Category: System Display

Optimize Visual Effects

Benefit: Disable Windows animation effects to reduce the impact to system performance.
Description:  Windows animation effects provide visually enhanced interfacing in many computing tasks such as searching for items or...  For some users this is a more personal feature.  However, it does create some system overhead especially in the cases where the system does not benefit from a high-end graphics card.  For others, this feature may be more of an annoyance and simply turning it off is appealing even though the performance gained is marginally perceived.  This setting allows you to control whether the function is enabled or disabled.  We recommend you disable the animation function in exchange for speeding up your PC.

Speedup Menu Display

Benefit: Reduce or eliminate the delay time command menus are displayed.
Description:  Many users become annoyed by how Windows menus are displayed.  For example, when you click a menu command like “Edit”, a partial menu is displayed and you need to wait five seconds until it opens completely and all the commands under that menu are listed in their entirety.  With this option you have the choice of setting the delay so it takes less time or no time at all so that the full menu is displayed each time you click a menu command.  We recommend that you eliminate the delay and have the full menu appear each time.

Disable the Thumbnail Cache

Benefit:  Prevent Windows Explorer from caching thumbnail pictures to free up disk space.
Description:  Windows Explorer generates thumbnails for images and videos and stores them in a database file so that it does not have to regenerate the thumbnails in the future. We recommend turning this feature off to save, what can add up to, a large amount of disk space consumed by cached thumbnails.

Enable Start Menu Scrolling

Benefit:  Enable the Windows Start menu to scroll to display more items.
Description:  When there are more items on the Windows Start menu than can be displayed in a single column, the system can either display a second column or allow the original list to scroll. We recommend enabling this Performance item so that scrolling the Start menu occurs and provides easier access.

Free resources from the theme service

Benefit: Free more system resources taken by the Windows theme service.

Description: Disable the Windows theme service will free more system resource for service and applications.  Windows uses a classic desktop appearance but runs faster.

Category: Computer Memory

Disable NTFS Last-Accessed Timestamp

Benefit:  Improve Windows Explorer efficiency by disabling the last-accessed timestamp.
Description:  NTFS is the preferred file system for most recent Windows operating systems.  A Windows NTFS volume (a volume being a fixed amount of storage space on a disk), can contain a large number of directories.  When Windows accesses a directory it updates the timestamp on each directory it detects.  In the cases where there are a lot of directories, performance can be affected.  You have the option to turn off this to improve the efficiency of Windows Explorer.

Automatically Release DLL Cache

Benefit:  Reduce memory overhead by releasing the cache of DLL (Dynamic-Link Libraries).
Description:  A Dynamic Link Library (DLL) is an assortment or “library” of executable functions and data that is used by an application.  The DLL provides certain functions and by providing a static or dynamic link to a program, it enables access to these functions.  Windows Explorer will store (“cache”) the DLL in memory for easier and more efficient access.  After the application is closed the DLL remains available in system memory for a period of time.  In some cases this can be an inefficient use of memory and can affect performance.  Such cases include when a system suffers from low memory attributes or in the cases of when programmers and other users are programming or accessing a high number of DLL files.  This function will force Windows to unload all DLLs from system memory.  By doing so, memory overhead is reduced and there is an increase to the efficiency of applications relying on DLLs.

Category: Startup Speed

Secure Access to CD/DVD-ROM Drives

Benefit:  Prevent others from remotely accessing CD/DVD-ROM drives.
Description:  By default, CD/DVD-ROM drives are shared as administrative shares on the network.  We recommend enabling this Performance item which acts to turn this feature off so that when you are logged on, your privacy and security are protected. You also can take advantage of a reduction in system overhead.

Category: Shutdown Speed

Speedup Windows Shutdown Time (Applications)

Benefit:  Reduce system shutdown time by immediately ending non-responsive applications.
Description:  This Performance feature involves terminating applications that are no longer responsive.  We recommend optimizing this setting to speedup Windows shutdown time.

Speedup Windows Shutdown (Services)

Benefit:  Reduce system shutdown time by speeding up the wait time for non-responsive services.
Description:  This Performance item involves reducing the wait time for Windows services that are non-responsive. We recommend optimizing this setting to speedup Windows shutdown time.

Category: System Security

Clear the Paging File at Windows Shutdown

Benefit:  Purge the paging file at system shutdown for security and performance.
Description:  To enhance system performance, the paging file (or “virtual memory”), works like an extension of physical memory (RAM).  However, it can also contain sensitive information and become fragmented if not purged from time to time.  For purposes of security and performance, we recommend using this Performance item to purge the paging file when shutting down your computer.

Category: System Speed

Optimize Hard Disk When Idle

Benefit:  Improve system performance by letting Windows optimize hard drive when your PC is idle.
Description:  This Performance item optimizes the hard drive when the system is idle.  Windows can periodically index your files for optimum performance. It can also partially defrag your drive if it is excessively fragmented.  By doing so, system performance is improved.  We recommend turning this feature on to optimize your hard drives and improve system performance.

Speedup Application Startup Time

Benefit:  Speedup the start-up times of applications by using the Prefetch service.
Description:  This Performance item utilizes the Windows Prefetch service.  By doing so the commonly used files and data from programs you frequently run are prepared and can start faster.  We recommend turning this on to proactively fetch and store data to improve startup times.

Accelerate Application Startup Time

Benefit:  Reduce application start-up time by using the Superfetch service.
Description:  This Performance feature activates the Superfetch service so as to further enhance the Windows Prefetch service. The Superfetch service monitors which applications you use the most and preloads them into system memory (RAM). We recommend using this feature to further improve application startup time.

Optimize the File System

Benefit:  Reduce disk fragmentation by storing files in clusters with optimum continuous free space.
Description:  Windows stores file data in blocks of continuous free space on hard drives. This Performance item works to set the minimum amount of continuous free space (ContigFileAllocSize) to an optimum value so as to reduce disk fragmentation.  We recommend enabling this item to optimize the free space value and enhance the efficiency of your PC's file system.

Speedup Termination of Non-Responsive Programs

Benefit:  Minimize the wait time for non-responsive applications before they are terminated.
Description:  With this Performance feature you can optimize the wait time for an application that is not responding and have it automatically terminated more efficiently by the system task manager.  We recommend enabling this feature and optimizing the wait time and termination of non-responsive programs.

Free resource from performance counters

Benefit: Free more system resource taken by performance counters, a rarely used feature by most users.

Description: As a part of the administrative tools, Windows can track several areas of your PC's performance, from CPU use to hard drive access. If you rarely use performance counters, then it is better to disable them and stop them from consuming system resource.

Optimize processor resource allocation

Benefit: Enable each instance of an application to run in its own process for performance and stability.

Description: When an application runs in its own process, it gains more computing resource like the CPU and the memory. It also makes both the application and the system more stable as potential errors or crashes don't affect other applications or the system.

Speed up network browsing

Benefit: Increase browsing speed to your local area network and connect to other computers.

Description: When browsing LAN or connect to another computer, Windows Explorer searches for scheduled tasks on remote computers. It slows down network browsing or even makes your computer freeze momentarily. Disabling this feature can improve network browsing speed noticeably.

Category: General Optimization

Enable Windows Error Reporting

Benefit:  Report Windows or application crashes to Microsoft or software application developers.
Description:  When Windows or a software program crashes information related to the causes are sent to developers that can work toward fixing the issue.  Please note: no data is sent without your consent and there is no personal information collected through this service.  We recommend enabling this feature to report crashes so that these issues can be reported and eventually fixed.