Windows 95 Performance Tips

By default, Windows 95 makes use of a dynamic swap file to handle swapping. A dynamic swap file is likely to easily fragment your harddisk.

To prevent swap file fragmentation, right click on the My Computer icon, then click properties. Next go to performance, then click on 'Virtual Memory'. Choose 'let me specify my own settings'.Based on your system RAM you can choose from the below table which setting would be preferable for your system,

How does this help ? When you specify a minimum swap file size, that portion of your harddisk space is reserved for the swap file. However, you harddisk will still expand beyond this point and cause fragmentation. The maximum size specifies the maximum amount of space reserved for the swap file.

By setting maximum=minimum , swap file fragmentation is eliminated. The swap file is forced to occupy the reserved space you specify. The swap file will not grow beyond this size once you specify the above setting.

Note that different people have different requirements and the above settings may not be suitable for power users. The above swap file should allow users to open up to 10 applications open at the same time.

If left at default, Windows 95 dynamically sizes the disk caching size according to how it sees the system needs it. Windows 95 may suck up too much RAM for the disk caching and leave too little left for applications.

Limiting the size of the disk cache ensures that the disk cache does not go out of control.

Below is a table of ideal cache settings for systems :

To control the size of disk caching you add two lines in the system.ini file in your windows 95 directory in the [vcache] section:

MinFileCache=y
MaxFileCache=x

Where x= the max size of disk caching in KB and y is the min size cache

In my case ,

MinFileCache=256
MaxFileCache=1024

Those with 8 MB systems and higher who are having excessive disk activity may be pleasantly surprised after making changes like these.

Some Win 95 users have complained of disk swapping even when they access the Start menu. Not so after the above changes.

It is suspected that some of the people who are not having this problem somehow got some kind of migration of vcache settings from the existing windows setup they had in their old system.ini. For fine tuning, you can use the System monitor that comes with Windows 95.

Make a small, separate partition for your swap file out of the last few megs of your HD. (Between 16mb to 127mb since this size gives you the smallest cluster size, i.e. 2k clusters). (Be sure to make backups before repartitioning your drive). This way your swap file is never fragmented, and can grow or shrink contiguously.

If you have 2 physical hard drives, try defraging the least accessed one (probably the one that Windows 95 is NOT on), and create your permanent virtual memory on that drive.

To prevent the Microsoft logo from starting up each time you load Win 95, add the following lines in the file msdos.sys under the options setting :

logo=0

Note that the file msdos.sys is a text file and can be loaded by notepad. It's found in the root directory C:\ if your installed copy of Win 95 is on Harddisk C. Remember to make a backup copy just in case.

Deleting the config.sys and autoexec.bat files will save you 11k of memory. Only do this if you are sure you don't need them and that your Win 95 does not require any 16-bit real-mode drivers.

Add the statement BootDelay=0 under Options-Section of Your Msdos.sys.

Don't use wallpaper. Just as in Win 3.xx, fancy wallpaper can slowdown the system.

Take advantage of the well documented registry hack that speeds up the response of your Start menu.

To do this, open the system registry using regedit and open :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel

Highlight Desktop. Right-click on the right-hand window pane and choose New- String Value. Give the new string value a label of MenuShowDelay. Now double-click on the new string and enter a value of 1. 1 is the fastest to 10 being the slowest.

Closely scruntinze your autoexec.bat, config.sys, win.ini, and system.ini files. Determine what, if any, entries are no longer necessary in these files and delete them. Look especially for the loading of 16 bit real mode drivers that are no longer necessary. Also remember not to load smartdrive.

Dump any useless background tasks. Get rid of ones you don't use on a frequent basis. Examples: Screen Savers like AfterDark (which can use up to 1mb of memory ). Win95 powertools like screen resize, system resource monitor, etc. Especially tools that reside in the system tray. Although each one doesn't use much ram in itself, together they can waste a lot, and they each use a little bit of CPU time.

Where's Himem loaded ? Where's my expanded memory loaded ? Is it loaded at all ? Well if you try typing MEM/C in a DOS window you'll see that it's all loaded in the registry. You can apply the /TESTMEM:OFF to HIMEM in the registry as well as setup environment variables. Applying the /testmem:off switch bypasses the memory self check and speeds up your boot up time. To find the HIMEM reference in the registry simply search the registry for the Keyword : HIMEM.

How to configure my PPP connection ? Under Trumpet, it's easy, but where do they hide the RWIN settings, packet sizes, and such in Windows 95? How do I know I'm getting the best I can get?

Well, the TCP/IP packet size can be adjusted.

The path to create the string key under is: (use REGEDIT to change it)

My Computer
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - go to
\System - go to
\CurrentControlSet -go to
\Services - go to
\VxD -go
\MSTCP -your there !

Create the string value "DefaultRcvWindow" and then Edit - Modify the value to 4096, 2048, or 1024 whichever works best for your setup.

The best I could get out of Trumpet was about 1.38 Kbytes/sec, with Win95 TCP/IP I consistantly get 1.6 Kbytes/sec and I have seen peaks of 1.7. This is not with the standard settings, with those I was getting 1.2 Kbyte/sec consistantly. All I did was to change the DefaultRcvWindow to 4096, the default is 8192.

You will find more information on TCP/IP settings and what they mean in the resource kit help file on the Win95 CD under the folder Admin\Reskit\Helpfile.

To find the section of the help that you need, in the contents screen that comes up when you double-click on the help file, type "tcp" then click on configuring | Display | then click on the ">>" button six times to come to the page titled "TCP/IP Registry Entries in the MSTCP Subkey".

The key you want to edit is described on this page. Enter the new value so that it is a number between quotes, ie "4096". Look a few pages farther on for how to change the MTU setting.

I found that the default value of 8192 will run but it slows and comes to a stop and then starts again. All the values between that and 4096 don't work. 4096 works well with no rest stops. I have settled on 4096.

It all depends on your ISP ,you will have to experiment.

To set the MTU, create a new entry (string value) in the following registry key:

(the n represents the particular TCP/IP-to-network adaptor binding)

The entry should read: MaxMTU = 552
(or whatever you want to change it to).

It seems that some people have noticed some performance benefits by removing the Microsoft Networking Protocol in the Network applet in Control Panel. If you are using a stand-alone system, you probably don't need it. You don't need it to make a simple PPP connection to the Internet via modem.

Don't use more colours than you really need. 256 colours is adequate for most user's needs. Some people need more colours than this. Some people can make do with 16 colours. Again, this probably has more to do with your video card than how much RAM you have.

Don't use animated cursors. This does not have as much impact as wallpaper, but it can impact system performance slightly.

Set up your CD ROM settings according to your needs. If you don't access your CD heavily, don't go overboard on the caching or the optimization pattern (for , 3x, 4x, etc.). Setting is in (right click) My Computer choose Properties, then go to Performance and choose file system. Choose CD-ROM.

For that special DOS game :

Want to make your single or double speed drive perform like a quad+ speed drive in Win '95 ? It's easy.. Go to

My Computer / Properties / Performance / File System / CDROM

and set the supplemental cache speed to its maximum and the access pattern to 'Quad speed or higher'.

Avoid using Sound schemes that comes with Win95 and the system schemes that comes with the Plus! pack.

Lower desktop resolution and/or smaller TILED bitmap instead of large full-screen. The higher the desktop resolution the more memory windows needs to maintain it and refresh it. 640x480x256 takes up to 307k (note that choosing 256 colour can actually slow things down if you use a lot of applications that make use of 16 or 32bit colour, since windows must constantly alter the colour palette for them.). A full screen bitmap in 1024x768x64k colour can take up to 1.6 MEGS of memory to maintain. A happy medium: a TILED 320x200x64k colour bitmap will take about 128k.

Get rid of extra objects and icons from the desktop. While on the desktop, each one uses a small amount of RAM to maintain it's info. Because the average allocation for them is 1k-3k having 20 objects on the desktop can use 20-60k. A small amount, but a lot of small amounts equal a large amount. Put the objects in folders and keep just a few objects on the desktop.

This may be more a thing that makes the system feel faster instead of actually making anything of substance actually do anything faster.
To do this, open the system registry with regedit and open :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

Right-click on the right-hand window pane and choose New - String Value. Give the new string a label of MinAnimate. Now double-click on the string and give it a value of 0.

Check you DMA buffer allocation. Launch the System applet in Control Panel. Click on the Device Manager tab, click on System Devices, double-click on direct memory access controller, click on the Settings tab. Check the Reserve DMA buffer box and adjust the buffer amount up to at least 64K.

Check settings in your favourite applications. Especially if you notice that the system seems to slow down or thrash the disk when the app loads. Examples: Netscape has disk and memory cache options, set a smaller memory and larger disk cache.

Be sure you are using your hard drive in its best mode. Particularly with new EIDE drives on an older 486 motherboard. You may need a driver like Ontrack Disk Manager/Drive Rocket to get your drive into its fastest mode. If you have an older IDE drive controller card, consider getting a newer EIDE one since a $50 investment can improve hard drive performance by several HUNDRED percent in this case.

Use the System Monitor to check out which applications are using quite a bit of the CPU time when idle. DOS apps tend to be bad about this. Avoid leaving these CPU hogs open/running in the background since they can drastically slow the system down even when they aren't doing anything at all.

I noticed in the Control Panel -> System Icon, "Performance" Section -> "File System", Under the CDROM Tab, there is a setting for "Supplemental Cache" which on my machine was defaulted to 1MEG ! That is a lot of memory to use up when I rarely use the CDROM.

If this setting is lowered Windows may use less memory at startup or during operation.

Be careful in running DOS apps to restrict the memory they can use. Many DOS apps, games especially, will use all the memory they can find. If you set them to AUTO they will happily cause your swap file to grow to a gigantic size, and bring the system to its knees.

If you crash a DOS window, particularly if you crash more than one time, you often won't get all of its memory back. The portion that was being used by command.com may remain reserved but unused. Keep this in mind.

For maximum DOS memory in an MS-DOS session, add the line LocalLoadHigh=1 to the [386Enh] section of system.ini.

Fonts: Both Win95 and Adobe Type Manager use memory to cache fonts. The larger this font cache size, and the more fonts there are, the more memory you use. If you have a lot of unused fonts, consider getting rid of them. Be sure you don't remove any that you DO use though.

Unneeded devices/drivers in system.ini or win.ini: Look for DEVICE=full pathname\device.386 These are usually drivers/VXD's that were installed by some program other than win95. You can tell what they are by looking at the pathname to WHERE they are. If it's a program you seldom use, comment out the device line until you actually want to USE that program. If you see a device that is in the windows directory, and you don't use the program at all any more, get rid of that device

Every time you add a new folder, or delete something from a window, you need to hit F5, Refresh, to see the results. This is quite an annoyance. Here is a little tip to change it so that the screen refreshes automatically.

1. Start Regedit.
2. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder and open it.
3. Open the System folder, and then the CurrentControlSet folder.
4. Select the Control folder, and then the Update folder.
5. Go to the right window and right-click with your mouse on Update.
6. Select Modify, and change the value from 01 to 00.
7. Click on OK.

The changes will take place next time Windows 95 is started.

Add a line to disable the automatic updating of time last accessed for files. This line goes into the config.sys file and the following example would disable the c:, d:, e:, and f: drives from doing this:

ACCDATE=c- d- e- f-

Some people have reported significant improvement by adding this line.

You can adjust this by opening the System applet in Control Panel, clicking on the Performance tab, then on the File System button. The default is to set the read-ahead to the maximum (64 KB), but some have reported that a much lower value of around 8 KB produced positive results. Again, this is something that I can't personally vouch that improved my system, but some have indicated that it could help.

You can turn this off by opening the System apple in the Control Panel and clicking on the Performance tab, then on the File System button. Next click on the Troubleshooting tab and click on the Disable write-behing caching for all drives checkbox so that it has a check mark in it. This is another item that I can't say helped the performance on my system but have read that others have reported a performance boost by turning write-behind caching off.