Windows 10 Optimization Thread

[JakeyBoyTH]

I am finding myself using Windows for work more and more. Every now and again I find myself getting frustrated at its performance compared to Linux or even OS X. The amount of network usage (which is so precious if you are at university or don't have good internet) is completely ridiculous. At one point I couldn't even load YouTube on a 8mb/s down connection.

So here is a delicious thread to help solve this issue. I have already done most of these myself. This will most likely improve performance of network-hungry (citation needed) Age Of Empires 3 as well.

First I would like to say the obvious stuff.

1) If you have money to upgrade your system you should.

This means max out your RAM, your CPU and maybe your graphics card. A hardware upgrade will always be better than any of these tweaks. A SSD upgrade will go a long way as well. Go for an NVMe SSD at least for maximum performance. Remember; You can't polish a turd (this is actually false it turns out you can, but I won't go into that).

2) Disable visual effects

Windows 10 was a huge effect boost. It added many of the polishes that are present in other OS. You can still get rid of them though for better performance, although I keep mine on because I love the way it looks.

- Press the Windows (Or command) key, and type "visual".
- Click on "Adjust the Appearance and Performance of Windows.
- Click in the circle that says "Adjust for best performance".



3) Increase Paging File size

Doing this on low-RAM computers can increase performance. If you have the hard drive to spare I don't see why not.

- Go back into "Adjust the Appearance and Performance of Windows
- Click "Advanced"
- Click "Change"

- Untick "Automaticially Manage etc"
- Select "Custom Size"
- I usually go for twice the recommended size.
- Click "Set"
- Click "OK"

4) Turn on fast-startup

Just for kicks, because no one wants to wait.

- Go into Power Options (right-click battery and click power options, or if you are on a desktop open Control Panel in small icons view)
- Click on "Choose what closing the lid does".
- Under Shutdown Settings check "Turn on fast startup".
- If its grayed out, then click on "Change Settings That Are Currently Unavailable"


5) Select and optimize the high-performance power plan

I mean come on, high performance right?

- Go into Power Options again
- Select "Change plan settings" beside the High Performance power plan
- Click on "Change Advanced Settings"
- Under "Processor Power Management" make sure all thingies are at 100%

- Your graphics adapter may also have an option in here, mine says "ATi PowerPlay". Put these if you have them to "Maximum Performance"
- Click "OK"
- Go back into "Power Options" and select "High Performance".

Now on to the really nice tweaks.

1) Disable Telemetry.
- Go into the settings App.
- Click on Privacy.
- Change what you want to share. I pretty much changed all of these to off except the microphone and the camera.
- Under "Feedback and Diagnostics" change the "Send your diagnostic data to microsoft" to Basic.

Now lets go into the registry!

- Press the windows key + R.
- Type in the box that pops up "regedit.exe" the registry editor should pop up.
- Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection.
- Make a new DWORD 32-Bit key and name it AllowTelemetry .
- Set it to 0.



Right now lets stop some services.

- Press Windows Key + R again.
- Type in "services.msc".
- Disable "Connected User Experiences and Telemetry" and dmwappushsvc.
- To do that double-click on the service and under "Startup Type" choose "disabled".

Right now we are not done just yet.

- Right-click windows button in taskbar.
- Click on "command prompt (admin)".
- Enter " sc diagtrack start= disabled" and then "sc stop diagtrack".
- Errors may come up but we don't care.

2) Get rid of default Windows 10 apps
Especially the xbox app which uses network data.

- Open Powershell (search for it in the start menu).
- Use the command Get-AppxPackage *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
- This will remove the Xbox application, to remove others, replace "xboxapp" with the application you want to remove.
- 3D Builder = 3dbuilder , Alarms and Clock = windowsalarms , Calendar and Mail = windowscommunicationsapps , Camera = windowscamera , Groove Music = zunemusic , Maps = windowsmaps , Movies & TV = zunevideo , OneNote = onenote , People = people , Photos = photos , Store = windowsstore , Voice Recorder = soundrecorder .

3) Change more services
I forgot to add some more to change. Note these ones results will vary I had trouble connecting to wifi after I changed WLAN autoconfig, although if you dont have wifi I guess you are OK then.

- Open up the services just like you did last time (bleh Windows Key + R and type "services.msc")
- Now change:
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service = Manual
- Diagnostic Policy Service = Manual
- Windows Biometric Service = Manual
- WLAN Autoconfig = Manual
- Internet Sharing Connection = Disabled

4) Stop Windows Update from being a very not nice thing
VERY INCONVENIENT

- Go into PC Settings -> Update + Security
- I just noticed there is an active hours toggle, change it to when you use the computer, but thats not why we are here
- Go into advanced options
- Click on "Choose how updates are delivered"
- Turn the toggle off. Like really Microsoft are using your PC as a peer-to-peer for Windows Updates.

5) Disabling Indexing
Indexing is super bad for SSD's. Unless its the cheap stuff they put in budget laptops these days. Companies really can get away with advertising just anything. Remember don't cheap out on an SSD. They vary in performance so much.

- Open explorer
- Go to "This PC" or whatever it is nowadays.
- Right click your c:// (if you have more than one hard drive you can do this for them too
- Click properties
- Decheck "Allow files to be indexed on this drive etc"
- Click Apply.
- If it pops up with some message click "ignore all" I can disable it and make it not index those but you guys dont need to.

6) Disable Cortana
We do not need your help thank you

- Go into the registry editor as per instructions somewhere above (smh go Windows Key + R and type "regedit.exe")
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search
- Make a new DWORD 32-bit key and call it AllowCortana , set it's value to 0.

7) Overclocking
This is only GPU overclocking only. When I get my PC setup I will post CPU overclocking guide for a i5 4670k (all I have on hand - it should be general for any CPU though)
P.S. I wasn't joking about the mouse overclocking thats coming soon, as well as Monitor Overclocking and RAM overclocking. I need my desktop for that tho.

- Download MSi Afterburner (Best general application for GPU overclocking, supports a lot of graphics cards as its based on RivaTuner) Note: if you have an Intel graphics card this will NOT work for you as you are an integrated peasant. HOWEVER if you have: Intel GMA 900 or 950, or an Acer Aspire One, or an ASUS EEPC (the netbook thingie) then PM me I have some special overclocking options for you)
- Download MSi Kombustor
- Run the GPU Core burn test in MSI Kombustor and increase the core clock in Afterburner until it shuts down the driver. Then, dial back a bit and keep it there.
- Run the GPU memory test according to how much GPU memory you have. Increase the memory clocks in Afterburner until you get artefacts, then dial back and keep it there.

--- Coming Soon ----
> Video Guide for GPU Overclocking
> CPU Overclocking
> Monitor Overclocking
> Mouse Overclocking

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[site]

Jakey the best Jakey

[Zhanson10]

thanks but you lost me at telemetry

[JakeyBoyTH]

thanks but you lost me at telemetry

I am surely hoping that this is not some nonsensical reply to my beloved thread to which I have put some time and effort into this complicated affair, however I do sympathies with you in that this exacerbated the main point of Microsoft's telemetry and data collection. For that you have my dearest contrafibulararaties on this occasion. Many thanks on your presumably inundated reply.

[Zhanson10]

thanks but you lost me at telemetry

I am surely hoping that this is not some nonsensical reply to my beloved thread to which I have put some time and effort into this complicated affair, however I do sympathies with you in that this exacerbated the main point of Microsoft's telemetry and data collection. For that you have my dearest contrafibulararaties on this occasion. Many thanks on your presumably inundated reply.

Your welcome Shakespeare

[tedere12]

thanks but you lost me at telemetry

I am surely hoping that this is not some nonsensical reply to my beloved thread to which I have put some time and effort into this complicated affair, however I do sympathies with you in that this exacerbated the main point of Microsoft's telemetry and data collection. For that you have my dearest contrafibulararaties on this occasion. Many thanks on your presumably inundated reply.

Your welcome Shakespeare

future pr 50

[kami_ryu]

i use winaerotweak and shutup10

[JakeyBoyTH]

*bump*

Made spelling fix. Please like this more and pin this because I love this so much.

[Gendarme]

Jakey <3

But we all know that the best Windows 10 optimization is to get another OS.

[AOEisLOVE_AOEisLIFE]

cool post dude! i got a new SSD this weekend and reinstalled win10 and i just came across this and realized that i did most of this stuff (and other stuffs) too. when it comes to telemetry:

1) Disable Telemetry.
- Go into the settings App.
- Click on Privacy.
- Change what you want to share. I pretty much changed all of these to off except the microphone and the camera.
- Under "Feedback and Diagnostics" change the "Send your diagnostic data to microsoft" to Basic.

Now lets go into the registry!

- Press the windows key + R.
- Type in the box that pops up "regedit.exe" the registry editor should pop up.
- Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection.
- Make a new DWORD 32-Bit key and name it AllowTelemetry .
- Set it to 0.

is this enough? according to some threads/posts (in german language, sorry, no point in posting links..) i found on various nerdy places on the internet even after doing the registry thing MS still collects mahussive amounts of your data. (even tho disabling telemetry should stop it). there is some somewhat slightly doubtful freeware like DoNotSpy10 and other programs which are supposed to let you manually choose which data is send to microsoft. does anybody know any trustworthy software or know how to propper stop Microsuft from collecting my data?

becuz im totally not OK with MS knowing into what kind of midget porn i currently am....

shutup10

dis gud no more spyerino 100% ?

[kami_ryu]

100% !

[gibson]

Another good thing to do on lower end machines or machines that have been upgraded from 8 or 7 to 10 is to disable all startup programs. Also, use CCleaner, great little tool.

[Dolan]

Some of these things are debatable.

For example Fast Boot may not work so well if you are dual-booting, because Windows 10 will lock down the drive on which you have it installed, so it won't be available to other systems. And if you write on it from other systems, it may corrupt data. And with some systems which don't support hibernation properly, it might create some issues. Fast boot basically makes your system not shut down completely and saves the state of the system in a hibernation file, which is reloaded/refreshed in RAM at start-up. Restarting is not affected, so if you don't shut down your PC often, you won't see much of a change.

Disabling or moving the index file from an SSD will make file search slower. It's true that the more an SSD is used, the faster it shortens its lifespan. The trade-off is not using it at its real potential, though.

Disabling telemetry and autoupdates only works properly on Enterprise editions and not even there 100%. They still collect some data, even on Enterprise with disabled telemetry. And yeah, blocking Microsoft IPs in the host file doesn't actually do anything. It might work if you block IPs directly in the router, though, depending on whether your router allows it.

[AOEisLOVE_AOEisLIFE]

Disabling telemetry and autoupdates only works properly on Enterprise editions and not even there 100%. They still collect some data, even on Enterprise with disabled telemetry. And yeah, blocking Microsoft IPs in the host file doesn't actually do anything. It might work if you block IPs directly in the router, though, depending on whether your router allows it.

this pretty much sums up what various pages on the internet told me.
time to check out my router

[JakeyBoyTH]

Some of these things are debatable.

For example Fast Boot may not work so well if you are dual-booting, because Windows 10 will lock down the drive on which you have it installed, so it won't be available to other systems. And if you write on it from other systems, it may corrupt data. And with some systems which don't support hibernation properly, it might create some issues. Fast boot basically makes your system not shut down completely and saves the state of the system in a hibernation file, which is reloaded/refreshed in RAM at start-up. Restarting is not affected, so if you don't shut down your PC often, you won't see much of a change.

Disabling or moving the index file from an SSD will make file search slower. It's true that the more an SSD is used, the faster it shortens its lifespan. The trade-off is not using it at its real potential, though.

Disabling telemetry and autoupdates only works properly on Enterprise editions and not even there 100%. They still collect some data, even on Enterprise with disabled telemetry. And yeah, blocking Microsoft IPs in the host file doesn't actually do anything. It might work if you block IPs directly in the router, though, depending on whether your router allows it.

1) Fast boot works fine for my dual-boot setup.
2) I don't use search at all really anyway, of course if you use it it's never a good idea to turn it off. This does increase performance though.
3) Even in Windows XP they still collect some data, but this really blocks most of it. I don't believe I blocked MS IPs.