Tascam Computer Istruzioni per l’uso

Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio

Introduction.................................................................................................................................2

Deciding on an OS.....................................................................................................................3

Windows XP – Home or Professional? .................................................................................3

Hardware requirements.........................................................................................................3

Update or fresh install? ..........................................................................................................4

Give it Time..............................................................................................................................4

Preparing for installation............................................................................................................5

Installation...................................................................................................................................6

Formatting your Hard Disk.....................................................................................................6

Booting from CD .....................................................................................................................7

Setup Tweaks – Things to Do During the Install.......................................................................7

FAT32 vs. NTFS..........................................................................................................................7

ACPI .........................................................................................................................................8

Dual Boot .................................................................................................................................9

Mass Storage Devices............................................................................................................9

Multiple Users........................................................................................................................10

Updates and service packs................................................................................................10

System Performance Tweaks – Stuff to Do After Installing...................................................11

Windows Messenger ............................................................................................................11

Display properties.................................................................................................................12

Windows Sounds...................................................................................................................14

System Restore......................................................................................................................15

Performance .........................................................................................................................15

Virtual memory.....................................................................................................................16

Fast user switching................................................................................................................17

Auto Start and System Services ..........................................................................................18

Disk I/O Performance Logging ...........................................................................................20

Write Behind Caching..........................................................................................................20

UDMA/ATA Mode for Hard Drives.......................................................................................20

Separate Drives – How and Where.....................................................................................21

Defrag Often..........................................................................................................................22

Virus and other Utilities.........................................................................................................22

PlugIns and other Goodies..................................................................................................23

XP and Win2000 Resources.....................................................................................................23

Stay Up to Date.....................................................................................................................23

Introduction

Many of our users have asked us for an update on Dave Casey’s excellent article on PC

optimization for audio. They’ve observed that, while the hardware info in the article is

useful for all PC users, the article is heavily focused on Windows 98 and Windows ME, the

dominant operating systems when the article was written. As more and more PC’s ship

with Windows XP, we’ve prepared this addendum to address those users’ needs.

It’s strongly suggested that you also read Dave’s original document, as much of the

information contained within is useful to all Windows users. (You can find it on the

TASCAM website at www.tascam.com/support/faq/pc_optimize/index.php) This article

will focus specifically on the particulars of these two Windows operating systems,

Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Some basic background: Windows 2000 and XP are based on the Windows NT kernel.

(The kernel is the basic set of coding “building blocks” upon which the operating system

is built.) Windows 98 and Millennium Edition (ME) are based on the Windows 95 kernel.

Windows 95 had its beginnings as a consumer-oriented operating system, aimed at users

running word processing, games and web browsers. Windows NT, on the other hand,

was designed for information technology and network connectivity, and is widely

regarded as being a more robust and stable operating system.

Since Microsoft originally marketed Windows NT and 2000 as its business solutions,

Windows 2000’s user base is largely made up of corporate users who value its ability to

create and maintain large networks of computers. There are, however, considerable

numbers of audio and multimedia users who praise Win2K’s stability and use it by choice.

In contrast, Microsoft is marketing XP as its “OS for everyone” by offering Home and

Professional versions. Anyone contemplating the purchase of a new computer will

undoubtedly find it preloaded with XP, and many users of W98-based operating systems

are making the switch as well. The main reason cited by most users is system stability:

Audio and other multimedia applications require more precise timing, with processing

and input/output speeds much higher than the needs of typical computer users’

applications. Windows 2000 and XP are simply more efficient in the way they process

system tasks, and that’s a critical factor in system stability and dependability.

The majority of Windows 2000 users have been using Windows 2000 for some time now,

whereas XP is still a relatively new player, with more users actively seeking solutions to

common issues. Consequently we’ve tired to focus a bit more toward XP where

differences exist.

One final note: as with most computer-based technologies, there are far too many

variables and changing conditions to predict how your own hardware and software

combinations will compare. This is intended purely as a guide, and your mileage may

indeed vary.

Deciding on an OS

Should you opt for Windows 2000 or a version of XP? Windows 2000 has been around

longer and many pros consider it more stable. It’s true that XP’s still working out some of

the kinks, but by and large it’s proving to be pretty robust. W2k has had more time in use,

thus benefits from more users’ problem reports and (hopefully) the resulting fixes.

Chances are, if you’ve bought a new computer within the last year, it’s already got XP

installed. This pretty much makes the decision for you. But don’t worry too much, since

most applications are now tuned to run on XP, as is most current audio hardware. In

fact, some of the problems and bugs encountered during the last year of WDM audio

drivers development are fixed in XP. In any case, it’s doubtful you’ll encounter any

major problems with either OS.

As Microsoft continues to develop and market XP it’s likely we’ll see support for Win9x

begin to diminish over time. (In fact, the latest updates for some audio applications

have reduced MME support in favor of the more efficient WDM protocol, and these

app’s may not run as efficiently in MME mode under Windows 9x.)

Windows XP – Home or Professional?

Assuming you’re going with XP, you’ve got a choice of two versions. For the most part,

the differences between the Home and Professional versions of XP have little relevance

to the audio user. XP Professional contains much more by way of networking and

connectivity, features absent from XP Home. As a basic rule of thumb, if you’re not

planning on using your computer for any network based functions, the Home edition

should serve your needs.

Hardware requirements

With each new Windows OS the amount of horsepower needed increases, and XP is no

exception. While Microsoft recommends a minimum 300 MHz processor, in truth XP

needs at least a 600 MHz CPU to keep its wheels from dragging on takeoff. Likewise with

memory: while XP will run on Microsoft’s recommended minimum of 128 MB, for serious

audio use 256 MB is the recommended minimum. If you plan on running any virtual

instruments or PlugIns go for at least 512 MB. (While some older motherboards don’t

support more than 512 MB, the more recent ones allow a gigabyte or more.)

XP will also demand a larger hard drive; Microsoft recommends a minimum of 1.5 GB of

disk space for the operating system alone. (Actually, about 10-15 GB is recommended

for all the system files it needs to run.) As with any audio-based system, a separate drive

or drives for audio will dramatically increase your track count.

Update or fresh install?

Generally speaking, a fresh install on a wiped hard drive is the best insurance against

potential problems; leftover registry items and other orphaned legacy files can lurk in

your system for months, only to cause unanticipated conflicts with a newly-installed

program or driver at a later date. Unless you are upgrading from Windows 2000 to XP, a

fresh install is recommended.

Give it Time

When preparing to install a new Operating System, it’s best to make sure you’ve got the

time to do it right. The process of formatting the drive, installing the software, new drivers,

and all your programs is one that can take several hours. Try to plan a time when you

can focus on the task at hand without major distractions, if possible, and aren’t likely to

be pulled away mid-install or tempted to skip a step…..what might appear to be an

insignificant item at first glance could end up causing you major aggravation down the

line, so it’s best to lay this foundation right before putting the computer into regular

service.

Preparing for installation

Even after confirming that the computer you want to install XP or 2000 on meets

Microsoft’s recommended minimum specifications, you still may wish to do a little more

investigating before you attempt an install or an upgrade, to make sure that all of your

hardware is compatible with Windows XP or 2000.

There are two valuable Microsoft resources that you should employ before installing

Windows XP or 2000 on your existing hardware: the Hardware Compatibility List

(www.microsoft.com/hcl/default.asp), and the Windows Upgrade Advisor

(www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSXP/home/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp). Together

these applications review your system hardware and existing software and deliver a list of

potential compatibility problems. These are divided into two basic categories: critical

incompatibilities (those which would prevent XP from running, e.g. an outdated

motherboard), and compatibility warnings (hardware and/or software which might not

function correctly after upgrading – these might require you to reinstall the program or

driver, or update your version to a Win2k or XP compatible version). If you are

connected to the Internet while running Upgrade Advisor, Windows will offer to retrieve

and install any available updates.

It’s also a good idea to check and see if there is a BIOS update for your motherboard,

especially if it contains any fix regarding ACPI or Windows 2000/XP, and flash it following

the instructions from the manufacturer.

Fig 1 – Microsoft’s Upgrade Advisor page

Before you begin the install, it’s a good idea to download all necessary drivers for your

PC hardware from the Internet. Pay particular attention to drivers for your graphics

adapter, and any audio and MIDI interfaces. As well, make sure your printer, CD burner

and any other peripherals are covered. If you’ll be using the computer for connecting to

the Internet, also pay attention to drivers for your network card or modem.

As a general rule of thumb, drivers written for Windows 2000 will work for Windows XP most

(but not all) of the time. Drivers written for Windows 9x will usually require an update. If

there is no Windows 2000 or XP driver for a certain component available and the

manufacturer has none planned, you will have to consider either upgrading that

component or sticking with Windows 9x/ME. This usually tends to be the case with older

hardware (ISA-based cards, scanners, older motherboards, etc).

Generally speaking, Windows 2000 and XP have drivers for most devices built in, but it’s

always a good idea to obtain them beforehand. Beats the heck out of discovering later

that you’re in need of, for example, a driver for your modem which you can’t download

because you need a driver for your modem……

It’s also a good idea when installing drivers to allow Windows to reboot after each

individual driver install. The Windows registry updates itself with every reboot, so it’s best

to allow it to do so before installing additional changes. While this takes more time and

effort, it’s something you’ll (hopefully) only need to do once, and is generally safer in the

long run.

Another thing to remember is that a fresh install of any OS will, by necessity, wipe out any

preference settings in your programs (e.g., bookmarks in your browser, email settings,

etc.) Make sure you make note of these before you begin.

Installation

Formatting your Hard Disk

Assuming you’ve backed up your data and are preparing a fresh install, you’ll want to

format the drive first. While it’s possible to format a (non-OS) drive in Windows, a low-level

format in DOS is preferable. If you presently have Win98 on your computer, you can

simply select “Reboot in DOS” from the shutdown menu. If you’ve got ME, you’ll need to

create a startup floppy and reboot from it. Either way, once you’re in DOS, simply type in

“Format C:\” (without the quotes). DOS will shake its finger and ask if you’re absolutely

sure….type Y for yes (you are sure, aren’t you…?) The drive will then begin FAT32 format.

This can take anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on the size of the

drive. When complete, you can name your drive (or not) and hit Enter.

Booting from CD

You will need to tell your computer to boot from the Windows CD-ROM instead of your

(presumably blank and formatted) hard drive. To do so, you must access your

computer’s BIOS (usually hitting DELETE key during boot up will access the BIOS; some

computers use F8 or another key, so check your computer’s documentation or the

manufacturer’s website). Once in the BIOS, you will need to change the order of boot

up devices. This is normally set for (1) floppy drive, (2) hard disk, (3) CD-ROM. Make the

CD-ROM the first boot device. Put the Windows CD in the drive and restart. After

stepping through the boot up you’ll see a message “Press any key to begin installing

Windows.”

Setup Tweaks – Things to Do During the Install

There are some actions you will need to take during the initial XP installation, as they set

certain system defaults which are much more difficult to change later.

FAT32 vs. NTFS

You have the option under W2k and XP to choose the file system that best suits your

needs, FAT or NTFS. FAT (File Allocation Table) is the native file system based on the

Windows 9x kernel (including 95, 95a, 95b, 95c, 98, 98se and ME). NTFS (New Technology

File System) is the native file system for operating systems based on the Windows NT

kernel (including NT4, 2000 and XP). During the installation, Win2K or XP will ask if you

want to convert the installation partition to NTFS. If you need compatibility for Windows

98 – especially if you want to dual-boot – don't convert.

While NTFS offers a number of improvements over FAT32, most of these advantages are

not all that applicable to audio, and you are unlikely to see a major performance

difference between the two. Moreover, defragmenting your drives (something you

should do on a regular basis anyway) is substantially quicker in FAT32. Be aware that

Windows 9x cannot read data on NTFS-formatted drives. Generally speaking, you should

use FAT32 if you are doing a parallel installation with Windows 9x/ME, or if you will need to

work with files created with a FAT32 system (opening old song files, working with others

using FAT32-based systems, etc.) leave everything with FAT32.

One exception would be if you’ll be working with video or other large files in excess of 4

GB; or if you also use your PC to browse the internet or the computer is part of a LAN

running XP Professional. Only NTFS can limit access rights to your files and therefore

provide the security needed for a networked computer. In this case, select NTFS for all

partitions except those which are to accommodate your audio data later.

One other interesting point: NTFS can read the "resource fork" of SDII files from MacOS,

and can therefore recognize the timecode stamps used in these files; FAT(32) can’t do

this. If you do a lot of work with ProTools or other MacOS-based DAW applications, you

should consider at least one NTFS partition in your system. (Note that this does not imply

that your NTFS-based system can mount/read from a MacOS drive; simply that individual

SDII files imported to an NTFS drive will retain their time-stamp information.)

ACPI

Another critical install detail is ACPI mode. ACPI, or Advanced Configuration and Power

Interface, is designed to help allocate system resources to more efficiently run peripheral

devices. For an audio machine, though, it’s been reported to cause some performance

problems due to its assigning all devices to a single IRQ.

During the install process, when the on-screen message appears “press F6 to install

additional drivers for third party SCSI drivers or mass storage devices,” press F5 instead.

When the screen appears giving you a choice between “ACPI-PC” and “standard PC”

mode, select “standard pc”.

Here’s a tip: If you’ve upgraded to Windows XP you may find it’s lost one important

feature: when turning off your PC (Start/Turn Off Computer/Turn Off), WinXP goes through

its usual "Windows is shutting down" routine, but it doesn't turn off the computer. The

power stays on, with Windows helpfully informing you that it is indeed safe to turn off your

computer now, until you manually punch the "off" button. This usually occurs if you’ve

opted to leave ACPI disabled. To fix this, you may want to enable APM (Advanced

Power Management). Here's how:

•Click Start | Control Panel

•Click Performance and Maintenance (at the lower left)

•Click Power Options

•Click on the last tab, marked APM.

•Check the box marked "Enable Advanced Power Management Support" and click OK

Figure 2 – Advanced Power Management

Dual Boot

The compatibility with legacy (older) software in Windows 2000 and XP is considerably

more restricted compared with Windows 9x; this is intentionally designed to insure stability

against any kind of application failure. If an incompatible program is run, Windows 2000

or XP will stop it as soon as it tries to access that program. It normally will not crash or

cause instability, but it will not allow the program to be run.

1. If you need to run such programs, or want to retain Win9x for any other reason, be

sure to install Windows 2000 or XP in a dual boot configuration, so that you can still

boot Win9x or DOS when needed. This is not a bad idea anyway – you can

always remove the other OS once it’s no longer needed – and a dual boot will let

you migrate safely to 2000 or XP while allowing you to revert to your previous

system if and when something doesn't work in Windows 2000 or XP.

To install Windows 2000 or XP in a dual boot configuration, have your older OS installed

first, then start the Windows 2000 or XP setup from it. When prompted, do not select

“upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP,” rather select "Install a new copy (clean install)", and

specify a new directory for it when asked.

Microsoft recommends installing it in a different partition than your other OS. We

recommend going a step further and using separate physical drives for each OS. This

precludes the possibility of Windows “inadvertently” sharing files across partitions. Your

best bet is purchasing removable hard disk “sleds” for your separate drives – this will

enable you to retain completely discreet operating systems and simply boot up with the

one you want to use.

Mass Storage Devices

A single track of audio for an average song can easily take up more than 20-30 MB –

multiply that by 24 tracks and you can see that larger drives are no longer a luxury. With

the price of hard drives dropping almost by the hour, many users are now opting for

larger drives and even RAID arrays. Redundant Array Inexpensive Disks protect your data

by writing simultaneously to more than one drive (when used in traditional RAID format).

However, many professional audio setups also employ RAID arrays in a different mode

where multiple physical drives are seen as one large drive, allowing for throughput far

exceeding that of a single drive. In the event of a hard disk crash, the data is replicated

on a second, or redundant drive.)

During the install process, you will be prompted to press F6 to install additional drivers for

mass storage devices.

Multiple Users

While Win9x also offers the option of setting up multiple users on a single computer, the

implementation under W2k and XP offers far more independence between these

multiple user accounts. If you will be using your computer for multiple functions, it’s a

good idea to set up separate user accounts for audio applications and general use. This

will allow you to slim down the audio profile in order to gain maximum performance from

the OS.

One important note: If you choose to install multiple users, it’s best to do so when first

installing XP. If you do so later, you will need to reinstall your OS.

Another hint: if you are using XP Professional, your audio user profile should be assigned

administrative rights (it defaults to this anyway). Reason: You can only burn CDs under

Windows XP if you are logged on with administrative rights.

Updates and service packs

Microsoft has issued updates and fixes for every operating system they’ve ever released,

and W2K and XP are no exceptions. It’s pretty much unavoidable with a new OS that

there will be some programs and/or hardware that don’t function as expected, and

that’s what the updates are intended to address.

With W2K, the latest update is Service Pack 2, and it definitely addresses some known

problems with audio and MIDI. Windows XP is still relatively new, and updates are still

being developed. As of this writing there are two updates, Q307 and Q310507, both

available from Microsoft, which are recommended for improving audio performance.

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