Optimizing Windows for JustWrite

There are many factors to consider when discussing speed in Windows.  This fax 
is designed to give suggestions for setting up your hardware and Windows 
environment to get the best possible performance from JustWrite.  All of the 
information in this fax comes from the Windows manual or the Windows Resource 
Kit (available from Microsoft Corporation).

RAM
The more RAM you have, the better Windows will perform, especially in Standard 
or 386 Enhanced Mode.  Any time that Windows has to use virtual memory (or 
disk-swapping), you take a performance hit.  The minimum hardware 
configuration for JustWrite is a machine with 2MB of RAM.  However, any time 
you drop below 2MB of usable RAM, the performance of JustWrite will suffer.  
For instance, if you have a machine with 4MB of RAM, but you are using 2MB for 
SMARTDRV.SYS, and you have a font manager program that has a cache of its own 
(like ATM), then you have dropped below 2MB of usable RAM (even if you are 
running in 386 Enhanced Mode).  This is not to say that JustWrite will not 
make use of virtual memory in Enhanced Mode, only that you will experience a 
performance hit in that situation.

SMARTDRV.SYS
SMARTDRV.SYS will give your computer the biggest single Windows performance 
improvement.  However, the amount of base RAM required by SMARTDRV.SYS 
increases according to the size of the cache that you set.  Also, make sure 
that you don't drop below 2MB of usable RAM.

PERMANENT SWAP FILE
A swapfile is used in Windows to support virtual memory.  For a temporary 
swapfile, Windows requires a minimum of 1.5MB of free disk space.  "A 
permanent swapfile improves the speed of Windows' virtual memory system, 
because it is contiguous and its access requires less overhead than a normal 
DOS file."  Also, a permanent swap file makes Windows much faster when you are 
low on memory.  Do not create a swapfile on a ramdisk.  You gain nothing, 
because you are sacrificing physical memory to create a place for virtual 
memory, which replaces the physical memory you used to create the ramdisk.

DEFRAGMENTING (OPTIMIZING) YOUR HARD DISK
It is definitely to your advantage to regularly optimize your hard disk if you 
usually run in Windows.  Depending on how fragmented your disk is before you
optimize, you should see a noticeable performance increase after optimizing.  
There are several good disk optimizing utilities, including Norton Speed Disk.  

Norton Speed Disk is included in Norton Utilities 6.0 and Norton Desktop for 
Windows.












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