The pros & cons of disabling logging on startup.

[Aunty Em]

I'd like to know what you think. Do you do this? Have there been any problems? I know this shortens the time it takes to startup but is it a good idea? What happens if something goes wrong, I won't be able to read the log and see what happened to trace the fault. do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? ?(

 

[PT]

If something goes wrong, seriously wrong, you're looking at reinstalling anyway, so it doesn't matter much what the log says. If it goes wrong, but not serious enough that it will still boot, then re-enable logging and reboot a few times, and you have your log.

 

[Aunty Em]

I hadn't thought of that. So really switching it off is no problem. I'm using Winhacker95 v2.3 to switch it off, how would I switch it back on without Winhacker in DOS?

 

[PT]

Well, I would say you probably still need to boot into windows to turn it back on.

 

[Aunty Em]

OK, Thanks. I just wondered if it was possible to do it from DOS.

 

[PT]

There probably is a way, but I don't know it. I try not to dive into the registry unless I absolutely have to, or unless the system is unstable anyway, and I just want to find out what stuff does.

 

[Aunty Em]

I'm trying to disable the splash screen logo at startup but I'm not having much joy.

I've tried using Winhacker to turn it off but it isn't playig ball. I've also tried adding:

logo = 0

to the MSDOS.SYS file in the root directory as well, but that isn't working either. I'm stumped. ?(

Update:

I found the problem, some prat missed

logo = 1

down at the bottom of the file. Wonder who that was?

 

[Luis G]

isn't logo = 1 the option that displays the splash screen of windows while it is starting ???

 

[Aunty Em]

Yes it is. So you change it to Logo=0 to disable it.

Actually this is what I have added to the msdos.sys file after removing the read only protection.

Logo=0 - This setting turns off the silly Windows splash screen during startup. Disabling this will shave a few seconds off your boot time.

Drvspace=0 - This setting turns off support for Drivespace-compressed FAT16 drives. Since no one uses this anymore, it is safe to disable. Disabling it will not only speed up your boot time, but it will also free up some extra resources as well.

Dblspace=0 - Same as above, but this time for Doublespace-compressed FAT16 drives.

DisableLog=1 - This setting disables the log file which Windows creates by default when booting up. Disabling this will shave a few seconds off your boot time, and since no one ever uses the log file for anything anyway, it won't be missed.

AutoScan=0 - This line disables the automatic scandisk that is run if the commputer is improperly shutdown - saving a bunch of time if you are constantly restarting your computer using the power button instead of the 'correct' way. Sadly, however, this doesn't appear to work with Windows Me. - gonna test this in a minute.

Doublebuffer=1 - don't know exactly what this does. Explanations welcome.

My comp definately appears to be booting up faster. I've now got to figure how to edit the system.ini under [386Enh] so I can add:

LocalLoadHigh=1 - This setting tells the computer to load everything the operating system needs into upper memory by default, freeing up as much conventional memory as possible (the first 640K). Microsoft would like us to believe that this no longer effects the system, but they are lying.

DMABufferSize=64 - This setting tells the computer to leave as much memory available for DMA data transfers as possible, speeding up not only the boot process but the system in general.

I've also done some tweaks to my hard drives and system following the advice of the SANDRA 2002 STANDARD program.

 

[Luis G]

i read the "logging" part, and then i just read the "logo = 0" part, missing the part where you said you were trying to disable the logo screen.

Doublebuffer was supposed to improve disk performance, it isn't needed anymore. Somewhat similar to the old BUFFERS=XX,YY statement.

 

[Aunty Em]

So do I actually need doublebuffer cos that setting enables it?

 

[Luis G]

these days it won't make a difference if you have it enabled or not.

if you enable it, it will increase performance, but not noticeable, not even to benchmarks.
if you disable it, it will free up some 500bytes of memory, which are useless.

Suggestion, leave it that way.....it is "useless"

 

[Aunty Em]

ANYTHING that helps my system limp through startup is welcome. It can stay.