Should I use a Decrapifier style of utility to remove unneeded software from my fresh install of Win 10 Pro before installing Cantabile?
If so, which one would be a good choice?
1 Like
Personally, I am not a fan of automated tools that reconfigure my system. Without understanding what they are doing, and without being able to roll back all or part of what they do, I find them hard to trust them.
The author of Cantabile has developed this Glitch Free Guide which has worked beautifully for me. It also helped me develop a short pre-gig checklist that has (so far) never failed - I have yet to have an in-gig failure with respect to the laptop component of my rig.
I hope this helps!
2 Likes
If Windows 10 is your daily driver and you are not a Windows guru, I recommend that you tread lightly. I have worked on it since version 3.1 in the early 1990’s and have the scars to prove it. I think that most of the people here would recommend that you use a dedicated computer or separate partition for your music.
The first thing that I do is remove the spyware that is built in these days (and there is a lot). I have had good luck with W10Privacy.
This can also remove a lot of apps and sevices that are slowing you down.
Next is the excellent Glitch Free Guide from Cantabile referenced above.
Also, there is https://gigperformer.com/how-to-optimize-your-pc-for-the-stage-download-free-ebook/ This one digs a little deeper.
And, for a completely different take on the subject, there is this guide from a long time musician who works for Microsoft and seems very knowledgable.
Good Luck
4 Likes
Windows Defender recognizes W10Privacy.zip as a threat and will not finish any attempts to download. The uncompleted file is labeled as “Failed - Virus detected”.
See what the developer says about this on their site: https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/virus-1/
That’s sad. Of course W10Privacy is a threat — to Microsoft’s business model!
Here is a very polite description of the problem by AVG, the antivirus company. https://www.avg.com/en/signal/windows-10-privacy-everything-you-need-to-know-to-keep-windows-10-from-spying-on-you
Thanks for the heads up. I set everything in a PowerShell script these days, so I was not aware. I can get my running tasks down to about 75 without breaking anything on a Cantabile only system. I do not connect it to the internet.
You can white list W10Privacy, generic instructions here from Microsoft.
I just tried it and had no problems.
Thanks for those links. The Microsoft article by Pete Brown is excellent, and I even picked up a few new things, and found some great clarification on some tweaks that are usually recommended by most optimization guides.
Tom
Always great to see these links and new sources for glitch free performances . Much appreciated . setting up a new computer and optimizing my laptop this week!!!Always a work in progress!!!
1 Like
Thanks for the advice.
I’ll check out W10Privacy when I’m finished with the Glitch Free Guide.
So I’ve been working my way through Glitch Free and am having trouble with the section about Core Parking on page 36.
Having done a search for dec35c318583 and found a folder called 0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583
I can see the same files as shown in the guide (Default) through to ValueUnits.
Where exactly is the Attribute setting which I’m supposed to double click on?
Oh, please don’t bother replying.
Just found it.
1 Like
Latest versions of Windows 10 (from 2004 or 20H1, AFAIR) after you changed the core park registry entry, will show lots of voices in the “advanced power settings” window. If you have doubts, just use the free “Disable CPU Core Parking Utility” by CoderBag or BitSum’s ParkControl
The 11" Dell 2-in-1 touchscreen running Windows 10 I use with an EMU XBoard 49 has an i3-4010U 1.7Ghz CPU, 1TB Samsung 860 SSD and 8GB of RAM. At first, I set it up just to run some older non-CPU hungry piano and organ VST’s that worked even running on battery for about 2 hours. I tested it with B-3X but it load times were high and it looked like the CPU wasn’t up to the task.
I think IK has improved the B-3X CPU usage, so I decided to revisit it for this more portable setup. I ran WinPrivacy and checked all green boxes and most of the orange ones. I also installed Bitsum Lasso Pro and chose the Bitsum Performance profile.
B-3X is now running fine even with the GUI open.
1 Like
I’ve more or less finished with the Windows settings except for 1 thing.
- Page File Settings p 42
My laptop has 12 GB of RAM and a SSD.
Could someone please recommend settings for Initial size and Maximum size?
I’ve always set the page file to 1.5x the RAM at a constant size (min and max the same). If that seems too low, go to 2.0x.
The 1.5 times RAM for a page file is a 15 year old recommendation for low RAM systems that keeps getting copied and passed along. It is only used for memory and crash dumps, not normal use.
Disable memory dump and crash dump (has anyone ever looked at them?) and leave the setting at Microsoft managed. If you look at the official documentation it will max out at 4Gb under normal circumstances.
This will have no effect on performance.
If you want to dig deeper on how your system is using paging, do a search on how to use Performance Monitor to watch page file usage.
Good luck!
2 Likes
Thanks for the replies and
Wow, 2 completely different approaches.
Need to do some reading and give it some thought.
At least I’m not in a big hurry to get set up.
I recently created a new Win11 laptop for music use, and was surprised – and more than a little disappointed – by how little RAM I could force it to use. I think Windows is tuned for typical 6-8GB laptops, and tries not to go overboard. I sprung for 16GB, only to find that I could never use more than 55-60%, no matter the VST configurations, tracks in my DAW, etc.
Then I got an idea: I installed a RAM drive program, and created a 7GB drive. On startup I make a RAM copy of Cakewalk songs, wave files that I play in the DAW, and most VSTs – except for sample players, since I would need a huge RAM drive to support the libraries. It only takes a few seconds to copy the files during boot, so I never even notice it happening. I’ve found that this greatly improves the performance during live shows, particularly the load times. YMMV.
Regards,
-BW
[Additional Thoughts]
Just to clarify my point: I’m a retired engineer who used to work for PC manufacturers back in the day, and I did my own manual ‘de-crapify’ of my laptop. Threw out all the ‘bonus’ software that HP added and such. I didn’t find that it made much difference in the performance, so I wonder if the effort is more for the user’s piece of mind than any real benefit. I did see a huge benefit by using a RAM drive. I also saw an improvement in the user experience by removing McAfee Total Protection and moving to BitDefender – far less popups, which is really annoying during a live performance. Now granted, I’m not using Cantabile to its full potential (yet), but I think the general approach that I took would benefit anyone. VSTs load faster out of RAM than from an SSD, and much faster than an HDD. Same for audio clips, song files, etc. I used to cringe when I ended a song, because the next one might not load for 10-15 sec. if it was filled with VSTs and audio clips. Not so with the RAM drive.
5 Likes
Core blimey, I have not heard the phrase RAMDRIVE let aloe used one for probably 20 years!
4 Likes
I’ve never looked at or been asked to provide a dump file so I’m thinking it may as well be disabled.
According to these web pages, it seems that altering just one setting will prevent both.
https://www.mobigyaan.com/disable-crash-dumps-creation-windows-10
Is this correct, or has one of these authors made a mistake?
Hopefully you’re pc isn’t crashing (blue screen) on any kind of regular basis so waiting for it to create the dump file won’t come into the picture while using Cantabile.
The paging file is a system created file that hopefully speeds up Windows and decreases load on the OS drive. After reading countless articles on the paging file I’ve ended up letting Windows manage it. I do see that any Windows computer benefits from 16GB RAM (or even more). It’s our standard base level amount of RAM for business users.