Tweaking Windows 10 for

Music Production
July 2019

www.creativesauce.net

1) Right click Start button

2) Click Power Options
3) Click Additional power settings (under Related settings)
4) Under ‘Choose or customise a power plan’ select High performance.
5) Next to High performance click Change plan settings
6) Set Turn off the display and Put the computer to sleep to Never
7) Click Change advanced power settings
8) Set Hard disk>Turn off hard disk to Never (0)
9) Set USB Settings > USB selective suspend settings to Disabled (USB ports will always be on)
10) Set Processor power management > Minimum processor state to 100% (CPU will always be
running at full capacity)
11) Set Processor power management > Maximum processor state to 100% (CPU will always be
running at full capacity)
12) Set Display > Turn off display after to Never (0)

1) In task bar search type ‘change system sounds’ and choose Change system sounds
2) Right click the speaker icon in your system try and select Sounds
3) Change the Sound Scheme to No Sounds and click Apply

1) Right click Start button

2) Select Settings
3) Select Privacy
4) General: Turn everything off
5) Speech: Turn off
6) Inking and typing personalisation: Ignore
7) Diagnostics & feedback: Set to Basic turn other options off, and set Feedback frequency to
Never
8) Location: Off (optional)
9) Camera: Turn off for apps that you don’t use it for
10) Microphone: Turn off for apps that you don’t use it for
11) Voice activation: Turn off

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 Tweaking Windows 10 for Music Production – July 2019

12) Notifications: Turn off

13) Account info: Set Allow apps to access your info to Off (optional).
14) Contacts: Turn everything off (optional)
15) Calendar: Turn off if you don’t use
16) Phone Calls: Turn everything off (recommended)
17) Call history: Turn off if you don’t use
18) Email: Turn off if you don’t use
19) Tasks: Turn off if you don’t use
20) Messaging: Turn off if you don’t use
21) Radios: Turn off if you don’t use Bluetooth
22) Other devices: Turn off
23) Background apps: Turn off anything you don’t use
24) App diagnostics: Turn off
25) Automatic file downloads: Ignore
26) Documents: Ignore
27) Pictures: Ignore
28) Videos: Ignore
29) File system: Ignore

Some of these stings may change after you do a Windows update, so always good to check
afterwards.

1) Right click Start button

2) Select System
3) Display: Ignore
4) Sound: Ignore
5) Notifications & actions: Either turn all off, or just turn off apps you don’t care about getting
notifications from.
6) Focus assist: Switch to Priority only. The time rule is optional, but recommend switching all
other options On.
7) Power & sleep: Ignore (covered in its own section)
8) Storage: Ignore
9) Tablet mode: Turn everything off
10) Multi-tasking: Optional depending on your preference, but you may get performance
increase by switching features off
11) Projecting to this PC: All off
12) Shared experiences: Ignore
13) Clipboard: Ignore
14) Remote Desktop: Ignore
15) About: Ignore

1) Right click Start button

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 Tweaking Windows 10 for Music Production – July 2019

2) Select Settings
3) Select Apps
4) Select Offline maps
5) Turn off, and Delete all maps

Don’t turn anything off that you aren’t sure of. Here I will list some services that can be problematic.

To disable a service:

1) Right click the service

2) Select Properties
3) Set Startup type to Disabled
4) Click Apply

List of services I disable

1) AllJoyn Router Service

2) Downloaded Maps Manager
3) Geolocation Service
4) All Hyper V services
5) Microsoft Windows SMS Router Service
6) Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service
7) All Xbox Live services

1) In taskbar search start typing ‘system settings’

2) Click View advanced system settings
3) Click Settings under Performance
4) Click Adjust for best performance (switches everything off)
5) I like to select Show thumbnails instead of icons, Show window contents while dragging,
Smooth edges of screen fonts

Download CCleaner from https://www.ccleaner.com/

1) Click on Tools
2) Select the Uninstall tab
3) Uninstall anything you are sure you don’t need or use (Google if not sure)

This makes a big difference potentially!

1) Click on Tools
2) Select the Startup tab
3) Disable anything you are sure you don’t need at start up (Google if not sure)

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 Tweaking Windows 10 for Music Production – July 2019

1) Go to Custom Clean
2) Click Analyze to see how much space you can save
3) Go ahead and click Run Cleaner

1) Click Registry
2) Click Scan for Issues
3) Click Fix selected Issues…
4) Click Yes to save a backup in case things go wrong
5) Then click Fix All Selected Issues

Remember its best to have at least 2 drives. One for the system and programs, and one for data such
as your DAW files. You can set the location in most DAWs.

1) Right click Start button

2) Click Device Manager
3) Click Disk drives
4) Right click any disk drive
5) Click Properties
6) Go to Policies tab
7) Check both check boxes.

Note: For drives, the second checkbox may make performance worse. Use a benchmark tool to
check (Crystal Disk Mark).

CCleaner: https://www.ccleaner.com/

Crystal Disk Mark: https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/

LatencyMon: http://resplendence.com/downloads