Optimising PC laptop for Live

railheads · Post by **railheads** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:44 pm

Can anyone please direct me to posts/resources on this - tried a search but could not get specific answers

Specifically turning off everything that loads the XP SP2 system and any tweaks that don't involve serious BIOS excursions etc

Many thanks

stallos · Post by **stallos** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:58 pm

try this for size

might be what you are looking for

http://www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php

frisbeedisk · Post by **frisbeedisk** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:53 pm

Ableton Live custom windows interface

When I use Live in a live environment, I run it as a 'Custom user interface' or 'shell' in Windows XP Professional. Basically what this is if you aren't familiar with it, is replacing Explorer with Live as a shell. This means there is no desktop environment, no taskbar, no start menu, no applets running, etc.

There are many advantages to this when using Live - improved stability, free memory, improved performance, etc. The disadvantage is you lose a practical way to multi-task. (But who needs multi-tasking when you only need to run Live live?)

To accomplish this in Windows XP Pro, type 'gpedit.msc' in the run command. This brings up the 'Group Policy Editor'. Under 'User Configuration' / 'Administrative Templates' / 'System', there is a setting called 'Custom user interface'. By default this setting is 'Not Configured' (meaning Explorer).

If you select 'Enabled' and type in the path to Live (or any application), Windows will boot into Live upon startup without anything else running.

You must include parenthesis if the path to Live contains spaces - ex. "C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 5.2\Program\Live 5.2.exe".

Restart computer!

If you do the above & wish to change the setting back, just hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager, hit New Task (Run), type 'gpedit.msc' and change the setting back to 'Not Configured'. Restart and you're back to Explorer. If you use a sound device that requires an applet to be running all the time, then I don't really know what your success will be. I used to use an Emagic EMI USB card that installed itself as a system service and always ran at boot-up. I never had any problems running Live as a shell. If you decide to give it a shot, it won't mess up your system in any way. If for instance you enable this setting & the path or program is not found upon boot-up, Windows$ will load the default Explorer shell.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:32 pm

Latest Sound On Sound (September, I guess) has a good article on this...

R.A.W. · Post by **R.A.W.** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:25 pm

frisbeedisk wrote:Ableton Live custom windows interface

this little utility could be useful for you as it switches the shell for you by just a click.. works like a charm here.

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32277

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:22 am

http://tarekith.com/assets/XPTweaks.htm

infuzion · Post by **infuzion** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:08 am

A few more links I wiki'd here:
http://www.synthmaker.com/dokuwiki/doku ... s_specific