Mastertech

Firefox Myths Interesting as quite a few of these are widely believed to be true. Please no flaming.

He did not post his methods or if he followed the ones I provided.

I have no idea how he tested it.

Exactly, crippled nLite installs don't prove anything if they are running with prefetching broken. You have to reboot to get Boot prefetching workings since this is the only way to monitor the boot process. The begining of this article gives clear instructions how to test this, deviating from them will not produce accurate results.

gdogg, you seem obsessed with not trying. How come with a few posts we found something out very critical about Ibis's setup yet you refuse to try? I find that very telling. Whenever you are ready to get serious let me know. Until then I will work with those that are. Interesting isn't it that the two people making all the outrageous claims haven't properly tested anything? At this point gdogg I cannot take anything you say with any credibility. You will have to rely on other members here to prove or disprove anything. I have a feeling quite a few nLite users have a broken prefetch. Try stepping back for a minute (if that is possible). The myth page, especially the optimization myth section title "XP Myths" relate to #1 Myths Regarding Windows XP. Now no matter how the large system cache tweak myth was worded, the intent was to show that using that tweak on an XP installation will not improve performance. You can clearly see it will only improve a file servers performance. That is quoted directly from Microsoft. If you want to stay hung up on the wording then by all means knock yourself out. Either way it is clearer now.Plenty of tweak sites/forums mention the LargeSystemCache tweak, they use there own wording of course and recommend enabling it for an XP installation.

gdogg honestly you are the only one who has not tried testing this properly or working with me and I wonder why that is? Ibis clearly found he had no layout.ini file and no disk defragmenter installed. Whenever you want to get serious about this let me know. All the Myths on the site are accurate, the one you pointed out is now worded more clearly. You are welcome to provide proof for anything you want. I am begining to think you have something to do with CCleaner.

I'll stop "informing" people of an option that slows down their application load times when CCleaner removes the option. Otherwise it is staying up indefinitely.

Try testing this yourself and you will understand why CCleaner should not have an option to clean "Old Prefetch Data".

True but if someone wants to confirm it they can try either or both. 1. Disable Prefetching, 2. Clean the Prefetch Folder, 3. Disable Prefetching and Clean the Prefetch Folder.

Ibis, Sorry there is no boot.pf the pf file for boot is NTOSBOOT-B00DFAAD.pf. So it is creating the file but without the layout.ini it has no way to further optimize it. That makes sense. How many people remove the defragmenter with an nLite install? PerfectDisk claims to use the layout.ini file to optimize file locations. Diskeeper doesn't touch it and just lets it work as normal. Even with Diskeeper installed the Disk Defragmenter is still there you just cannot access it from the GUI. The prefetcher can still use the Disk Defragmenter with the layout.ini even with Diskeeper installed.

It is the layout.ini file in the C:\Windows\Prefetch If the file is not there then Prefetching is not working. Also check the dates on the layout.ini and boot.pf file, they need to be recent or it can mean at some point Prefetching was disabled or broken. As for editing it, it is not a good idea. Yes Bootvis will let you run the optimization whenever you want instead of every three days. Task Scheduler needs to be set to automatic for prefetching to work. Check the prefetch folder to see if it is on.

Ibis, is that an nLite install? Check the prefetch folder and make sure the files are there. You have to have the services on I mentioned. Either way please retest for what I suggested.

gdogg, seriously already, part of prefetching is laying out the files that are prefetched. This is done using the defragmenter but is not done by doing a regular defrag. This is a one time process for boot optimization unless you change something at boot up, such as add a new application to load or remove one. The prefetcher will automatically every three days use the defragmenter to layout files relating to applications. It does not run a full defrag. It is also very possible that nLite users can remove enough components that the Prefetcher is broken and not working at all. This is where my concerns are because you can never get accurate test results if it is broken.

Ibis, I think I know partly what is wrong with your testing. You have to have had Prefetching on for over 3 boot ups. Then you had to have the defragmenter layout the files. Do this: Testing Prefetching At Bootup - Moved to Page 1.

I have a full XP install. To get very accurate boot timings use Bootvis. Part of the problem is what people consider finished loading. Bootvis will eliminate any of these errors. Task Scheduler has to be on for the Prefetcher to work properly.

Yes but that is not true though, Enabling the Prefetcher (it is by default) in no way slows down booting. I tested it, on my test system with Prefetch = 3 it boots in 41 seconds. With Prefetch = 0 it takes 90 seconds. Think about it this way. One of the big goals of XP was a faster boot, why would they have a feature that degrades boot time performance over time? Not only does it not degrade performance but it makes no sense.

Here is some reference material: Kernel Enhancements for Windows XP Windows XP: Kernel Improvements Create a More Robust, Powerful, and Scalable OS Benchmarking on Windows XP One more time: do not clean out your Prefetch folder!Tip of the day: Don’t clean out the Prefetch folder Debunking yet another bogus Windows tip Beware of Bogus XP Advice Misinformation and the The Prefetch Flag Testing Prefetching At Bootup Enable Prefetching and Test 1. Services Task Scheduler = Automatic COM+ Event System = Automatic 2. Registry (Using Regedit) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters Name: EnablePrefetcher Type: REG_DWORD Value: 3 3. Reboot three times. 4. Download and Run BootVis. In the menu go to "Trace", select "Next Boot and Driver trace". A "Trace Repetitions" screen will appear, select "Ok" and Reboot. Upon reboot, BootVis will automatically start, analyze and log your system's boot process. When it's done, in the menu go to "Trace" and select "Optimize System" and Reboot. This time when your system comes up, wait until you see the "Optimizing System" box appear, continue to wait until the process is complete. 5. Now you system is optimized for Prefetching run BootVis, go to "Trace", select "Next Boot". Record the time. Note: You need to confirm Prefetching is working by looking in the C:\Windows\Prefetch folder. For Boot Prefetching you should see a NTOSBOOT-xxxxxxxx.pf and a layout.ini file in the folder. If not prefetching is not working. The built-in Disk Defragmenter needs to be installed and operational (nLite users) Otherwise BootVis can invoke the layout optimization. By default Windows does this every three days, for testing or anytime you want an immediate improvement, say you added or removed a startup option use BootVis and the "Optimize System" option. Disable Prefetching and Test 1. Registry (Using Regedit) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters Name: EnablePrefetcher Type: REG_DWORD Value: 0 2. Run BootVis, go to "Trace", select "Next Boot". Record the time. Note: These steps are necessary only to confirm your system is setup to use prefetching properly and for this test. On a regular (non tweaked) XP install (not nLite) the Prefetcher is enabled by default, the two services set to automatic, the disk defragmenter is installed and the Registry Key set to 3. After three regular boots it will automatically take effect and after three days layout the files automatically and continue to do so automatically. The problem is with certain tweak programs or custom installs that break the Prefetcher. In which case the steps to enable prefetching above should get you back to normal, if all the features are there (no guarantees with an nLite install). Other Defragmenters Diskeeper - Does not use or touch the layout.ini file and lets prefetching work as normal. When you install Diskeeper the built-in Disk Defragmenter is still there, it is just not accessible through the GUI. The prefetcher will still use the the command line interface for the built-in Disk Defragmenter with the layout.ini file to optimize file placement for prefetching every three days. BootVis will invoke it whenever you want. PerfectDisk - "If PerfectDisk is set to manage the boot/layout files, then PerfectDisk will disable the "partial" defrag that Windows XP is doing approx every 3 days and PerfectDisk will make sure that the files needed for boot (default configuration) as well as the files indicated in the layout.ini file are "optimized" (if configured). PerfectDisk will make sure that these files are contiguous and place these files at the top of the logical partition. All PerfectDisk is doing is using the information regarding boot and application launches that Windows XP has gathered. This information can either be gathered over time by Windows XP itself or gathered by running BootVis once." Prefetching still needs to be enabled and a layout.ini file present.

Task Scheduler is required by the Windows XP Prefetcher and should be enabled as automatic. Otherwise you will reduce performance.

The problem with Registry Cleaners are that they can be too aggressive. RegCleaner/RegSupreme are the best of the bunch. Others can remove good registry entries. CCleaner is the safest one I've used but obviously not the most thorough. The problem with even RegSupreme is it removes things like ZoneAlarm's Mail Safe extensions as an example. In the end I only tell people to use CCleaner and not risk breaking another program. Do not under any circumstances use Microsoft's Regclean anymore, this program is massively outdate and will permanently disable applications like Office causing you to have to reinstall it.

Save yourself the agravation and just use Autoruns

There is nothing to specifically target the boot up time for 2000 but overall system optimization will help: Optimize 2000 - A Windows 2000 Optimization Guide

No, they like alot of Tweak Sites list tweaks that are Myths: XP - Myths Regarding Windows XP If you want tweaks that work go here: Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide

Some of these tweaks are Myths and do not do anything or worse reduce performance: Large System Cache IoPageLockLimit For more information read: XP Myths - Myths Regarding Windows XP

Optimize XP - A Windows XP Optimization Guide "Clean Spyware and Viruses + Optimize Windows XP to improve both work and gaming performance safely. Windows XP's default configuration is far from optimized. This guide will help you improve your overall system performance." Optimize 2000 - A Windows 2000 Optimization Guide "Clean Spyware and Viruses + Optimize Windows 2000 to improve both work and gaming performance safely. Windows 2000's default configuration is far from optimized. This guide will help you improve your overall system performance."