Cad windows 8 audio optimization

I have been looking for a simple way to optimize a Windows 8 computer for audio use.  I manufacture DACs and it is important that I can optimize my dealers and customers computers quickly and easily.

Over on the Computer Audiophile forum I found a very simple script that «John Doe» wrote and I think it is a great way to do what I want and I think this would be of interest to a lot of other computer audiophiles out there.  One of the biggest issues I have is the perceived complexity of computer audio and anything that we can do to make it simplier and sound better is a good thing for the industry.

I have  been working on shutting down services and drivers for some time now and am currently at 191 for Windows 8.  I have put a lot of work into finding the correct services/drivers to shut down.  When I say «correct» I mean of course so I do not cause a BSOD, but more importantly decrease latency and improve sound quality.  I have been using LatencyMon:

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

To monitor the reduction in Latency and it works fairly well.  A great free tool.

I am not a computer expert!  It would be helpful to have others take a look at what I have done and offer suggestions.   I have no doubt there are additional services to be disabled and I have probably disabled some services that would best be left running.

I am hoping there are ways to setup other Windows parameters within the script such as:

Edited by CAD, 01 May 2013 — 12:51 PM.

I used the JD script and would be further interested in any additional improvements.

Thanks for the effort — I think I will  try it once I make an image.

Have you seen this site:

http://www.blackvipe……..gurations/

He has been providing windows tweaks  for most versions.

Eric

edn4x4 said:

I used the JD script and would be further interested in any additional improvements.

Thanks for the effort — I think I will  try it once I make an image.

 

Have you seen this site:

http://www.blackvipe……..gurations/

He has been providing windows tweaks  for most versions.

Eric

Yes, I have been using Black Vipers site for a couple years now.  Great place to start.  JDs script disables 7 services.  Mine disables 191, so I have taken it a bit further.

acg said:

A script to turn services back on would be good for those inevitable occasions when we wish to add hardware or update software or drivers.  Possibly even a group of scripts to turn on useful things such as Remote Desktop, windows update et cetera and then turn them off later on.

 

Anthony

As I mention above you must «Export» and save your current registry before using my script.  If you ever want to do something like you mention load back your original registry.  You can «Import» your original registry back in.  This can all be done with the registry editor (regedit.exe). 

I think this is the best way to do what you are taking about, but I am open to any better ideas.

CAD said:

I used the JD script and would be further interested in any additional improvements.

Thanks for the effort – I think I will  try it once I make an image.

 

Have you seen this site:

http://www.blackvipe……..gurations/

He has been providing windows tweaks  for most versions.

Eric

Yes, I have been using Black Vipers site for a couple years now.  Great place to start.  JDs script disables 7 services.  Mine disables 191, so I have taken it a bit further.

CAD, this is great stuff.  However, in all fairness to John Doe, his script is an afterthought or post-audiophile-ISO-image script, an image, if loaded, where he already had turned off dozens and dozens of services.  I am not sure what the end result of the two of you are, but your numbers comparison is really not accurate.  Nuff said, great stuff regardless.

Four questions:

1) Is your white paper V1.1 Feb 2013 the spec for the optimization script?  I ask because I do things like use jremote for my Jriver/jplay browsing and do not want networking turned off.  Also, I currently boot from a Windows-on-a-stick USB stick so I don’t want all USB ports turned off either.

2) Do you, or others here doing this, still run Fidelizer after doing these scripts?

3) If I have already run JD’s latest script does yours replace it in scope (i.e does everything it does and more)?

4) Are these optimizations permanent (i.e no need to do them after a reboot)?  I realize they can be reverted back with a saved registry import; that’s not my question.

Thanks again

Ted

Edited by ted_b, 02 May 2013 — 05:38 PM.

ted_b said:

CAD, this is great stuff.  However, in all fairness to John Doe, his script is an afterthought or post-audiophile-ISO-image script, an image, if loaded, where he already had turned off dozens and dozens of services.  I am not sure what the end result of the two of you are, but your numbers comparison is really not accurate.  Nuff said, great stuff regardless.

John Doe’s audiophile-image is highly recommended and is way ahead of where I am with this simple script.  He (she?) has done a fantastic job, but the ISO image may be beyond what many people can or want to do and the current script only shuts down a few services.  I am looking for something that can be done very simply.  My dealers and customers want simple.  I like the idea of running a script (that takes a few seconds) and your computer sounds much better. 

1) No, that is for Windows 7.  I also use JRemote.  Read my «personal requirements» in my original post.  Networking is not turned off with this script.  Wi-fi is, so you must use Ethernet.

2) I do not know about others, but I am not using Fidelizer.

3)  It does everthing and more.  Open up JD’s script with Notepad and then open up mine to see the differences.

4)  Yes they are permanent – they remain after reboot. 

Edited by CAD, 02 May 2013 — 06:17 PM.

CAD said:

CAD, this is great stuff.  However, in all fairness to John Doe, his script is an afterthought or post-audiophile-ISO-image script, an image, if loaded, where he already had turned off dozens and dozens of services.  I am not sure what the end result of the two of you are, but your numbers comparison is really not accurate.  Nuff said, great stuff regardless.

John Doe’s audiophile-image is highly recommended and is way ahead of where I am with this simple script.  He (she?) has done a fantastic job, but the ISO image may be beyond what many people can or want to do and the current script only shuts down a few services.  I am looking for something that can be done very simply.  My dealers and customers want simple.  I like the idea of running a script (that takes a few seconds) and your computer sounds much better. 

 

1) No, that is for Windows 7.  I also use JRemote.  Read my «personal requirements» in my original post.  Networking is not turned off with this script.  Wi-fi is, so you must use Ethernet.

 

2) I do not know about others, but I am not using Fidelizer.

 

3)  It does everthing and more.  Open up JD’s script with Notepad and then open up mine to see the differences.

 

4)  Yes they are permanent – they remain after reboot. 

Thanks again!  So I assume USB ports are not turned off or you wouldn’t have recommended a USB boot backup, etc in your first post.

BTW, completely agree about simplifying, especially established installations.  Good job!

P.S.  i guess I could look at task manager to see what I am running (after JD image and script) then run yours and see….

Edited by ted_b, 02 May 2013 — 07:14 PM.

ted_b said:

So I ran an export of my registry, ran the CAD script and now it won’t find my NAS!!!!  That is my music.   Mayday, mayday.  And stupid me did not set a restore point, and since the script run it is giving me errors to even now set a freaking restore point.  And importing my old registry doesn;t seem to do a damn thing.  So now I need some help investigating what services could have been turned off that previously allowed me to map my NAS folder. 

I know all this cuz Splashtop (VNC) still works on my headless CAPS, but music doesn;t cuz JRiver (and Windows Explroer) can’t connect to the NAS drive.  Other computers are visible on my network, but my NAS is gone (from the network) and the mapped drive has a red x through it.  Please help if you can!

Hi Ted.  sorry to hear about your ‘issues’.  This is the sort of thing that I was getting to earlier in this thread about different scripts to turn on all services for particular windows features.  I don’t have time right now to go through all the windows services for networking (I am at work) but here is a link with a description of the services.

http://social.techne……..vices.aspx

I suggest that you print this out and go through with a highlighter and mark every one that mentions network or file transfer and then go and manually turn them on.

Good luck,

Anthony

EDIT: To turn on services go  Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services.  To my knowledge these windows services are independent of the registry in some way (I’ve never looked into it) but whenever I have struck this problem a restore point is what saves me, not restoring a registry backup.

Edited by acg, 04 May 2013 — 06:44 AM.

ted_b said:

So I ran an export of my registry, ran the CAD script and now it won’t find my NAS!!!!  That is my music.   Mayday, mayday.  And stupid me did not set a restore point, and since the script run it is giving me errors to even now set a freaking restore point.  And importing my old registry doesn;t seem to do a damn thing.  So now I need some help investigating what services could have been turned off that previously allowed me to map my NAS folder. 

I know all this cuz Splashtop (VNC) still works on my headless CAPS, but music doesn;t cuz JRiver (and Windows Explroer) can’t connect to the NAS drive.  Other computers are visible on my network, but my NAS is gone (from the network) and the mapped drive has a red x through it.  Please help if you can!

When you run your registry editor (regedit.exe), right click on it and  «Run as Administrator».  Then try importing your old (original) register.  Once you import it you have to reboot the computer.

You probably have some older restore points also.  You can use any of those.  

I do not use a NAS so I will figure out what is stopping that.

Thanks CAD but it broke the system restore function all together (error 0x000203).  And I did the regedit as admin.  And I’ve turned on several network services I know of that might be involved but they have dependencies that I have no way of knowing what they are. When I mentioned that the family’s computer show up in network, they do, but they can’t be mapped either, as «server is not enabled».  I am hosed. 

My bad…I should not have assumed this was going to be another script like JD’s….I should have heeded the warnings, done the work to set a restore point, etc (although I did do the regedit export)…. and now I likely need to reinstall Windows and start from scratch.  This is not good.

I will first reinstall my SSD and its stock SATA cables (removed it, the cabling, the Molex from the SOtM card, everything) and boot from there (a separate Windows image) and then rebuild the Win-on-a-stick when I have time.

Edit:  I will leave the Win-on-a-stick rebuild for later, until at least you guys (and my googling) have had some time to investigate what might have been turned off for NAS mapping (or any mapping for that matter).  That way maybe I can just turn that on and be good to go.  In the meantime I have my SSD version.

Edited by ted_b, 04 May 2013 — 04:19 PM.

ted_b said:

So I ran an export of my registry, ran the CAD script and now it won’t find my NAS!!!!  That is my music.   Mayday, mayday.  And stupid me did not set a restore point, and since the script run it is giving me errors to even now set a freaking restore point.  And importing my old registry doesn;t seem to do a damn thing.  So now I need some help investigating what services could have been turned off that previously allowed me to map my NAS folder. 

I know all this cuz Splashtop (VNC) still works on my headless CAPS, but music doesn;t cuz JRiver (and Windows Explroer) can’t connect to the NAS drive.  Other computers are visible on my network, but my NAS is gone (from the network) and the mapped drive has a red x through it.  Please help if you can!

teb_b — As I was saying above, I created a restore point before I did all this.  The restore process did not work.  I am not positive, but if I would import my registry and run the restore it may work.  BUT — I found that I could live without remote for now and the sound from my system was dramatically improved after I ran this script and did the IRQ changes (http://jplay.eu/foru……..ion-jplay/)  post #25.

Windows 8 also has a new refresh and a restore option you may want to google before your reinstall.

CAD

Thanks CAD for the hard work.  At first I was a bit bummed that I lost remote, but after reading your requirements I should have caught that one. If you update your script in the future keep me posted and I will gladly test it out.

I can verify I have JPLAY 5.1 and JRiver 18 running on my audioPC without issue.  My music is stored remote and I have no issues accessing my shared JRiver library on my remote server.  I have run both one and two pc setup.

did the IRQ changes (http://jplay.eu/foru……..ion-jplay/)  post #25.

Before you attempt the IRQ changes make sure to read the links on post #68 in that thread as well.

Eric

booted back to USB copy.  I found the culprit and fixed it.  All is well. 

Solution:

For those of us with NAS music storage please delete this line in CAD’s config file (same deletion as JD’s config file):

sc config lmhosts start= disabled

or we won’t be able to connect to network storage.

edn4x4 said:

ted_b said:

 

Thanks CAD for the hard work.  At first I was a bit bummed that I lost remote, but after reading your requirements I should have caught that one. If you update your script in the future keep me posted and I will gladly test it out.

I can verify I have JPLAY 5.1 and JRiver 18 running on my audioPC without issue.  My music is stored remote and I have no issues accessing my shared JRiver library on my remote server.  I have run both one and two pc setup.

I just borrowed a Synology NAS from a friend and have it up and running on my network.  I am working on the script to make sure it works.  Once I get it sorted I will update the script.

Scott 

Edited by CAD, 04 May 2013 — 11:19 PM.

CAD said:

ted_b said:

 

Thanks CAD for the hard work.  At first I was a bit bummed that I lost remote, but after reading your requirements I should have caught that one. If you update your script in the future keep me posted and I will gladly test it out.

I can verify I have JPLAY 5.1 and JRiver 18 running on my audioPC without issue.  My music is stored remote and I have no issues accessing my shared JRiver library on my remote server.  I have run both one and two pc setup.

I just borrowed a Synology NAS from a friend and have it up and running on my network.  I am working on the script to make sure it works.  Once I get it sorted I will update the script.

 

Scott 

As I posted above, just delete one line.