Windows Stablility Tips

Tips from Jim Eshelman

Contributed by James Eshelman, http://www.aumha.org

QUESTION: Any tips for getting a tad more stability with my Windows 95, 98, or ME system?

That’s a hard one. Really, it’s like saying, “Any tips for better health?” Everybody has an idea (y’know?). And they’re probably all good ideas – they just may not apply to your particular health needs.

I usually have a VERY stable Windows system (I say “usually,” because there’s always the occasional piece of new software that causes havoc before it’s removed and the mess cleaned up afterwards), so I tried to think about how I keep things this way. Like keeping your body healthy, it’s an overall attitude that is, nonetheless, a bit hard for me to pin down. But here are a few things that definitely help:

For one, a clean install as a starting point will do wonders for the system! That means that you install the operating system on a freshly wiped hard drive, rather than “updating” atop an existing version of an older operating system. Update installs are just fine in many cases, and “good enough” in others; but for the best install, start clean!

Next tip: Be sure that the bugaboo utilities like CrashGuard, First Aid, the FindFast indexer from Microsoft Office, and similar things are not running. Unlike others, I do not extend this principle to all such third-party applications: I’m a big Norton Utilities fan, for example. But all of the so-called crash-preventers, the memory-tweakers, and most or all of the uninstallers should go! (I know I just alienated a large segment of my readers who love these things! Feel free to disregard any of this advice if you are convinced it’s wrong! <bg>)

Most of system optimization is a process of making each main part of your hardware-OS-software system work to its own very best capacity, so that it doesn’t get in the way of some other part. As you improve each piece of your system, something else then becomes your “weakest link.” You keep removing or refining “weakest links” until you get to the level of performance that is sufficient for your current wants and needs. For example, you may find that large downloads take a long time because you don’t have much RAM, and the swap file is going very slow; so you add more RAM to remove this problem. You then discover that, say, your modem is now the factor holding you back. It isn’t that anything went wrong with the modem, just that you uncovered the fact that it was your next weakest component for that particular job.

Or, to use another example, you get a new super-fast CPU that is four times the speed of your old one, but you keep your older 8 MB video card (which, once upon a time, was really great!). To your surprise, you don’t see much improvement on overall system performance, and you get a few more system hangs where everything freezes up – neither the mouse nor the keyboard will respond. What happened is that your new CPU was sending information much faster than the old video card could handle. Upgrading to a 32 MB video adapter would likely solve the problems. (In the meantime, crank down the graphic acceleration rate to fix the problem with hanging.)

Where hardware is concerned, therefore, a good (though very rough) guideline is to use components that are approximately contemporary to each other. More or less, they are made to work with each other. Yesterday’s video adapters were made to work with yesterday’s CPUs, but aren’t so great with today’s CPUs. The same is roughly true of operating systems, too: Hardware works best with the version of Windows that was newest when the hardware was also the newest thing – or the version of Windows that came out very shortly after. Again, this is the result of the “expectations baseline” shifting. The bar keeps getting raised.

Get rid of the “eye candy” that doesn’t do you any good! By “eye candy” I mean visual embellishments that may be attractive or cool, but don’t do anything else for you. Dumping some of these frees up a few system resources, makes the operating system snappier overall, and simply gives Windows less to trip over. For example, it may be cool to have menus “flow” open, but that really just slows me down; and by turning off menu animations, I get the effect of a perkier, snappier system, especially with faster response time on menus. This can have valuable practical effects as well, since video hangs during Start Menu screen refreshes are one of the more common causes of Windows lock-ups on computers that have a tendency to this sort of problem.

If you have Windows 98, run SFC, the System File Checker, every now and then, to make sure that you do not have critical system files missing or damaged. (Click Start, click Run, type SFC, click OK.) In SFC, click on Settings, then Search Criteria, and restructure the folders listed so that the entire Windows folder and all of its subfolders, and the entire Program Files folder and all of its subfolders are included. Sometimes SFC will give you confusing information on file overwrites; you just have to use your best judgment and common sense in sorting through its messages.

For the perkiest system, do not let hard drive fragmentation exceed about 2%. I handle this by defragging each main partition twice a week (I run Norton Speed Disk automatically overnight, when I’m asleep). NOTE: The native Windows defrag tool, beginning in Win98, no longer specifies fragmentation percentages. Third party tools, such as the Norton Utilities tool Speed Disk do show this value. If you defrag frequently, you probably don’t need to know the exact fragmentation value because fragmentation will be kept at negligible levels; but this is the tool I recommend if you do want to know exactly how much fragmentation you presently have.

Move your temporary file folders (temp, temporary internet files, recent, etc.) onto their own partition so that they aren’t tripping anything else up, nor spreading “fragmentation contagion.” Also, clean them out every now and then. Don’t mess with the Swap File settings unless you know what you’re doing (especially in Windows 98 and ME!), and only do it then if the steps you are taking are designed to minimize fragmentation of the swap file, without significantly reducing swap file performance.

Go through TweakUI and turn off every “extra” you don’t really want. (But leave on the ones you really do want, because really enjoying your computer is an important part of its maintenance.) Don’t forget the New tab – remove anything you don’t really want to appear in your New context menu. On the Paranoia tab, decide whether to have Windows automatically clear out the Internet Explorer history cache on each startup (or whether you rely on that information being available to you).

In Windows 98 and ME, if you have no more than 128 MB of RAM, do not have any settings in the VCache section of the SYSTEM.INI file. If you have more than 128 MB of RAM, you may wish to use certain VCache limits, but I still suggest you try your system for a week first with no such limits, provided you do not permit VCache to exceed 512 MB. See the companion article on this site for Windows 98/ME Memory Management (www.aumha.org/a/memmgmt.htm) and follow its recommendations.

Speaking of RAM, users frequently ask whether adding more RAM will make their systems more stable. The answer is a qualified “yes.” That is (ignoring the issue of computer performance, and sticking to the issue of computer health), inadequate RAM will compromise your computer’s overall functioning. For Windows 95 with no version of Internet Explorer later than version 3, I recommend nothing less than 12-16 MB to even function minimally, 24-32 MB for truly stable functioning for most users; and 64 MB to be really sweet. Anything after that is pure “gravy” for most users. But if you have any Windows system with IE 4 or later on it – which includes all versions of Win98, plus Win ME – these numbers automatically double: 24-32 MB as bare minimum, 48-64 MB to be reasonably happy with the stability, and 128 MB to be really sweet. (This may need to be increased if you have special applications or usage patterns that push hard against the envelope.)

More RAM doesn’t make a computer faster. It only keeps it from being slower! Remember the basic rule of optimization: By adding more or faster RAM, you are, at best, reducing the chance that the RAM is your “weakest link.” In Win98 or later, the main advantages in more RAM are only two: (1) It allows more RAM to be used for VCache. (2) It decreases the need for actual swap file use (though there will still be swap file allocation).

Some more general health tips:

Do not have a computer with a no-name motherboard and the cheapest video card you can find.

Periodically run RegClean, making sure it is version 4.1a. In Windows 98 or ME, periodically run SCANREG /OPT /FIX from a DOS prompt or Run box prompt. I also like to run, about once a week, Norton WinDoctor (part of the commercial products Norton Utilities and Norton System Works) as my third layer of keeping things in tidy shape. In Windows 98 or ME, you can run Disk Cleanup periodically by launching CLEANMGR.EXE from a Run box. If you have Windows 95, considering compacting your Registry every few months.

Do not be so compulsive about keeping things clean that you go in and mess with the Registry on your own. Similarly, do not delete files that you neither recognize nor understand just to free up a little disk room. (If you need hard drive room that badly, you are long overdue for a new hard drive! My rule of thumb (learned from OnComputers creator Nathan Garcia): Acquire more hard drive space if less than 10% of the hard drive’s capacity is free.)

Always uninstall programs with the Control Panel’s Add/Remove Programs applet when possible. If an installed program isn’t listed there, see if it has its own uninstall routine, and use that. For 32-bit programs (those made especially for Windows 95 or later), do not just delete the program off the hard drive.

Set the typical role of your computer to be a network server, provided you have at least 32 MB of RAM. But your computer is not a network server, you say? No matter. All this does is control how Windows handles disk performance and certain memory buffers. The default settings for “Desktop Computer” were created for hardware as it existed in 1995 – and things have changed! (Almost nobody had 32 MB of RAM in 1995 – a minimum of 8 MB was still being recommended!) This change may not improve things – but it can’t hurt. And on some computers, it improves things noticeably.

Floss. Wear sunscreen.

This should give you a good start to keeping your computer system in a spry, perky, healthy condition!