Windows 7 Tips & Tweaks

[AlienwareALX]

http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2009/05/what-is-hiberfilsys-and-how-to-delete-in-windows-7-free-up-hard-drive-space/

 

There you go folks. It's called Hiberfil.sys and is a huge file created by the hibernate function. If you want to check out just how huge then grab a tool called JDiskReport by Jtools (AKA Jgoodies). It's free and gives you lovely little pie charts so you can see exactly how your drive is being gobbled up and by what.

 

Then you can go about cutting the fat from the bones :cool:

[james crispy]

Great stuff guys.

 

Keep the tips comin'!!

[deJung75]

Hi guys,

I gotta problem.

I got admin-rights on my Win7 Ultimate system, but still can`t move my "temporary Internet"-folder. I tried to move it onto drive d:.

What did i wrong?

 

But anyway, really great tipps, thanx!

 

greetz to all,

deJung75

[PimpYo]

I would change it to E:\temp and then it would tell me I have to logoff, and then when I log back in it would still be C:\temp yadda yadda.

 

What I had to do to get it to work was let it log me off, then restart the computer instead of logging back on.

 

Worked when I did that.

[ttorski]

We can also move appdata from the user folder to another location (another drive)

 

Regedit >

 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

[jasondhsd]

Any advice on what the prefetch and superfetch should be set to in Windows 7? The options (for both) are Disable, Application Launch enabled, Boot enabled, boot and application enabled. And what about "disable large system cache"? I'm using the SSD Tweak utility I found somewhere.

[Count]

I would like to humbly suggest an addition to the Windows 7 Tips & Tweaks:

 

If your computer is allowed to sleep in your Power Plan, make sure Hybrid Sleep and Hibernate are turned off. If Hybrid Sleep or hibernate is on, everything in RAM is written to the hard drive when the computer sleeps.

 

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e88/kdrain/PowerOptions.jpg

 

The downside to this is that if you allow your computer to sleep without Hybrid Sleep or Hibernate, and there is a power failure, any unsaved work on your computer will be lost.

[Mudd]

so should prefetch be disabled? or just superfetch? also should you turn off write caching policy ?

[acyl10]

Also, shift your email folders to another drive. Quite worthwhile I think, as emails tend to be constant small write/read/erase blocks (especially if you're not employing a server-side spam-trap!)

[x509]

Also, shift your email folders to another drive. Quite worthwhile I think, as emails tend to be constant small write/read/erase blocks (especially if you're not employing a server-side spam-trap!)

 

For years, I have kept all my data, all of it!, on a separate D: DATA partition or drive. That way, if/when Windows gets hosed, I don't lose all my data.

 

There are lot of applications that default to storing your data in the C:\Documents and Settings folder. It takes some work to force the apps to store their data files on the D: drive, but I do it because it's worth it.

 

x509

[acyl10]

For years, I have kept all my data, all of it!, on a separate D: DATA partition or drive. That way, if/when Windows gets hosed, I don't lose all my data.

 

There are lot of applications that default to storing your data in the C:\Documents and Settings folder. It takes some work to force the apps to store their data files on the D: drive, but I do it because it's worth it.

 

x509

 

For sure! On a related note, do you (or does anyone) know how to shift where media player stores it's track/album info (specifically MP12 on Win7)?

[NoBS]

For sure! On a related note, do you (or does anyone) know how to shift where media player stores it's track/album info (specifically MP12 on Win7)?

 

I do not use the default programs, but even 3rd party SW defaults to wherever the folder location is set.

To Change folders location browse to C:\"Your_login_name"\"Folder_of_Chocie" and right click for properties and go to "Location" tab, move them to a different drive/folder. Naming the folder to ["User"_D/"Folder_of_Chocie_D, _M, _V"] might make it easier to verify if some new proggy defaults to "C" drive scratch folder.

I consider these a must: My Downloads, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures and My Videos. I even move Contacts, Favorites, Links, Saved Searches and Saved Games even though I never use 'em. Not sure why, because I can?

 

Remember to do the same for each user, even "Public" if your networking.

 

Although it was mentioned that all programs can also be installed on another drive, I found this to be much slower because my data drives are all mechanical and have noticable access time delays, kind of defeats the reason we use SSD.

 

Kind of like an OS weight watchers thing ;):

Not to mention your backups will be smaller.

Must also remember to back-up the other folder/drives with your back-up proggy!

 

I alway set up 3 drives, "D" (data), "M" (music) & "V" (VOB_video).

So I can just pick and choose what to BU and when N where.

OS & Data is daily, Music is weekly and the fat vids are monthly.

I DO NOT use Windows restore, YMMV.

[SSDMonts]

What is the advantage to disabling Windows Search? I like to search emails and other files and enjoy the lightning fast respoce. Why disable?

[felipeCorsario]

What is the advantage to disabling Windows Search? I like to search emails and other files and enjoy the lightning fast respoce. Why disable?

 

I really would like to know also, why Search should be disabled, in order to optmize the SSD. I think Search in Windows 7 is vey helpful....

 

Wait for your replies :)

 

Thanks

[Wired]

Because it constantly scans the drive slowing it down and eating up reads.

[SSDMonts]

Because it constantly scans the drive slowing it down and eating up reads.

 

I have had search disabled for about a week now and I liked the search performance better enabled. Searching was almost instantaneous.

 

You mentioned that the constant scans slow down the drive and eat up reads. I do not notice any slowdown in the drive at all with search enabled. The only thing I noticed slowing down are my email searches when the feature is disabled.

 

Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I will probably go back to having search enabled.

[felipeCorsario]

Because it constantly scans the drive slowing it down and eating up reads.

 

Thanks for your answer Wired. I'll try with Search mode disabled and post my results later... :)

[shaddix]

This should be unstickied, or at least have some disclaimer saying for ****ty SSD's only. Moving your temp files off the fastest drive in your system? Huh?

And W7 disables superfetch and defrag on SSDs already, meaning all these tweaks are doing is screwing up the other mechanical drives you have in your system. Indexer only runs when the PC is idle....... it doesn't hurt performance at all, no need to disable that.

Pretty much every tweak except the page file one is WRONG for any current SSDs......(indilinx, sandforce, intel etc...)

[Davyc]

I think it's pretty obvious that as the technology advances the need for tweaks may become redundant - however, as mentioned in the first post all of the tweaks suggested can be reversed and it is a matter of personal choice which to employ, ignore or reverse. Every machine is different and every useage of a machine will be different, so it's a matter of experimentation to see which tweaks will give the little extra boost to performance.

 

As for the tweaks affecting other drives in the system - not so. The tweaks pertain to the system drive only; writing or reading data from a mechanical drive will see no impact or even improvement on performance.

 

The windows search facility is useful, but on SSD drives it does impact on the drive's performance and lifespan - search 'indexes' all the files on all your drives that has the search enabled. This means it has to generate an index file of these files which is written to the SSD. Everytime a file is added or deleted the index is updated and re-written to the SSD; as everyone knows, constant writes and erases shortens the life of an SSD. But, again, it is one of those tweaks that is optional and not mandatory.

 

The simple key to any reversible tweak is - "TRY IT" if it's not for you then reverse it.

[shaddix]

I think it's pretty obvious that as the technology advances the need for tweaks may become redundant - however, as mentioned in the first post all of the tweaks suggested can be reversed and it is a matter of personal choice which to employ, ignore or reverse. Every machine is different and every useage of a machine will be different, so it's a matter of experimentation to see which tweaks will give the little extra boost to performance.

There is no extra performance to be gained from these tweaks on any newer SSD drives. Disabling system restore and decreasing the page file will give you more space though.

 

As for the tweaks affecting other drives in the system - not so. The tweaks pertain to the system drive only; writing or reading data from a mechanical drive will see no impact or even improvement on performance.

Disabling the superfetch, indexing, and defrag services is a global change, disabling them also disables these functions for spinning drives. You should leave them enabled, and Win7 will disable defrag and superfetch on it's own for the SSDs only.

 

The windows search facility is useful, but on SSD drives it does impact on the drive's performance and lifespan - search 'indexes' all the files on all your drives that has the search enabled. This means it has to generate an index file of these files which is written to the SSD. Everytime a file is added or deleted the index is updated and re-written to the SSD; as everyone knows, constant writes and erases shortens the life of an SSD.

 

Corsair force MTBF is 1,000,000 hours, that's over 100 years of use, I don't think we have to worry about the lifespan of these drives. There's nothing wrong with writing files to an SSD, that's what they're made for, and they have advanced wear leveling algorithms to make sure the nand wears evenly, it isn't like the index file is going to wear down a single chip of nand. The only ones that would really have issues are those old jmicrons with no trim, which is where these tweaks would actually give some benefit(moving the temp files to mechanical drive etc)

[Davyc]

I did say that as the technology advances the need for tweaks may become redundant.

 

I would also be wary of MTBF figures - they are theoretical. How your SSD lasts and performs on a daily basis will depend on your useage.

 

There is nothing wrong with experimenting and tweaking - if it helps great if not then reverse it. I've done both, some help and some don't ... although SSD technology is advancing it is still treading undiscovered country and we learn something new about it every day.

[abidderman]

 

 

Corsair force MTBF is 1,000,000 hours, that's over 100 years of use, I don't think we have to worry about the lifespan of these drives. There's nothing wrong with writing files to an SSD, that's what they're made for, and they have advanced wear leveling algorithms to make sure the nand wears evenly, it isn't like the index file is going to wear down a single chip of nand. The only ones that would really have issues are those old jmicrons with no trim, which is where these tweaks would actually give some benefit(moving the temp files to mechanical drive etc)

 

The issue with ssd's are the number of write cycles they have before they wear out. MLC's get as little as 10,000 cycles, vs a hundred thousand and up for SLC ssd's. Measuring hours is of little use on SSD's. That is why limiting needless writes is important.

[SSDMonts]

The issue with ssd's are the number of write cycles they have before they wear out. MLC's get as little as 10,000 cycles, vs a hundred thousand and up for SLC ssd's. Measuring hours is of little use on SSD's. That is why limiting needless writes is important.

 

Are the Force Drives SLC or MLC? What would be the write cycle life before a traditional hard drive wears out?

[abidderman]

Are the Force Drives SLC or MLC? What would be the write cycle life of before a traditional hard drive wears out?

 

The 1200 is MLC, on this link, it says the SF-1500 can be either SLC or MLC:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3656/corsairs-force-ssd-reviewed-sf1200-is-very-good

 

but on the Corsair site, I only see specs for MLC.

 

Mech drives are more susceptable to other issues, and as such, write cycles are not an issue. They do not degrade as Nand does. HDD's can last many years, regardless of your writes, but also can fail from sudden jarring movement, heat, etc. because they have moving parts. The real issue for those of us with SSD's is that they haven't been around for us long enough to see exactly what they will do in the long term. Most everything you see regarding them is based on projection, not actual results over their respective lifetimes. However, most of those projections come from years observing the technology in other uses. I simplified this to try to keep it short, although it already is too long, lol. Sorry for that.

[abidderman]

I have had my Nova128 for about 4 or 5 months, use mostly these same tweaks, and have to say, I am really happy with the performance. I have a Scorpio Black 320 that I use to store everything on, and it is fast. It is still at 97% health, my lappy boots up so quick, everything loads faster than I have ever imagined, and the work I do makes me want to never use just a HHD alone ever again. I think that the people that have come up with these tweaks have put a lot of time and effort in, and have allowed us to benefit from their expertise. Check out some other sites and you will see that these tweaks are now mostly the norm for people using SSD's. ANd the beauty is, if you don't feel the same and see some real time performance increases, you can always revert back. +1 for your efforts Davyc.