Is Windows really that lame?

[Simon Ravn]

Being a former Amiga freak, I can\'t help getting a weird feeling each time I hear people saying that \'installing games and lots of programs on your PC makes it slower. Install nothing but Giga on it\' etc.... Why the h*ll will installing programs make it SLOWER? Is Windows really THAT lame? Afterall, the few entries in the registry should be all that has to be in memory (unless it is only accessed when using the relevant application/game) that could \'slow things down\'. And, the registry entries belonging to a specific application is, AFAIK, only accessed when the app. boots up or shuts down or does some changes to it. E.g. the only reg. entry for a game would be a path to where games are saved or such. How and WHY on EARTH should that be able to interfere with Gigastudio or other programs? And DLL\'s.... are only accessed when the relevant program needs it. And for programs overwriting DLL\'s with its own versions, that should only be able to result in crashing or applications not working. Not applications performing worse. And if that DLLs was that much of a problem, why don\'t programs like Gigastudio only use DLL\'s stored in its own dir (maybe it does)?. Well ... I must say, it\'s hard to believe that Windows is so badly put together compared to good old AmigaOS.... So please tell me that I am wrong, and all that talk about installing many programs on your system makes it slower etc is just nonsense.

Simon

[SteveMitchell]

The paranoia about \"installing\" too many programs is exactly that, no offense intended to anyone here.

Your analysis about the way the system operates is logical, and is essentially accurate. Only system dll\'s are loaded when the system boots, and if GSt is the only app running, then it\'s the only app running. I\'ve heard claims that you have to remove \"SYSTRAY\", and other OS embedded stuff, but that\'s hogwash. While all applications that are loaded consume ram, when they\'re not in use for awhile, most of their data/code is swapped out to the harddrive. The most common apps that can really cause performance issues are anti-virus programs. One of the ways their on-the-fly virus monitoring works is to trap all disk I/O to examine it for virus signatures before running the code. An isolated DAW, with no direct connection to the Internet shouldn\'t need on-the-fly monitoring, so if you have it, turn it off for GSt.

People make these \"Bad OS\" assumptions because of the need to place blame, since they can\'t find the true cause of their problems.

Steve Mitchell
The Classical MIDI Resource (\"http://www.classicalmidiresource.com\")
The CMR Players (\"http://www.mp3.com/cmrplayers\")



[This message has been edited by SteveMitchell (edited 02-05-2001).]