Tweak your XP for music

Are you getting sick of your machine crashing on you when you just had a killer idea? Or your at a crucial moment between a mix and your machine crashes back to desktop for no reason? Or you have a absolute bitchen system that should handle so much more

Drop.The.Hammer

Engage.The.Nitro

Your.Laptop

will.Burn

This guide will have your laptop running how you always wished it would!

This is a list of tweaks I have taken from several sources (all listed below) that I thought should really be known by all. These are tweaks that actually make a huge noticeable difference to you're the all round speed and stability of your XP audio platform.

What we are going to do is apply a bunch of tweaks that will work on one of three ways:

System Tweaks

Rather then having your XP geared for Microsoft word, Outlook and those girly games your girlfriend likes to play, these tweaks are going to make XP perform better with audio applications in the standard way we use them.

Interface Tweaks

How your XP looks actually has is a big bottle neck on system resources. All those nice buttons and start menu effects are draining your power! Seriously! After were done it might look a little bland, but that's where your favourite DJ software comes in, I mean your not even looking at your start menu are you?

Background Services

This is where the magic happens. Why do you need windows to check to see if you have an internet connection while you are beat matching the next track? You don't, but windows still is and it is costing you speed! Where going to strip windows down to its bare minimum here.

Let's get started:

Add New User

Ok, first thing we want to do is add a new user to your machine. This means you can keep your slick eye candy interface when your not DJ-ing, and when you are you can simply log out of your regular user and log in as your DJ user.

You must have a computer administrator account to add a new user to the computer.

So lets get on with it...

Open User Accounts in Control Panel
Under Pick a task, click Create a new account
Type a name for the new user account, and click Next
Click either Computer administrator or Limited, depending on the type of account you want to assign to the new user, and then click Create Account

If you see an account named Owner, rename that account with a user's name. The Owner account, with computer administrator privileges, is created during installation if no user accounts are set up at that time.

Restore Point

A System Restore point is a way of telling XP that were about to make some serious changes and we want it to set a point where it can come back to if one of these changes as an undesired affect. If you make a mistake, or something else goes wrong you can log back in and restore your computer to the exact state you are in right at this second if you set the restore point here.

OK, So Here's how...

1. Press your Start button and click on Help and Support.
2. In the Help and Support Centre, click 'Performance and Maintenance'.
3. Click 'Using System Restore to undo system changes' and then click 'Run the System Restore Wizard' under the 'Pick a Task' heading.
4. In the System Restore Wizard, click Create a Restore Point and follow the prompts to save your system state in a new restore point.
5. At any time, if you wish to return your computer to the state it was in when you created the Restore Point, follow steps 1-3 above to get to the System Restore Wizard. Then click 'Restore my computer to an earlier time', and select the date on which you created the restore point you wish to return to.

Ok, now log out of your current user and log back on as your new user for the rest of the tweaks.

System Tweaks

Disable automatic update

Periodically XP will connect to the internet to find updates automatically for you. This is completely unnecessary and annoying do this on your own time not while your playing. You can ditch it by going to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Automatic Updates and select "Turn off automatic updates".

Disable Error Reporting

You can use Error Reporting for troubleshooting, but we shouldn't be bloody trouble shooting while were dropping that monster floor filler should we? Go to "Control Panel" > "System" > "Advanced" and choose "Disable" to disable error reporting.

Disable Power Management

Power Management can be the worst thing that can possibly happen to you on stage. If you leave your keyboard for a while and the hard disk turns off there goes your set! You can disable it by going Start > Settings > Control Panel > Power Management. Set the Power Scheme to "Always On" and set "System Standby", "Turn off hard disks" and "Turn off monitor" to "Never".

Processor Scheduling

Processor Scheduling for audio should be set to "background services" and not "programs". Since we won't have many services running this will help a lot. Change it by going to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced Tab > Background Services.

Activate DMA on Hard Discs/CD ROMS

DMA will decrease the access times on your disks (A good thing!). Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.

Then Right-click Primary IDE channel and Secondary IDE channel > Properties > Advanced Settings Tab > Transfer Mode to "DMA if available" for both devices.

Disable Remote Assistance

Unless you really can't use a computer you really don't need this, and will never use it anyway. So if you haven't already, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel> System > Remote > Un-tick Allow remote assistance invitations to be sent from this computer.

Disable Remote Desktop

This is another case of won't use it. This feature is mostly used to remote connect into servers, and since your DJ ain't no server, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Remote
Un-tick "Allow users to connect remotely to this computer"

Disable Disc Indexing Service

This was Microsoft's answer to their useless search feature in windows. It's meant to make searches faster. I don't see a different, and you won't ever be using Microsoft's built in search while DJ-ing or producing so, Right Click Start > Explorer > Right Click Each Disc > Properties
Un-tick "Allow Indexing Service to index this disc for fast file searching" - this will lead to a message if the option should be applied to all directories. Choose "yes" and wait, until procedure is finished.

Do Not Map Through Soundcard

Mapping through the soundcard you want to use in your DJ-ing or production can sometimes cause unknown conflicts, so why risk it? Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices

Comments (1) add comment