GrofLuigi

Actually, Volatus (I don't want to quote your entire message of FAT vs NTFS because it's long), I'm starting to question all that information lately. I have read a long time ago about all this and agree with most of your points (or facts about NTFS vs FAT, but are they really facts?), but recently I am wondering if FAT could be used on a small (boot) partition efficiently, to bypass the NTFS security permissions overhead (no mater what anyone says, there's got to be overhead - on any computer, if you perform additional tasks you must use CPU time). Of course, this is of one doesn't care about security permissions - on a nonnetworked or specialized PC for example. Maybe this scenario even fits your method described in this thread? One thing is for sure, I would never label NTFS as faster than FAT. More secure, reliable, efficient... probably, but faster? I myself always use it (if not only to avoid the chkdsk at startup). Tip (from my long-time tinkering with filesystems): I've found that increasing the MFT zone too much (with the well known registry entry NtfsMftZoneReservation) actually hampers performance when there are many small files (all of them go into MFT and it grows and it fragments and then: 1. It takes eternity to defragment; 2. even defragmented, it is still too large/slow - I guess it acts as a partition of its own). This is only my observation (no scientific methods applied). About the NTFS logfile: I don't think it's ordinary log file, I THINK it's used for file operations not yet committed to the table and I am afraid if reduced too much data loss would occur (in a case of power loss/really bad crash during intensive file operations). I don't know the actual parameters needed for it (like how much space one operation takes approx. = how much is really needed), but in the past I have reduced it (albeit not to the minimum) and noticed no difference whatsoever. I might be completely wrong about this tho. *Edit: Link1 , Link2 , Link3 . GL

What would be this PC used for? From your preset, I see you remove components from many areas (multimedia, printers, networking...) If you would like to hear advice from a long-time nLite user, I would be slightly more conservative with the hatchet. Yeah, I saw you calmed down. GL

I've seen greyed out checkboxes in this place, have you tried clicking several times on it? But I also think it's another service (application layer gateway, network connections, network location awareness, remote access conn. manager...) or a registry entry. GL

I would like to know this too, because I think it's a misinformation. In Server 2003, BDA (and/or similar components of DirectX needed for TV tuner) are also not present by default, but when you install the TV Tuner driver, it will "pull" ALL necessary components from driver.cab or directx.cab. Yeah, I would REALLY like someone to verify this (I don't have 2008, so it might have changed) or is it another myth. I've seen this 'information' (but not any proof) on many other places too. GL

This detergent cleans up to 10% more stains than its competitors. GL

What I've seen with Server 2003 SP2 with latest hotfixes (not unattended, not multiboot) is that on the next boot after setup, it gives the blue screen (inaccessible boot device) if it was not PARTITIONED (not only formated) with its setup CD. I gave it few tries and then gave up, so can't give definitive claims about the behavior (not tested thoroughly), but it was consistent. Also nLited heavily, but I think it didn't matter. GL *Edit: Maybe it has something to do with this .

The number of packages using InnoSetup > 5.2 is ever increasing, and there are no new betas of InnoUnp. Any solution/suggestion? GL

c c c c c c c All others come from this. GL

Very interesting... For those who can't afford/don't want multiple hdd's. No, really, it's pretty good analysis, I just don't agree with one thing (in theory): That would need to be measured against the probability of windows "mount partition in a folder" feature failing. As I said, only theoretical - I haven't actually seen examples of that. Maybe it doesn't matter - if the hard drive fails, the installation is toast anyway. Another suggestion: You should have mentioned how to do the mounting in case anyone wants to try. I know how, but not everyone does. Nice job in any case! GL *edit: how to do the mounting = the actual command

You need this . The latest version I've seen is 1.42, but the original site seems down ATM. GL

Silverlight is suspicious (in a sense that it could cause the error). GL

Nothing apparent from the preset. I would investigate (in order of prefference): the addons SCSI/RAID Tape drives Disable Autorun but that's a longshot. Usually, removable storage is b0rked by shell services (Shell Hardware Detection), but that's not the case here. GL

After using nLite for a long time, I can definitely confirm there is big difference whether a component (service, driver...) is not present or just disabled. On boot (but also on MANY other occasions) windows enumerates and lists what it has, so obviously the less components - the better. Also, often during these enumerations, windows actually loads these files (usually dlls) that in turn load other files and do other things. It's the way windows works. That's my experience (not scientifically measured, but consistent every time; seen with process monitor which I use a lot). GL *Edit* Also, don't forget the reduced size of the registry and lesser number of files in the %systemroot% (C:\Windows) directory. However mighty computers are, these operations (searching for a registry key or for a file) are performed many times per second.

Yeah, I understand every company has to make money. But this has gone too far. Change just for the sake of change. Facelift. They could at least provide something useful. And Office too. Every version of Office after 97 introduced thousand of items nobody ever uses. Microsoft - Give something useful! At least charge us for service packs of products that work good and leave us alone. GL

SystemMechanic3790.bmp This is the icon of System Mechanic version 3.7.9.0. Similar, but not the same. GL Edit: (Uploaded image so that those who don't have an account at msfn can see the image too). B)

DL, thank you for the links. They are valuable and interesting (I've read them all, including the readers' comments), but my question still remains unanswered. I knew most of the stuff before, and I'm not interested in hacking search engines (although sometimes I am ). GL

Install Sysinternal's ProcessMonitor (or its predecessor RegMon), set it to log boot and examine "not found" registry entries in the logfile. Search for them and apply per your liking. No external programs, no group policies... Nice clean fun. These are important because they apply to your system - Windows is searching for them. You may have a super duper tweaker program with thousands of entries, but registry entries vary with OS and SP level. GL

Ok, another example (and not to be related to files): How do I find the string "find.this" while Google not showing me the results for "find this"? One would expect that exact search is just that... exact. GL

It might have to do something with "EditFlags" in the registry (search for it). On my system, I experienced a massive speedup after I deleted all unwanted file extensions. Proof? Verified with RegMon - everytime a file is double clicked, ALL file extensions are examined thoroughly (throughout all their entries). Obviously, if you reduce their number, you gains speed. File extensions are used for determining what to do when you double click on a file, but usually they can be opened from inside the program that understands the file type (but not always). Also, there are some filetypes 'reserved' from the system to block you from opening them (that's legitimate, because you can do nothing useful with them: .pnf, .sys...). Also, on clean install of XP some Office extensions are reserved (yeah, that's monopoly ) like for word, excel, and infopath or publisher (I don't remember which). Some are reserved just for the icon. There are also many entries to print them with right click (what's wrong with opening them in their editor and printing from there?). Now I'm not telling you to go blindly delete all you see, there are problems when the wrong button is pushed. Also, MANY programs re-register their types, so your efforts may be futile. And windows installer can pest you if it doesn't like what it sees (I've solved that, but will post it another time). But I tell you, there is great speedup to be gained there. GL

@MrCobra: Thank you for your feedback, but this was just an example. I was looking for general solution (I'm not searching for anything about perf.dll). My question was how to search for an exact string. I've also seen that .pdf and according to the above it's not true (anymore?). Maybe they started to cater for the general audience ONLY and it's time to search for a new search engine (how does one do that?)? GL

Thank you. Svaka ti dala. GL

Could this be the problem? <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> That's blocked in my hosts file. (I didn't put it there, downloaded them all). GL

My Opera is configured to "show cached images only" (that makes it super-fast ) so I haven't noticed. In rare times when I set it to "show all images" it didn't hang on any picture. But I've seen that on other places (& other browsers). I've reinstalled Opera and wiped preferences again - no go. Interestingly enough, I installed Safari 3.1 for windows and it shows the same behavior. It hasn't much to configure, so I can't imagine what could have I done wrong. Internet explorer 6 works (but has no tabs and is uncomfortabe; and I don't intend to install 7 right now). Firefox doesn't even log in. Just returns to the main page unlogged in. GL

I now read the article in full and it appears not to be what I judged by the title - it's somewhot constructive. I appologise if I was too hasty, but that's the case in today's perception of the news articles - we tend to glimpse them over and not read fully. However, I still consider the article biased - they took the largest number and slapped it in the title?! (Or was it just the editor? Maybe only he has a fatter wallet now ) Oh, and the article is not from the site you linked - they just copied it. Look at your site's top 10 downloads. GL

Now I have, and it's the same - gives a lot of hits for "perf dll" too. I guess this is something like filetype:dll? BTW, this thread is also in the hits. GL