Speed Up Your System By . . .

Optimizing System Configurations

Speeding Up the Start Menu
Obtain the Microsoft Powertoy 'TweakUI'. It contains an option to speed up the Start Menu. This change will not take effect until you restart Windows 95. This setting can also be changed using the Registration Editor, 'RegEdit', but 'TweakUI' is much simpler, and safer.

Typical Role of this machine - Network Server
If you have 64Megs of RAM or more, you should change the role of your computer to that of a Network Server. Go to your Control Panel, open up the System icon, go to the Performance tab, click on File System, under the Hard Disk tab, change the "Typical role of this machine" to Network Server.

Speeding Up the System Restart
Add 'BootDelay=0' to the [Options] section of C:\msdos.sys. You may have to change the attributes on this file to be able to edit it.

Freeing Memory in DOS Windows
In the [386Enh] section of your 'System.ini' file, add 'LocalLoadHigh=1'

Removing DriveSpace
If you are not using DoubleSpace or DriveSpace, delete 'drvspace.bin' and 'dblspace.bin'from both the C:\ and C:\Windows directories. This will free additional DOS memory and speed system startup.

Freeing Disk Space

Deleting Animated Help Files
If you know how to perform simple Windows procedures like scroll, minimize windows, paste, etc., you can recover 7.1 Megs of disk space by deleting the .AVI files from the c:/windows/help directory.

Deleting Extraneous or Leftover Files
You can safely delete the following files in the root directory: *.txt, *.prv, *.log, *.old, *.___, and *.dos (unless you use dual-boot). You can delete these files from the Windows directory: *.log, *.old, *.___, *.bak, and, *.000, *.001, etc.

Software Drivers

Locating Software Drivers
Making sure you have good 32-Bit drivers for your peripherals will boost Windows 95 performance. For an excellent web site with a wealth of driver information and links, go to Frank's Windows 95 Software/Drivers Upgrades or the Drivers HeadQuarters. Or better yet, buy name-brand peripherals and check the manufacturers' homepage regularly for the latest driver update. New driver can really make a difference!

Optimizing Your Disks and Configuration

Defragmenting Your Disks
As files are opened, modified, and re-written to your hard disk, they gradually become fragmented. This means that your computer has to look into more and more locations to find all the fragmented parts of the files. To speed up your system, regularly run 'Disk Defragmenter' regularly. Defragmenter is included with Windows 95 and is located on the 'Start' menu under 'System Tools'.

Virtual Memory
Even though Windows 95 advises you to let it manage your virtual memory for best performance, this means that it will adjust it on the fly, causing moments of wild disk activity while you are virtually frozen. To set the disk cache permanently and stop this activity, do the following:

1.First, defragment your hard disk using 'Disk Deframenter' - see above

2.Right-click on 'My Computer', and select 'Properties'

3.Select the 'Performance' tab, and click 'Virtual Memory'

4.Select the drive you want your swapfile to be located on

5.Specify the same size for both 'Minimum' and 'Maximum' size. You may want to try different sizes for your swapfile. If you have less than 16 Megs of RAM and/or work a lot with 24-bit images, a good starting place is 2.5 times your amount of RAM.

6.Click 'Okay' a couple of times, and restart your computer.

Virtual Cache
Setting these values will prevent VCache from filling up your RAM and causing your applications to be paged out to disk.

1.Using Notepad or Wordpad, open 'System.ini'

2.Find the [vcache] section (or add it if it is not there), and add these two lines:

MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=4000

3.Restart Windows 95

Hardware Upgrades

Memory - RAM
Although Microsoft claims that Windows 95 will run on 4 Megabytes of RAM, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to do so. With Windows 95, like Windows 3.1x, adding RAM will significantly boost performance. For the best price-to-performance ratio, 32 (2x16) Megs are recommended. You will see an additional performance increase with even more RAM, but, unless you are working with many complex applications simultaneously, or editing 24-Bit color images, you get diminishing return on your money above 32 Megs. If you are thinking of adding more RAMs, make sure that you get the kind of RAMs that your motherboard can accept. Micron Semiconductor sells the best and fastest memory in the market. You want the best RAMs because they help in overclocking your system and won't burn out in a couple of months.

Storage - HDD
The HDD is probably the slowest component in your computer that will directly impact your system's performance. It is therefore a good idea to get a really good (translation: FAST!) HDD if you want your system to run at an optimal speed. Many of today's EIDE hard drives, especially those with Ultra DMA feature, are larger, faster, not to mention cheaper than the SCSI drives. So, unless you want to link multiple SCSI devices together such as a scanner and a drive, or link multiple drives in one workstation, EIDE is definitely the way to go. A very good EIDE drive today would be the IBM's Deskstar 5, unfortunately, it is available via Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) only. The undisputed speed champion in the SCSI category (and over all the hard drives!) would be the 10,000-RPM Seagate's Cheetah.

Video Acceleration
A quality, name-brand video accelerator, using either the PCI or the newer AGP bus, is recommended. Be sure to get one from a major manufacturer -- although good deals are often available on no-name cards with a known chipset, unless you get a major name brand, finding regular driver updates will be difficult. Good drivers make a world of difference! (Trust me) If you're shopping for a new video card at this moment, I would recommend the new Matrox's Millennium II, it is the fastest 2D video card in the market at the moment. Couple this with a 3Dfx Chipset dedicated 3D accelerator card such as Diamond's Monster 3D or Orchid's Righteous 3D, and you have the best possible combo for the video component of your system. Until the appearance of the next generation video cards that are better and cheaper of course. :)

Processors
According to Microsoft, Windows 95 will run on any processor from a 386DX up. For comfortable performance, upgrade to at least a Pentium 75 or better yet, an IBM/Cyrix 6x86 or AMD K5 (you should be able to find very good deals for these chips now that the newer M2 and K6 chips are out.) If you have either a IBM/Cyrix or an AMD cpu, a huge heatsink is a must. Also, remember to spread a thin layer of Thermal Compound between the cpu and the heatsink to enhance heat transfer. You can get the thermal compound from Radio Shack for US$1.99. To further enhance the performance of your CPU, c l i c k here to download software that will optimize system settings. To learn more about the different CPUs, read the excellent reviews in Tom's Hardware Guide.