My recommendations for configuring Windows XP for use as an audio recording studio PC.

This will be long, but well worth it. Your computer will be as fast and bug free as it can be, but DO NOT use it for things like games, peer to peer file sharing, casual web browsing. These activities have the potential to slow down the pc with malware, virus's, and will take up valuable disk space.

NOTE: This document assumes you know how to install all drivers that Windows might not provide. If you have a driver problem, go to the manufacturers web site and get the newest one. IE: your soundcard has an exclamation point over it in device manager and you hear no sound, find out what model card it is and go to the official site and get the driver. Or use www.driverguide.com for older hard to find drivers. You can also use WinAudit or SIW to find out what devices you have. There is also an app called unknown device identifier that is free, IF you can find it.

Install Windows XP fresh, this means use your Windows disk to FORMAT and install a brand new copy of the OS. Do not use a disk that has a company logo on it like Dell or Gateway, no "restore" disks. Why? because they will install a bunch of proprietary and advertising software you DO NOT want on this particular pc. If you have a new Dell or Gateway or other non-homemade pc, please use PC-Decrapifier to remove all the junk that those companies stick on the computers they sell. Still, the best scenario is a fresh install, if you do not have a Windows XP disk straight from Microsoft, go buy one. You can get it from Walmart, Best Buy or just about anywhere else, including online stores like Tiger Direct.

Once you have installed the operating system, do not create more than one user. This takes CPU power to maintain, and you need all the power you can get.

Now, we are finally at the new Windows XP desktop after installation, you will see little balloons asking if you would like to take a tour, ignore them. They will stop after a few reboots.

You will need to "Activate" your copy of Windows, follow the instructions and do so.

Once activated, the tweaking begins. NOTE: Within this document, SS links show Screen Shots of what is being described.

  • Right click the task bar and choose "properties". SS
  • You should get this window SS, uncheck "Hide Inactive Icons"
  • In the same window, switch to the start menu tab. SS, click "Classic start menu". Then click the customize button, you will see this box appear SS, uncheck :use personalized menus, and check "scroll programs". You can now click ok to close both windows.
  • Right click on a blank spot on the Windows desktop (not on any icons) and choose properties from the resulting menu. SS. you will get a window that looks like this SS, now go to the "desktop" tab and choose "none" from the list. SS, displaying an image as wallpaper takes CPU power to render the colors, shadows, etc. Click "Customize Desktop" and turn off the desktop cleanup wizard. Now go to the "Screensaver" tab, and choose "None" from the drop down list. SS, now click the "Power" button and you will get a box similar to this SS, set everything to "Never". You don't want your machine to go into powersave mode while rendering a large audio file. It will freeze and you will have to do a hard reboot and start over. Now go to the settings tab and raise your resolution as high as you can get it without the monitor going banana's. Mine is set to 1280X800 SS HINT: if you can see your desktop, the resolution is ok, go higher until it shows nothing but a bunch of lines and you can't read anything, from this point DO NOT TOUCH THE KEYBOARD OR MOUSE, your previous settings will be restored in a few seconds, now you are at the highest resolution possible with your current hardware. Things may look small to you, but you will be able to see much more of your projects within your recording app this way. You are now done with this window, click ok to close it.
  • Now we right click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop and choose properties SS, go to the "Advanced" tab in the resulting window SS, under performance, click the "Settings" button. In the resulting window, click "Adjust for best performance" on the visual effects tab. SS, and click ok to close the window. Now go to the "Automatic updates" tab and turn it off. SS, you can now close this window.
  • Security Center, annoying, cpu hogging, but good for non techies. For a recording pc, kill it. Click your start button, mouse over settings and then click "Control Panel", double click the "Security Center" icon, click where it says "Change the way security center alerts me", uncheck all three boxes in the resulting window. But leave control panel open.
  • Within control panel, double click the "Administrative tools" icon, the double click the "Services" icon. You will see a box similar to this. SS, I will be advising you to stop and disable many services, this is up to you as is the rest of this document, I am not taking responsibility for anything you screw up :-)
  • Kill the following services by double clicking on them one at a time, clicking the "Stop" button and setting the startup type to "Disabled" SS
  • KILL SERVICES LIST: Automatic Updates (Only kill this one AFTER you have done ALL critical Windows Updates) - Error Reporting Service - Fast User Switching - Help and Support - Messenger (If it is not already disabled) - Themes - Windows Firewall (It is a bottom of the line firewall anyway, if you want a real one have a look at PCTools Firewall Plus.
  • I know we've already been here, but there's a reason I made you wait until now to do this part. Right click the My Computer icon again and choose properties. Go to the Advanced tab, click settings under where it says "performance". Now click the advanced tab from the resulting window SS. Now click the "Change" button under where it says virtual memory. you will get this window SS. Click "Custom Size" and type in three times the amount of RAM you have installed. Put the same number in BOTH text areas. this is set in MegaBytes, so if you have 512MB of RAM, set this to 1536, if you have 1GB of RAM, set it to 3072. How much RAM do you have installed? Do a DXDIAG to find out. Click the start button, then click run, then type dxdiag and click ok. It will analyze your pc and tell you how much ram you have. (among tons of other info) SS
  • Restart your computer now, even twice would be better.
  • RECOMMENDED: Go to www.avast.com and download their free antivirus software, it kicks the crap out of the so called "leading" software, and it's free. You just have to register to get a unlock key. Registration is free. When installing Avast, do a "Custom install", you don't need P2P protection (if you follow my above recommendation), I have web, network, mail and standard shields running within Avast. Also, go to www.mlin.net and download/install Startup Control Panel. This puts an icon in your control panel called startup. use it to shut off anything that's not critical at startup. Example of things that do not need to start with windows, real player, quicktime, nvidia display control, ATI display control, msn messenger, yahoo anything, if you have questions about what might not need to start with windows, email me or google it.

    • That's all the tweak advice I am going to give in this document, anything else you do is purely your own gig. If you need further advice on things you might not understand, again email me or google it.

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