Carefully choosing only the MS patches I require

Agreed. It is the updates themselves that impact performance, some imposing more impact than others.

 

... I think I'm missing something here?

 

Sorry, I'll clarify: Gigabytes of data, much of which dynamically interacts with and impacts the performance of the OS as opposed to data that simply take up space but has no performance impact, such as .txt files for example.

 

All I know is that on many computers I installed service packs or lots of updates, many of them became sluggish. There was no denying the update caused this.

Now, whether this is due to the older machines and OS, hard to say. It isn't as likely probably with new machines I would imagine, but that doesn't change the fact that it has happened.

Not something I can prove, you'll just have to take my word for it, and apparently others as well

Sul.

 

The perception I get is that some here feel the updates provide security benefits with no impact on the system other than simply taking up disk space

 

Your perception is likely accurate.

 

Well, all I can say is those who feel the updates cause no performance hit will have a tougher time proving their claim than I do proving otherwise.

 

If updates added to the codebase, then slipstreamed installs would be that much larger, but with the exception of XP SP2 that is not the case. The updates just replace buggy program files with fixed program files; just like any software update (that doesn't include new functionality). The increase in disk space usage is from system restore points, installers, backups of the replaced code, and so on.

Also keep in mind that Windows does a lot of caching, indexing, defragging, and overall optimizing to improve performance, and this can take a little while. When you first install Windows and get all your apps installed, you'll generally find that performance will start to increase after a while -- maybe even a day or two. That's not to mention the performance hit of background tasks running and doing their thing, plus anything that your AV/AM software may be doing to catch up with the new and changed files on the drive.

Where performance can be affected is with software and drivers that utilize or interact with the updated components. Particularly with security updates, there may be new restrictions that force developers to rewrite code to better standards. So there are times that vendors need to update their software to work with the new updates. Until then the software may be trying to do things that it can't do, which can affect performance and/or stability even if there are no error messages.

After getting everything (including software) updated and all maintenance and optimization tasks completed, I generally find that things run more smoothly unless there are particular updates that cause problems on my system, but that doesn't happen very often. Sometimes "smoothly" can mean faster, but often it's just more consistent; buggy code can actually be quite fast, but it's often a "shaky" sort of speed that's counteracted by causing problems along the way. It's a lot like switching from a cheap power supply to a good one, in which you realize that you've been dealing with stability and performance issues that you didn't even realize were there or attributed to software.

If you want better performance then there's really no substitute for hardware upgrades; that's something I fought with myself for a long time. If you have real problems with performance then tricks and tweaks are generally a temporary cover at best. If you need to squeeze it for specific purposes like gaming then you can't beat dual booting to a clean partition with nothing else installed but the game, but other than that it's generally not worth it because any time you do save is counteracted by the large amounts of time you invest in doing and maintaining those things.

 

Well now that wat says he used it without issue, I'm considering it. But I can't imagine my setup really getting any lighter than it already is. When your system cache only ever gets up to 600 MB, and that's after having your box on for a week straight and running everything on it... and 0-2% of your CPU with occasional spikes to 4-5%. I mean, how can anything I do make it faster?

I just even acquired a new/old box with a dual core CPU and 4 (3.25 being read) gigs, and honestly I think it's just a placebo that it feels faster compared to my 2.4 ghz Celeron CPU and 2 GB of RAM. For that matter, I didn't even notice a difference when I upgraded from 1 to 2 gigs of RAM.

The only thing I do that I noticed made a (positive) difference was buy a new HD... replacing the 40 GB one that came with it with a 160 GB one, about 3 years ago. And it was without question faster as a result. And quieter too. It's the only piece of my old box I still have.

But XPlite just seems too intriguing not to try. Oh, and to (finally) answer your question... it takes me about a week, only because I don't do it all at the same time. I take it in small chunks. I just do everything I feel is vital before connecting to the internet for anything more than my Windows updates... like disabling known vulnerable services, disabling NetBios over TCP/IP, and getting Comodo & SBIE set up. And the first couple weeks after a fresh install of Windows I get A LOT of popups from my paranoid D+. So usually after about 3 weeks I'm done with (almost) everything.

I say almost because the process is never finished. I still learn new things from time to time. Like for instance, I learned a registry tweak to completely kill autoplay from someone in here a few weeks ago. That goes beyond just the GP edit. Which brings me to something I thought was odd about that guys hardened setup in the link you provided... one of the services he has running that I don't: Shell Hardware Detection. That's a service in particular I'd recommend disabling on XP, as it's tied into autoplay. And with it disabled I have never once had XP have a problem "detecting" anything I've plugged into it. Some of those services have misleading names like that. Like "Protected Storage"... you're more protected not storing the stuff in the first place, lol.

 

So what are the limitations in the free trial for XPlite as opposed to the pro/paid version? Just time? If so, how many days, 30? And/or are features limited too?

And am I just not seeing it, or is there a free version?

If the free trial is fully featured, I only need to use it once so a time limit isn't a problem. If I like it I'll create an image with it in that state. But if it's not fully featured, eh... $40 is a bit steep for me.

Not to mention it says "1 install". I wonder if it's one of those deals where you reformat your computer and try to install it again, and it won't work because that 1 install was used up? "1 machine" would inspire more confidence in me.

 

Do you have any idea what the System Cache is? (In Task Manager, right?) If so, why would you even think of using that as any sort of "performance" gauge?

Mine's nearly 3 GB now (which could happen within 5 minutes of being booted), which is normal and exactly as expected with low RAM usage and accessing different parts of nearly 3 TB of data on this system. And, doing certain operations, Windows would drop that to nearly nothing instantly. Again, all expected, and means nothing about "performance!"

 

Dude, I know you have an axe to grind with me now but at least try to be objective. What you just said made absolutely no sense. How can the amount of physical RAM you have cached vs. free out of what's available be no indication of how trim your setup is?... because that's what we're talking about here, not performance. But if you want to use performance as the criteria... it can be a pretty good indicator of that as well. But only if you start getting close to the amount you have available... which you are with 3 GB at boot, considering XP can only address 3.25. Go to run a program or two and you're up against the wall, and tapping into your pagefile (slower).

We were talking about 2 different things here, but really now we're not, since your extreme case brings performance into the equation. I'll bet your box crawls compared to mine. I can't imagine the bloat fest one would have to be deploying to have XP cache 3 GB of physical RAM at boot... and that's what we're talking about here (yes, I know)... do you? Doesn't seem like it.

Mine is close to 208 MB at boot. CPU usage is 0-2% with occasional spikes to 4-5, no matter how long I have my box on for. I'd say that's a better indicator of performance, though I've found freed up memory is also a pretty good one. If you disagree you'd probably be alone there.

 

No, you're wrong. Sorry if you thought that!


Anyway, no, that would only be "at boot" (that I used as a possible example) if I started working with the large files, or a lot of any data (e.g. >= 3 GB of data touched in any way), nothing to do with running programs or not.

All the system cache is, is RAM that's NOT being actively used for anything else, so Windows caches any other sort of file data there. If the file "identifier" for any of the cached files becomes invalid by deleting it (or other stuff I've observed... renaming?) it's removed from the cache, instantly. Nothing to do with anything else.

Now, memory pages that have not been touched recently (e.g. inactive) WILL be paged out, even to make room for more system cache, which is unfortunate because it obviously slows things down when a program becomes "active" again, and its pages have to be paged back in. That is unfortunate, and can be observed after moving files larger than your amount of RAM (or free RAM approximately). I'm not sure if Windows 7 is any better in that respect or not... I'd rather just ALL free memory be used for caching file data, and not page out any allocated memory, but Windows seems to be eager to do that (page out inactive memory).

So, in my example (after file copy/move) and you go "run a program or two," there is NO page file hitting happening to launch those programs (nothing paged out if they weren't running). No, if they take longer to launch (like first time after boot), it's because they are no longer IN the system cache, and have to be loaded from the hard drive again.


And BTW, I also thought my XP could only address 3.25 GB (about what I heard before building this "4 GB" system) and I swear that's what I saw too 4 years ago. But, now I have nearly 3.5 (System CP says 3.5)! 3668196K Total in Task Manager.

Actually, AFAIK, 32-bit XP does address a full 4 GB address range, it's just that other stuff takes up some of that. 512 MB on my video card, for example, and then some other system devices on the motherboard I think, also use a bit of the address space... So whatever is left is how much RAM can be available!

 

From what I see even with the Pro/paid version of XPlite you can only strip out 6 services. Is that correct? If so... how can you strip out the rest of your unneeded services? Is there a tool that can do it? Or perhaps integrated measure? I thought I recalled Spybot S&D being able to do such a thing, but forget now. I'd like to be able to get of a bunch of them too once and for all, but it doesn't seem like XPlite can really do much other than 6 of them.

 

I'll have to take another look at it when I get home, but I'm pretty sure that XPlite can remove a lot more than that. A lot of the options that aaffect services are hidden in advanced options and aren't displayed until you go into an "expert mode". If I recall correctly, the trial version doesn't have a time limit. It's not able to remove many of the items the pro version does.

BTW, the 4GB RAM limitation is at least partially artificial. Server editions can use more than 4GB. See this page and the links on it for more info.

 

luciddream,
I'm assuming that you're referring to the 6 items listed under System services.
There are more. On the upper right, you'll see a preferences button next to the help button. Check the "show advanced components" option. There's a lot more avauilable there.

 

THanks. And is this advanced functionality available on the free trial version? Or only the Pro/paid one?

Thanks again.

 

Most of the services can only be removed by the pro version.