That Nick N really knows his stuff...

Nick N wrote on Apr 19^th, 2007 at 2:45pm:




I need to upgrade that statement... O&O Defrag at one time (and I think it still is) was the ONLY defrag software that correctly organizes the MFT catalog. With that catalog in a perfect order the read speed on a disk jumps dramatically because the head of the drive no longer has to seek catalog information all over the MFT. The MFT is a hidden area on a disk that must have the free space available for it to expand and contract as needed. It is not a page file but a place where Windows duplicate entries from the file system are placed in it to maintain records of every file on the system, even those deleted and completely flushed from the recycle bin. Along with many file properties, the MFT maintains the exact numerical sector location of your files on the drive for Windows to find. It goes there first before it goes to the file. If its a shambles, defraging with cheaper software, including the Windows defragger which does not clean up the MFT, only nets limited results.

As a side note, You do not really delete files when they are clean from the recycle bin. They just can not bee seen anymore unless you run special software to wipe the files from the drive. If kids think mom and dad cant find out what they have been doing, they should think again. It takes software that performs what is known as a government wipe (multple passes to write dead characters to the drive not just write a single set of zero's) to actually get rid of files from a hard drive.

As you use a system that catalog changes and if the defrag software you run keeps the MFT as pristine as the file system, your disk does not get run anywhere near as hard, and therefore the memory and CPU cycles are cut down to 1/3 or less. The head finds that info in a single pass where before it had to seek 10-100 (or more) entries before it could read the file it is after in the main area of the disk.

Geometry also plays a very important role in hard drive performance. What I mean by that is, if you have a 150GB hard drive and fill it up 75-80% it will function slower, much slower, than a 250GB hard drive which is less than 50% full. The more free space and the better the defrag program to move the files to the edge of the disk, the faster that disk will run in the system. Basic geometry dictates the head does not move anywhere near as far into the disk sectors to locate or place the information. Those that only use 25-40% see even better results. That all assumes the drive was correctly optimized by software such as O&O defrag.

People think having 50% of their HDD space a waste. It IS a waste if the drive is a storage drive for dead storage of music, movies, ISO's, etc. It is NOT A WASTE if the drive is the boot drive running Windows and the games.

Never partition a boot drive. You create a "speed-bump" effect in the performance of the primary hard drive when you do that. Partition of a storage drive as many times as you like is fine, but NEVER a boot and performance OS/game drive.

sonic wrote on Apr 21^st, 2007 at 10:48pm:



O&O does not run anything other than a standard process unless you instruct it to do a defrag job. The process O&O installs replaces the Windows process that would typically run and shuts it off so there is no change to what is going on in the background.

As for a list of tweaks, no, I have not posted anything past the list in the FSX forums because of what I stated in this thread. Tweaks are only as good as the person trying them. If you don't know what a tweak does or how it may affect everything in the system, don't do it. There are quite a few things I dod not list in that thread, like deleting start item registry keys, many of which people don't need but you MUST know what you can and can not delete. Same with shutting down advanced text services or the boot process CTFMON which requires special RUN box commands and a correct process to turn it off. You can NOT simply delete ctfmon from the start list because that cripples that part of the OS, does not shut it down and creates conflict calls (background cycles wasted) instead of makes things better.


The reason I did not and will not post items like that is because the wrong person, thinking they know what they are doing, will try it... and guess who is at fault if something goes wrong?  It isn't the person who had no business trying something,... it's always the person who posted the information.


I will post how to turn off ctfmon and advanced text services... and THIS ASSUMES YOU DO NOT NEED ORIENTAL LANGUAGE AND OTHER NON-ENGLISH SUPPORT

AND IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, ... DON'T MESS WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

======================================



1. Open Control Panel.

2. If you use the old Control Panel interface, double-click Text Services. If you use the NEW WindowsXP control panel, click:

Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options

And then click:

Regional and Language Options

On the Languages tab, click: Details

3. Click the ADVANCED tab. Place a check in “Turn Off advanced text services” Click APPLY, OK and if needed, APPLY and OK again to close the Regional Options box.

4. Click Start and then click RUN.

5. In the Run dialog box, copy/past the following command into the box:


Regsvr32.exe /u msimtf.dll


6. Click OK. A message box will appear that tells you the program was unregistered. Close it

7.  In the Run dialog box, copy/paste the following command into the box:


Regsvr32.exe /u msctf.dll  


8. Click OK. A message box will appear that tells you the program was unregistered. Close it



Reboot... CTFMON should now be properly uninstalled from the start registry and gone from the processes list

=========================


ANYONE that does that and comes back here to tell me something is wrong... sorry, you bought it.




As you can see Sonic there is more to posting a list of tweaks than just posting them and some of them can get complicated. That is why I do not take the list any further that what I did in the FSX forum thread. What I would end up with is a list of people telling me something is wrong and asking how to fix it. Tweaking requires someone that understands EXACTLY what is running on the system being tweaked and that is impossible to do in a forum post. To do it right requires direct, on-site evaluation and observation of the results to confirm what was done is successful.

When you install O&O it must be set up exactly as I describe to shut down logging and tell the system to use the layout.ini file.... and THAT is only done if you CORRECTLY shut down the boot prefetch system as stated in the post above the O&O instructions. If you don't switch the Windows prefetch off, you won’t see the boot benefit of using the layout.ini method in O&O. The list I posted was designed for all the items to be done, in the order they were posted. The only three that are optional is the use of Registry Mechanic, shutting down automatic updates and shutting down system restore. Everything else is pretty much mandatory to follow. If it were me, I get rid of autoupdate, chek for updates myself, and especially get rid of system re-gore... the biggest resource hog MS ever invented. But thats just me. I don't worry about restore issues because I keep backups of everything and can restore an entire system is less than an hour.

sonic wrote on Apr 24^th, 2007 at 11:54pm:



When ever you move that amount of data around you do hash the drive and file system. For best performance you should do the maintenance runs and especially re-run the Complete\Name defrag if you were to uninstall and then reinstall FS9 or FSX. It will go much faster if you already completed the initial runs I posted in that thread.

Quote:



Oh yea.. it will make a big difference but the other items in that list must be done too... and the more free space, the more it will improve things. At 30% used you will most likely see a very decent leap in speed and smooth MSFS if you follow all the directions carefully.

As for the error reports... If you are running a copy of WindowsXP SP2 which was not supplied by an OEM and you are not on an older HP or Dell tower, I see absolutely no issues.

If you run an OEM tower that has their own Windows disk supplied and that OEM Windows disk installs a repair partition, or is SP1 and you must web update for SP2, I would cautious about using ANY 3rd party defrag or partition software. It is not just O&O that may cause that problem. O&O is just one of many software titles that may not work with OEM systems or old versions of WindowsXP

Nick N wrote on Apr 25^th, 2007 at 2:45pm:

Thank you.

Don't tell anyone, but I am on a Dell 8400 (ARRRRRGH).... Which is moderately old; the Windows Disk is SP2 though.... Repair partitions. eh? How do I find that out?

Once again thanks!