Keeping your OS Clean

[YellowShadow]

Hey guys,

I've recently installed Vista Ultimate on my system but it feels like I've installed it a year ago. I don't know if its the OS that is bloated or the applications I use make it look bloated. I have 2D image apps, 3D modeling apps, IDEs and frameworks (XNA and other C++ ones) installed.

Is there any way that I can make my operating system more cleaner? It feels too bloated to me for some reason.

If anyone can help that would be great.

Also another question: What applications do you guys have on your computer that you guys use for game development and day-to-day stuff.

PS: If this post/thread isn't clear enough please let me know how I can fix it to make it much clearer for everyone to read, understand, and help me out.

[MacMan45]

Personally I have always had that issue with vista installs.

I have had some friends who had a much better experience though, so I'm guessing some sets of hardware just "fit" better with vista.

Is there any reason you went up to vista? (From xp I'm guessing?)
Consider dual booting, and maybe even switching back to XP.
If the base install (plus vital apps) is sluggish, maybe your machine is just not one that vista happens to like!


As for what apps I use, on my XP laptop I use visual studio 2008, however I have recently bought an EeePC (switched the xandros to xubuntu though), and I have been very happy with code::blocks.

If / when I need to go back to my big bulky laptop & XP, I might switch it to code::blocks too, it has been a great IDE (especially coming from a VS background).

[Bad Sector]

The only thing i use is Crap Cleaner. It cleans the crap that makes your system slow :-). Although you need to know what you're doing when using this utility. In any case, its free and works. Search in google for it.

And i try not to put too many stuff at system startup time. But in this end, i failed because although the system boots fast, logging in takes at least a minute to finish (but i don't reboot frequently, so its not a big issue).

[YellowShadow]

The only thing i use is Crap Cleaner. It cleans the crap that makes your system slow :-). Although you need to know what you're doing when using this utility. In any case, its free and works. Search in google for it.

And i try not to put too many stuff at system startup time. But in this end, i failed because although the system boots fast, logging in takes at least a minute to finish (but i don't reboot frequently, so its not a big issue).

For a second I thought you were kidding :) but then I found out CCleaner was originally called Crap Cleaner. Just downloaded that and I'm installing right now.

Any other tips to keep your system clean and not bloated?

Plus I think I got the hardware for it since I get a 4.6 experience rating; and that's because of my ram which is given a 4.6 everything else is in the high 5s.

[Cartman]

I find using Spybot and Lavasofts AdAware are useful to keep the spam and malware at bay. Plus weekly defrags work for me.

[YellowShadow]

I find using Spybot and Lavasofts AdAware are useful to keep the spam and malware at bay. Plus weekly defrags work for me.

I really don't understand what a defrag does? Care to explain?

[Applewood]

When you save files out they can get split up all over the place. On a fullish drive you can even get individual files split into many small pieces being squeezed where they fit.

The more you add/delete/add/delete files, the worse this can get.

A defrag reorganises these files back into linear form, putting more frequently used files in more optimum places and generally making your HDD spend less time seeking around for bits and therefore less time loading a file.

I think a weekly one is overkill personally, but I guess then it at least doesn't take four years to run which is what yours is going to do seeing as you had to ask the question. It's worth doing though - leave it overnight maybe.

[YellowShadow]

When you save files out they can get split up all over the place. On a fullish drive you can even get individual files split into many small pieces being squeezed where they fit.

The more you add/delete/add/delete files, the worse this can get.

A defrag reorganises these files back into linear form, putting more frequently used files in more optimum places and generally making your HDD spend less time seeking around for bits and therefore less time loading a file.

I think a weekly one is overkill personally, but I guess then it at least doesn't take four years to run which is what yours is going to do seeing as you had to ask the question. It's worth doing though - leave it overnight maybe.

Hmm.. Okay I'll do a defrag tonight before I go to sleep.

[ConayR]

When you save files out they can get split up all over the place. On a fullish drive you can even get individual files split into many small pieces being squeezed where they fit.

The more you add/delete/add/delete files, the worse this can get.

A defrag reorganises these files back into linear form, putting more frequently used files in more optimum places and generally making your HDD spend less time seeking around for bits and therefore less time loading a file.

Actually it's slightly different. Data read/write is composed of seek and access. While in real life scenario average read access is around 1ms (depends on chunk size) seek can take up to 10ms. What defrag does is it puts subsequently accessed chunks of the file next to each other to minimize seek time. If file is in consecutive blocks there is only one initial seek needed.

In addition to that Vista Super Fetch will determine which system libraries are used together and not only put chunks of data for a given file next to each other, it will also put certain files in proximity. This is kinda tricky though and in some cases disabling Super Fetch can result in a better experience.

Also on Windows Vista you can run into perf issues if you have VSS snapshots on the box. Run "vssadmin list shadows" from your command line. If you have snapshots, disk writes will impose IO performance penalty. You can delete snapshots by disabling System Restore. Please note that this feature is quite useful so disabling this "tweak" does not come free.

You can improve experience by using some SSD device (e.g. USB stick) that is ReadyBoost enabled. Also consider moving pagefile and Outlook data files to a separate disk or at least volume. This may require creating junction point to the Outlook data store. Outlook does a lot of flushes to the disk to keep your mailbox consistent. Flushes however are pretty expensive IO-wise.

Defrag often. If you defrag every day, defragmentation will take 3-5minutes. Try avoiding 3rd party defrag applications even if they claim your disk is fragmented more than Vista defrag does. First of all metrics are not the same, second of all they may cause you some data loss (especially if you have restore points on your system). Avoid registry cleaners other than malware-focused ones (like HijackThis). It's 2008 not 1998, registry is not a performance hog anymore.

Check your event logs from time to time. If some application crashes very often, crashes will be associated with performance drop.