What tweaks have you done to improve system performance for OneNo

[CRdd]

Okay, here's the new thread to find out what others are doing to get things
running smoothly with OneNote 2007

to start things out:
I have:
- maxed my RAM to 2 GB - seems to help now that I leave OneNote open with
all notebooks so WDS can index - seems to help index stay current
- so that has improved my indexing/search

- done a clean reinstall of Windows and all programs and gotten
latest/greatest drivers, updates etc. for all software/hardware, then created
a ghost before installing Office 2007 so can go back at will.
- actually, a friend of mine who has been building systems since
pre-windows 95 told me I should do this regularly anyway as things get
corrupted and bloated if you don't do some annual housekeeping anyway.

Had problems with crashes before I did this, now, seems to be a lot less.


- Made sure my virtual memory was at least 1 1/2 times my RAM as is
recommended in many places.

- set up a virtual memory on another drive than the system drive in addition
to the one on the system drive - read somewhere that this improves system
speed as Windows will use this first and not do so much reading of system
drive so it slows things down. - not sure if it helped, but can't hurt ;o)

- was having problems with system automatically restarting and I was afraid
computer was going bad until I read where that is basically a BSOD (Blue
Screen of Death) not showing up, so went into control
panel/system/advanced/startup and recovery/settings and unchecked
Automatically restart, so system reboot without giving an error message
stopped happening.

But actually, since I cleaned off the drive and clean installed the system,
have had no BSOD. (Knock on wood "sound of a hollow thump in background"
"Ouch,,... that was my head!!!!!")

Also had problem with system locking up and turned "write debugging
information" to none as this was recommended when DrWatson and debugging was
overloading and crashing my system.

Problem with locking up and crashes is either gone or very minor now with
system rebuild.

So putting Office 2007 on a clean rebuilt system for me has been a good way
to go for minimum hassle. Have tested a lot of demos and sometimes things get
cluttered, so the cleaning helped me out.

Now I would really like to hear how others have tweaked their systems to
improve things.

Thanks
Cynthia

 

[srd]

- done a clean reinstall of Windows and all programs and gotten
latest/greatest drivers, updates etc. for all software/hardware, then
created
a ghost before installing Office 2007 so can go back at will.

This would be an all-day job, wouldn't it?

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Quite a lot of improvements.

to start things out:
I have:
- maxed my RAM to 2 GB - seems to help now that I leave OneNote open with
all notebooks so WDS can index - seems to help index stay current
- so that has improved my indexing/search

I have 2 GB on my desktop and 1.25 GB on my tablet. No RAM issues as far
as I can tell.

- done a clean reinstall of Windows and all programs and gotten
latest/greatest drivers, updates etc. for all software/hardware, then created
a ghost before installing Office 2007 so can go back at will.

Wow. Reinstalling is definitely not in my tweak category I'll do
anything to avoid a reinstall.
Updating drivers to newest versions though is a regular thing I do for
both my computers.

- actually, a friend of mine who has been building systems since
pre-windows 95 told me I should do this regularly anyway as things get
corrupted and bloated if you don't do some annual housekeeping anyway.

I just don't have 2-3 weeks annually to spare for that job...I have way
too much installed on my computers to have that be a regular thing for
me.

- set up a virtual memory on another drive than the system drive in addition
to the one on the system drive - read somewhere that this improves system
speed as Windows will use this first and not do so much reading of system
drive so it slows things down. - not sure if it helped, but can't hurt ;o)

Depends if you really have two hard drives or not. If your non-system
drive is just another partition on the same hard drive, you don't gain
anything. If it is a different drive, you definitely gain something. My
desktop has two hard drives and my entire paging file is on the second
one (non-system drive, newest and fastest drive I have).

Let me add one thing to the VM list:
Set the min and max size of all paging files to be equal. Windows
managed paging files are the worst options. Paging files that have a
min, but a higher max are not the most ideal solution either, as Windows
then might end up changing the size of that file all the time. The
result is a fragmented paging file that slows your system down. So in
your case, set the min size of each of your paging files equal to the
max size.

One more thing:
Defragment your hard drive regularly. I eventually bought Diskeeper (the
full fledged product of what MS ships as defragment program in XP) and
have it defragment my hard drive every night. That does really help with
performance, especially for large files such as the WDS index, Outlook
PSTs, OneNote Cache,...

- was having problems with system automatically restarting and I was afraid
computer was going bad until I read where that is basically a BSOD (Blue
Screen of Death) not showing up, so went into control
panel/system/advanced/startup and recovery/settings and unchecked
Automatically restart, so system reboot without giving an error message
stopped happening.

Good call. Everyone should do that so that you can actually see what the
BSOD error message is and get rid of it.

But actually, since I cleaned off the drive and clean installed the system,
have had no BSOD. (Knock on wood "sound of a hollow thump in background"
"Ouch,,... that was my head!!!!!")

BSODs are most often caused by drivers, not by actual hardware problems.
So updating your drivers prob. did it.

So putting Office 2007 on a clean rebuilt system for me has been a good way
to go for minimum hassle. Have tested a lot of demos and sometimes things get
cluttered, so the cleaning helped me out.

Get MS Virtual PC (which is free now). You can find a link to it on my
blog on my website.
The best way to test new stuff is in a virtual machine that you can just
delete if things go wrong. You'll of course need a spare license for
Windows XP for that one.

Now I would really like to hear how others have tweaked their systems to
improve things.

Let's see: I manually switch off services that I don't want running.
Recently upgraded my hard drives, make sure no unneeded stuff loads at
boot time, and prob. a bunch of other things I just do without even
thinking about them.

Patrick Schmid

 

[CRdd]

Do you mean a complete rebuild from scratch or using a ghost image?

 

[CRdd]

:

Wow. Reinstalling is definitely not in my tweak category I'll do
anything to avoid a reinstall.

So will I, but sometimes I bite the bullet and do it just to feel
CLEEEEEEAAAN!!
So refreshing to my mind..........

Updating drivers to newest versions though is a regular thing I do for
both my computers.

That's a must, but the NVidia card on my older laptop was giving me a
conniption until I found a mega download site with some really good drivers
and info.
I'll post it if anyone wants the info.

I just don't have 2-3 weeks annually to spare for that job...I have way
too much installed on my computers to have that be a regular thing for
me.

After several rebuilds along the way since DOS systems (whoops....told my
age didn't I) it normally takes 2-3 days not weeks. Mileage may vary with
owner.

Depends if you really have two hard drives or not. If your non-system
drive is just another partition on the same hard drive, you don't gain
anything. If it is a different drive, you definitely gain something.

I have an second physical drive - USB.

My desktop has two hard drives and my entire paging file is on the second
one (non-system drive, newest and fastest drive I have).

So it's better to keep the entire paging file on another physical drive?
Thought I read different elsewhere, but will have to look that one up. I have
no problem taking the paging file off my system drive. It gives me more room
to play!!!!

Let me add one thing to the VM list:
Set the min and max size of all paging files to be equal. Windows
managed paging files are the worst options. Paging files that have a
min, but a higher max are not the most ideal solution either, as Windows
then might end up changing the size of that file all the time. The
result is a fragmented paging file that slows your system down. So in
your case, set the min size of each of your paging files equal to the
max size.

Thanks for that info. It's good to know.

One more thing:
Defragment your hard drive regularly. I eventually bought Diskeeper (the
full fledged product of what MS ships as defragment program in XP) and
have it defragment my hard drive every night. That does really help with
performance, especially for large files such as the WDS index, Outlook
PSTs, OneNote Cache,...

Glad to know that as well. I know for video editing, you should defrag
nightly at least. Didn't know it applied to MSOffice Programs.

BSODs are most often caused by drivers, not by actual hardware problems.
So updating your drivers prob. did it.

Drivers can be a real pain or a real blessing. Having worked with video for
a few years, they can leave you with bald patches (like where you pull your
hair out)

Get MS Virtual PC (which is free now). You can find a link to it on my
blog on my website.
The best way to test new stuff is in a virtual machine that you can just
delete if things go wrong. You'll of course need a spare license for
Windows XP for that one.

That info is "platinum" or should I just say very valuable. Went there, did
that. Now I will spend a bit of time learning more about this Virtual PC.
Looks really good for what I do. (Test a lot of software to see if it will do
the job and then recommend it to others)

Let's see: I manually switch off services that I don't want running.
Recently upgraded my hard drives, make sure no unneeded stuff loads at
boot time, and prob. a bunch of other things I just do without even
thinking about them.

Where can we find a list which suggests which services we may not need?

By upgrading your hard drives do you mean new faster ones, or larger ones,
or some driver for the drives you already have?

Can you recommend a site with info on how to configure what starts up at
boot time?

Thanks for your valuable time
Cynthia

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Complete rebuild. The Ghost image is at least half a day, depending how
to up date it is.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Patrick Schmid]

That's a must, but the NVidia card on my older laptop was giving me a

conniption until I found a mega download site with some really good drivers
and info.
I'll post it if anyone wants the info.

The double digit MB download from nVidia (nvidia.com) should be fine.

After several rebuilds along the way since DOS systems (whoops....told my
age didn't I) it normally takes 2-3 days not weeks. Mileage may vary with
owner.

The good old DOS days I started with DR-DOS 3 (after a Commodore C16
and Plus4). Then came DR-DOS 5, some MS-DOS versions, Win 3.x, OS/2, Win
95, Win NT4, Win2000, WinXP. Win98 and WinME never touched any of my
computers thankfully.
I generally only rebuilt when I got new hardware.
To give you an idea of how many programs I have: on my tablet with
1024x768, the All Programs list covers 4 columns and part of the 4th one
is outside the screen boundaries. And that's just my tablet...

I have an second physical drive - USB.

I presume you mean an external USB hard drive and not a USB stick?

So it's better to keep the entire paging file on another physical drive?
Thought I read different elsewhere, but will have to look that one up. I have
no problem taking the paging file off my system drive. It gives me more room
to play!!!!

I wouldn't put a paging file on an external USB hard drive. If you
remove the drive, Windows goes down. Also, the speed of an internal
drive is generally better than an external one. E.g., my two SATA drives
have a better speed due to the SATA interface than an external USB would
have.

Glad to know that as well. I know for video editing, you should defrag
nightly at least. Didn't know it applied to MSOffice Programs.

It applies to all big files.

Drivers can be a real pain or a real blessing. Having worked with video for
a few years, they can leave you with bald patches (like where you pull your
hair out)

Oh yeah...I got rather annoyed when I upgraded to the latest nVidia
drivers, just to have them break a favorite game of mine (Civilization
IV). Had to revert back to an older version until they fixed the game. I
got a new graphics card though before they issued the patch

Where can we find a list which suggests which services we may not need?

Try Google. I really don't know of any list. I just go by
experience/feeling and decide if I really need something or not.

By upgrading your hard drives do you mean new faster ones, or larger ones,
or some driver for the drives you already have?

Check my blog. There is a post about my hard drive upgrade with details.

Can you recommend a site with info on how to configure what starts up at
boot time?

There are three locations to look:
1) Start, All Programs, Startup
2) Registry: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
3) Registry: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and
RunServices
Basically the rule is that if you don't know it, then don't let it start
up. If you think you don't need it, then don't let it start up. You'll
find there quite a few program names that you don't know. Just type
their name in quotes ("") into Google, and you'll very likely find a
site explaining what the program does. If it sounds like it is Windows,
keep your hands off. Often it is personal preference: Do you want AIM,
MSN, Yahoo to start automatically? Do you really need the special tray
icon for your webcam? Etc.

Patrick Schmid