2: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile at shutdown
This option is also used for security purposes. It ensures that no traces are left on the system and prevents other operating systems to ‘sneak’ into this file.
The backdraw is a slower shut down.
Enable this policy in the registry to clear the system Pagefile upon shutdown.[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
Set ClearPageFileAtShutdown value to 0

4)      Move the Temporary Internet Files (TIF) folder from the default location.
In ‘Internet Options’, select the ‘General’ tab, Temporary Internet Files box, Settings button, Move Folder button. Move the folder to the root location of any of the permanent drive partitions (like D:\). Note that this is a hidden folder and therefore may not be visible by default.

Windows XP re-install

Here is a guide to refurbish a Windows XP desktop system; in other words, re-installing Windows from scratch. In this case, the desktop was a Dell Dimension 4550 on which three user profiles were defined.

1)      Backup all data for each user profile.
Make sure you are logged on with administrator privileges. Change the folder options to include hidden files and system folders.
Search the system for data files. Not all files may reside under ‘My Documents’, in particular also scan the Shared folders on the system.
An easy way to perform the backup is to use the ‘Syncback’ tool.

2)      Backup user profile specific files.
Custom desktop wallpaper files are stored in c:\Documents and Settings\<user profile>\Local Settings\Microsoft\
Custom account picture files are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\

3)      Backup user mailboxes.
In case of Microsoft Outlook Express, it wise to follow my Microsoft Outlook Express housekeeping steps.

4)      Backup or get a copy of specific drivers for video, sound, modem and network support. In particular, keep a copy of the video drivers; download the most up to date copy from the manufacturer’s site (e.g. NVIDIA or ATI), if necessary. Check if any other specific files or settings have to be saved.

5)      Set the CD-ROM as first bootable drive in the BIOS and reboot the system with the Windows XP installation CD. Remove all external drives! If not, windows may install them as system drives.

6)      Before starting the windows installation process, check the available partitions. Ideally, you should create a partition to install windows on (with at least 30 Gb) and a partition for the user data files (any remaining space). If the drive is too small (50 Gb or less), just use one partition. More information about partitioning is available in my ‘dedicated data partition‘ post.

7)      Once Windows has been installed, proceed with the custom driver installation. The first to update is the video driver. Then check the Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager: for any device with a (yellow) question mark, you will need to install or update the driver. Use the files from step 4, install from the manufacturer CD (if available) or download from the internet. This step is only successful if no question marks occur in the Device Manager list. You may need to reboot the system after installation of some device drivers.

8)      Start the customization of your windows environment:
Regional and Language Options (in the Control Panel) are a minimum to verify, in particular the keyboard settings (in the Languages tab, Details) need to match the attached keyboard lay-out.
Name and Company Information can be changed in the Registry. Follow the Microsoft instructions.
Apply the items of my ‘Windows XP optimization‘ post.

9)      Set the Hard Drive as first bootable drive in the BIOS and reboot the system. Make sure the system is connected to the internet (wired connection, not Wi-Fi), to allow windows updates to occur. The system may need to be rebooted upon request.

10)   Install all applications (respect the copyrights) and printers. This may be a good opportunity to uprade the system with the latest version of the applications. Check on the software developer’s site if any new versions are available.

11)   Create a system ‘restore point’ (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore).

12)   Create the user profiles and restore the data from step 1, 2 and 3. Check each user profile, in particular the user privileges and access rights of the restored data (try to copy a file to an external drive, to check the file access rights).
Visual Effects may need to be reviewed for each user profile.

13)   Perform the Five essential steps in XP Maintenance.

Five essential steps in XP Maintenance

Check the disk space for a successful defragmentation. If the system disk has less than 10% free space then install the tools in the next steps on another partition. If no other partition is available, then uninstall unused software first.

1) Cleanup the XP hotfixes and reclaim disk space (see related post)

2) Cleanup the temporary and unused files and the registry (use a cleanup tool like ‘ccleaner‘)

3) Defragment the system disk (use a tool like MyDefrag)

4) Defragment the registry (use a tool like Auslogics registry defrag)

5) Defragment the Pagefile (use a tool like Windows Sysinternals PageDefrag)

XP Housekeeping

The foundation to make the housekeeping process easy and efficient is the partioning of my hard disk(s).

While the primary partition holds the operating system and programme files, the secondary is dedicated to the data files. This way, the operating system may be re-installed at any time without data loss. Disk cleanup and defragmentation will run faster and more efficient. Finally, also the system performance may be improved.

Removing unused and temporary information from your system allows Windows to run faster and more efficiently:

• Perform a regular disk cleanup and defragmentation of the volumes
• Perform a regular registry cleanup and defragmentation
• Perform a regular complete virus scan of your disks
• Perform a regular complete spyware scan of your system
• Defrag the pagefile

Check my ‘Five Essential Steps in XP Maintenance‘ post and Best of Breed section for a selection of freeware tools to help you with these tasks.

Dutch speaking users may check PcLeek.com which offers an excellent digest of XP and Vista help pages!

Check out the Windows Sysinternals website for latest tool developments.