Speeding up Windows 98 and Computer

The Road to Recovery for Win98 64MB Ram Computers:
**First go to My Computer, Properties, Performance, and check your System Resources Percentage. Mine was at 39%.

1. Go to add/remove programs and uninstall any unneeded or unwanted programs
2. Clear Temporary Internet Files, Cache, History etc.
3. Empty Recycle Bin
4. Scan for Viruses/Spyware and fix any problems
5. Start up in Dos, type in scanreg /opt and Enter, than scanreg /fix and Enter. This will clean up and rebuild your registry.
6. Right Click on My Computer, then Properties. Click the Performance tab. Click on Graphics, and turn the accelerator to None.
7. Still in My Computer Properties, Click on Virtual Memory, and change the Minimum from 0 to 128. Do not restart computer yet.
8. Back in Windows, go to Run, type in msconfig and then click on the Config.SYS tab. Click New and type in Dos=High,Umb . When asked to restart computer click Yes.
9. Go back into Msconfig, and put computer into safemode. Once in Safemode run a full system Disk Check, fix problems, then run a Defrag.
10. When finished all that, go back into Msconfig, Under General, Click on Selective Startup. Check off everything in that list.
11. In Msconfig, go to the Startup pad and uncheck any items that do not need to be running in the background. Ie. Messenger, Microsoft Works, etc. When done Click Apply, and restart computer.

**Now go back to My Computer, Properties, Performance and check your system resources. Mine now reads 83% and that's with Zone Alarm Firewall and AVG Anti Virus running.

Startup Time Before (from the time I push the on button untill Windows completely loads) = 4 mins 35 sec.
Startup Time After I did those steps = 3 mins 09 secs
And the freezing has completely stopped.

 

So on the Windows 98 Computer I should've set the minimum on the Virtual Memory to 172, and the Maximum to 172?

Because As of right now I only switched the minimum to 128 and left the Maximum at what it said.

So it would be better if i switched it to a 'fixed' swapfile of 172min 172max? I have just under 5 gigabyte hard drive , and I'm only using about 50% of it (2 gig).

I've also heard that when windows manages the swapfile it gets fragmented and windows defrag can't defrag it. Well this computer has been running for 8 years under "let windows manage my virtual mem" and never had a clean install or anything so I imagine it's pretty fragmented. I've heard that if you disable the swap file..go into safe mode and do the defrag..it will defrag the swap file..but I also heard if you run out of ram while defragging ur computer could crash if virtual mem is disabled.

 

So what your saying is I should leave it at 128 and keep the max to unlimited? Or should I increase both? or just increase the min?

 

okay thanks.

I was looking at that PuterGeek site and I came across Optimising my vCache..which is apparently more important than the virtual memory. Should I do that too following this guy's steps ? Here;s the link http://www.putergeek.com/vcache/

More of what I'm asking here is like he gives me two options..one for a gamer, and one for top performance..Well I'm looking for top performance but my grandpa does play on Pogo..I don't know if that's conisdered gaming.

 

Well, I did the [vcache] thing and changed it to 2048 and 16384 and restarted the computer. Attempted to go on the internet and a warning thing popped up saying.. "Windows does not have enough memory to load application, quit one or more programs and try again." So I exited it, checked my System Resources and they said "very low 6%" Whereas before I did this, I had 83%. So I went back to system.ini and undid the settings and now I'm back to square one. What went wrong

 

Had played around this VCache thing but that was long long ago.

You would be better off defragmenting your hard disk the proper way - get a decent defragmenter or download a trial & run it.

 

The Win 98 system is quite "small" (although fine for when it was new). I would not tweak too many settings. Setting a minimum swapfile should be fine if you have the diskspace, although I would not set a maximum. Setting maximums will "scare" Windows if it only has 64Mb of RAM to start with.

Tweaking virtual memory is really for systems with large amounts of physical memory.

I think Norton Utilities does a good job of defrag. I've used Windows defrag, then immediately rerun with Norton (although I have seen recommendations not to run both). I have also run Windows defrag one time then Norton the next time...no problems. Norton rearranges the data differently to Windows so it will be hard work for the HDD, but I know it's defragged when I finish .

I get Norton Utilities to set the size of the swapfile and set it at the front of the disk. Seems to work very well for me. That was using Norton 2000 version, not sure if the recent versions will even work on 98.

Matt

 

jordoe28, BTW, if everything seems to be running well, what happens if you reset the Graphics Acceleration back to default?

Christer, re: shutdown-restart.
From my personal view (this could be quite wrong), the RAM is like a set of pigeonholes into which the program information is loaded. The more RAM, the larger the number of pigeonholes (addresses) that Windows can use and it also has to keep a record of where that information is. The program loads as if a set of cards comes along to the placed in the p/h's...big program, lots of pigeonholes. If you have a small set of addresses (p/h's) you may fill most of those p/hs, then if more cards come along you need to squeeze the remainder in or let them overflow into another sort of holding device. Priority... new set of cards has priority over the old set, take out the old set and put them into overflow if there is not enough space for the new set. If you have a large set of pigeonholes, you may want to put the cards into the holes closest to you rather than climbing a ladder to put them at the very top.

At shutdown Windows has to "save settings" so it has to search the addresses for changes and save them as hardfile. Searching is easier if the addresses (p/h's) are handy. At startup Windows has to look at the amount of RAM it has available and start "shuffling" the information into that space.

Hope my imagination is not too RAMpant
Matt

 

With a 64 mb system, it would be better to let windows handle the Vcache settings. While the default max setting for the Vcache is almost all of your RAM, in actual usage the average size will hardly be over 8mb. The Vcache is designed to shrink and grow, to allow priority RAM usage to applications.
The Vcache is performance enhancing. For example, on a freshly started system with an active internet connection, open Internet Explorer, then close it. Open it again, and it should open just a little bit faster. This is the Vcache at work.

 

Wow!.......Great thread!

I've bookmarked it for now.