JC Audiophile optimization on win7, 2012, and R2.

[jesuscheung]

----TWEAK 3 (continue)----
-sorry, JIE's bcdedit tweak is harmful. cancelling my earlier tweak number 3.
-confused sticky SQ as rich SQ.

to CANCEL:
bcdedit /deletevalue bootdebug
bcdedit /deletevalue pae
bcdedit /deletevalue nointegritychecks
bcdedit /deletevalue bootstatuspolicy
bcdedit /deletevalue tpmbootentropy
bcdedit /deletevalue sos
bcdedit /deletevalue debug
bcdedit /deletevalue hypervisordebug
bcdedit /deletevalue disabledynamictick

to KEEP:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
powercfg -h off

also CAN or CANNOT keep:
bcdedit /set testsigning on

i kept it. positive>negative. also make life easier for me to mod drivers.

[jesuscheung]

cancelled a few more old tweaks (lucky i never posted them). sticky SQ mostly gone.

now intel sata driver 12.8.2 sounds too 'transparent'. treble tune becomes overdone.

updated to 12.9.0. all better.

negative negative can make a positive SQ. bad idea.

[jesuscheung]

just discovered interesting SQ with:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Executive
AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads (from 0 to 16)
AdditionalDelayedWorkerThreads (from 0 to 16)

when critical=16, and delay=16,
1. at windows first start, i have 400 threads in "Task Manager" (clearly additional threads are created)
2. after 30mins, reduces to 250 threads (additional threads are removed as OS stabilizes)

250 is the same amount for critical=0, delay=0!!
afterall, if nothing is happening, there isn't additional threads??

SQ is clearly difference at different state of time:
0min: soundstage 90%. 1-5%compressed (a little digital intense)
30min: soundstage 95%. doesn't feel compressed. not as "uncompressed" as critical=0 and delay=0.
10hrs and onwards: soundstage = 110%!! positioning is also messed up!

this tweak needs more investigation.

also notice critical must equal delay, otherwise, result in unnatural soundstage. not sure why.

shall listening to 16+16, 12+12, 8+8, 6+6... one day a time.

[jesuscheung]

rechecking/fixing all my tweaks. discovered how much i didn't know about SQ...

http://www.station-drivers.com/index.ph ... l-graphics

latest intel-graphic drivers:
Version 15.33.9.3355 has a little more natural soundstage
Version 15.33.8.3345 has 3D effect. sounds unnatural to me

i notice making 3D effect is very easy with windows. keeping it natural is difficult. cannot be achieved by software player alone.

[jesuscheung]

tried a few more versions of intel hd driver. each affects tune and stage differently.
my ATI graphic card gives better natural feeling.

narrowed down some registry keys of intel hd that affect tune and stage naturalness.

EnableSTE, EnableACE

[wademcinnis]

I have been playing around with Server R2 and MQn.

From my experience with the XP minimization on the cMP thread on AA I am trying to see how much of R2 can be removed.

From my experience I think You may be confusing yourself by making judgments about sound quality after a few changes. There are so many combo's of files that interact in God knows how that I think one must have larger goals.

From what was learned with XP the more you got rid of the better it was. We were all using the computer as a a transport with no intention of it doing anything other than playing music. When some would complain I would ask why they did not get mad at their traditional CD transport when it would not receive emails.

I think a dedicated machine is first and foremost in trying to get the most out of WINDOWS.

Have you experimented with getting rid of TRUSTED INSTALLER - I have eliminated it. I eventually will have all permissions as "Everyone". This way this is the only permission required and removed, lots of useless information and confusion no longer exists.

Trying to rid the registry of ControlSet2. This was fairly easy to do with XP. I have not been successful in getting all of it removed, yet. It may be that every single entry has to have the permission set.

Have you tried any of these things as of yet? Curious to hear of your experience.

I know this will seem ridiculous but I am just working with R2/MQn into WaveIO but no DAC yet.

I am working on the OS instead of sitting down and finishing my DAC project. Getting junk out of R2 is proving to be a much greater challenge and therefore I am drawn to it.

With TRUSTED INSTALLER out of the way it is MUCH easier to remove files and registry entries.

Do you know if the SERVER MANAGER takes any active role when using MQn? I know I can eliminate the .dlls - when the machine starts you no longer have to deal closing that screen. MQn works as before.

This post is just to see if there is interest and more importantly whether there is any agreement in my assumption that minimizing for the sake of minimizing could be important.

[internethandle]

Nice to see a cMP'er on here, welcome. I personally was not involved with the XP slimming that went on over on AA, but I was always intrigued by it. I still use cMP as a shell (just sounds better to get rid of Explorer - others have experienced similar results with the TotalCommander shell in Win 8) on my Win 7 install, specifically a version that steppe edited with cic's source code files that allows it to run without Winspool.drv. Overall, with Win 7, my experience has been similar to yours - less generally is more, whether it be actual deletion of system32/SysWoW64 files, or turning off services/drivers/what have you. JC (and PKShan's) approach intrigues me, however, in that they're the first Windows tweakers I've known to do critical listening after each change, and thereby suggesting that keeping certain services, registry settings, or files that would seemingly result in taking away resources from playback actually result in better SQ. For the sake of my own sanity I don't have the patience to do exactly as he does, but I appreciate his suggestions of what to keep enabled/undeleted/what have you.

Can you give some instruction on how to get rid of TrustedInstaller? JC has already discovered that "deleting" and then re-adding "Users" for a given drive results in an SQ improvement, which seems to be the case also with my build, so obviously Permissions have a good deal to do with SQ, with the added benefit of not having to fumble through them when attempting certain Registry deletions/edits, e.g.

Some posts back I've been posting what I've been able to delete in SysWoW64 and system32 using the Windows XP slimming guide done by Bold Fortune over on Graphix N' Stuff as a template. So far there's enough overlap, apparently, between Win XP and 7 that I've only run into a few snags in terms of stuff that would cause BSOD's etc. if deleted. I'd use the cMP Win XP slimming as a template instead, but it's so disorganized and scattered over so many posts that I just can't bring myself to it. Yesterday I managed some more system32 slimming (slow progress, only about 25 more MB on top of the 60 or so I've already done) and am going to continue with that today.

[nige2000]

yes id be interested in this

[jesuscheung]

Have you experimented with getting rid of TRUSTED INSTALLER - I have eliminated it. I eventually will have all permissions as "Everyone". This way this is the only permission required and removed, lots of useless information and confusion no longer exists.

don't do that. you are supposed to give better permission to some important files (sys, dll). so these files have priority over others.
(that's why i only give admin rights to files in system32, 64 folders. more properly done i should have selected each one properly, but i didn't bother).

if make every file with same permissions, that does nothing or damages SQ. i tried it.

Trying to rid the registry of ControlSet2. This was fairly easy to do with XP. I have not been successful in getting all of it removed, yet. It may be that every single entry has to have the permission set.

Have you tried any of these things as of yet? Curious to hear of your experience.

ControlSet2 is backup version of ControlSet... it is always in syn with the main ControlSet... can you also stop the syn? if so, SQ might improve.

Do you know if the SERVER MANAGER takes any active role when using MQn? I know I can eliminate the .dlls - when the machine starts you no longer have to deal closing that screen. MQn works as before.

use min server mode. there will be no server manager/metro/win explorer/ie. this is the whole point of using 2012. because win8 cannot get rid of anything officially.

[jesuscheung]

however, in that they're the first Windows tweakers I've known to do critical listening after each change, and thereby suggesting that keeping certain services, registry settings, or files that would seemingly result in taking away resources from playback actually result in better SQ.

if the goal is slimming win7/8/2012. the job is already done... so much easier. delete one thing takes 1 second. the trouble is listening. that takes mins to hours to days. each changes adds average of 0.1% SQ. if you have done say 100 correct tweak, you have at least 10% increase in SQ.

the trouble is incorrect tweak. that damages SQ by 1%. that undoes 10 things that you already done correct.

Can you give some instruction on how to get rid of TrustedInstaller? JC has already discovered that "deleting" and then re-adding "Users" for a given drive results in an SQ improvement, which seems to be the case also with my build, so obviously Permissions have a good deal to do with SQ, with the added benefit of not having to fumble through them when attempting certain Registry deletions/edits, e.g.

look up my earlier post on taking ownership of a folder. every files in that folder will get admin right and hence trustedinstaller will lose ownership.
the whole point is giving some files more rights that other. NOT GIVING RIGHTS TO ALL FILES. THAT DOES NOTHING.
so having TrustedInsaller is therefore a good thing. that creates a imbalance of importance.

that's why ntfs exists. fat32 has difficulty in controlling ownership and permission.

Some posts back I've been posting what I've been able to delete in SysWoW64 and system32

i still haven't bothered to delete things unofficially. i just realize GPU driver affects SQ too much. must fix it.