iLok you out for no reason! A warning.

[mcbpete]

.... and what - Is this not a discussion board, are we not free to discuss things for some reason ?

[2ZrgE]

Very first thing is: Make a restore point!!! Back up your Drive!!!

You need a clean house. You need to be able to control what your computer is doing as much as possible, so you need control over the resources and their allocation. This is the importance for as little bloat as possible, and uninstalling anything you don't use. Remember after you uninstall, you have to do a file search for any indexed related files, because uninstalling on windows does not uninstall the whole program, it leaves all kinds of trash on your hard drive, you need to rid yourself of dirty little orphan files begging for resources in the dark corners of your hard drive. You want a "light" system.

Then you are going to have to do a deep dive... down into the depths of your system. Microsoft has hidden all the important stuff way down in the darkest corners of your system so you won't find them. In a lot of cases removed access to them altogether. If you know what you are looking for it's easier, because you can just type it in search to find where it's hidden. Unfortunately, those unfamiliar with a computer are going to have a difficult time. You want to shut down any and all automatic processes. Let nothing be done for you. Clear task manager and and any scheduled processes as well. This will take a little time to find and shut them all off, set aside an afternoon or more.

Download Mozilla and install Ghostery, uBlock, Privacy Badger, and Disconnect script blockers. Go into all other browsers and clear EVERYTHING and tell them to no longer accept ANYTHING, and make sure it clears EVERYTHING everytime it closes. Now set Firefox as your default browser.

Then go to your system and type in "clean". Clean everything you can. Make sure you rid yourself of old windows versions and optimized delivery files and such. Then go get : CCleaner, Malware Bytes Virus scan, Malware Bytes ADW Cleaner, and OldTimers Tools temp file cleaner. Run them all. Use CCleaner to clean registry issues as well.

Now disconnect your computer from the internet. Turn off internet access altogether.

Do a "hard reset" by holding down your powerbutton for 10 seconds. This should clear RAM. REBOOT after 60 seconds. Now you should be able to run your audio programs on a fast light performing PC.

Most of your suggestions - including defragmentation - are just a waste of time.

Maybe useful for PCs build around 1998, but with modern machines you really don't need to worry too much about 'ressources' and services running in the background. Chances are good that you screw up your system when fiddling around with that stuff. On the contrary stuff like anti virus/anti malware uses too much ressources that I would recommend getting rid of that completely - use brain.exe instead.

I use a tool called Smartclose which closes programs and services I don't need when producing: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/smartclose.html

[mcbpete]

Yeah and actually defragging in the era of SSD drives is potentially a damaging suggestion due to the limited read/writes of the NAND gates.

I disagree a little with not having any kind of malware scanner on your device though - Even if you're not visiting dodgy sites the banner ads on legit sites have the potential of hiding dangerous javascript, which could end up with the system downloading malicious software without you even knowing. Also remember when there was that really nasty attack on FossHub a couple of years ago ( https://gizmodo.com/a-nostalgic-virus-i ... 1784817228 ) that attached malware to legit software like Audacity overwriting the master boot record of your computer

[2ZrgE]

Yeah and actually defragging in the era of SSD drives is potentially a damaging suggestion due to the limited read/writes of the NAND gates.

I disagree a little with not having any kind of malware scanner on your device though - Even if you're not visiting dodgy sites the banner ads on legit sites have the potential of hiding dangerous javascript, which could end up with the system downloading malicious software without you even knowing. Also remember when there was that really nasty attack on FossHub a couple of years ago ( https://gizmodo.com/a-nostalgic-virus-i ... 1784817228 ) that attached malware to legit software like Audacity overwriting the master boot record of your computer

Protecting my browser against that kind of malware is enough for me atm.

Life is risky, you cannot prepare for every possible attack that is coming your way. It's a trade off, I know. Still have my backups in case.

[Dasheesh]

Here come the microsoft guys. Nobody said anything about defragging an ssd microsoft engineers. My system boots and is ready. It’s not running scripts for 20 minutes after I boot it, and it’s not doing anything other then what I want it to do, and it’s not trashed with garbley gook hidden waste, and it doesn’t have any snoopy nefarious “other” things happening behind my back. And finally, it’s not spying on every move I make and reporting back the mother hive... well, it is, but it gets erradicated daily.

[Dasheesh]

...and I don’t have any compatability issue to boot. Everything installs and works as it should... as long as I’m DISconnected (spellcheck) from the internet.

[twitewhite]

Actually I just checked and my home connection that I swore I set to metered was not metered. I don't know if I didn't set it properly or if Win 10 reverted it. I just set it back, so let's see if it stays that way.

My taskbar was set to disappear and windows set it back to standard-fixed and the video(film)-graphics where not longer controlled by Nvidia but W10.
..okok it's just a minor thing but it can be that some things go back to "standard-setting"

Yes, it's just a "minor thing", just like the Edge icon that was placed on my desktop after this "update", but the fact is it was likely done intentionally rather than accidentally. They seem to stop at nothing trying get you to use Microsoft's software or not being able to block future updates, which makes it absolutely scary. Can you truly say you own your computer if Microsoft can do anything to it they want?

Really makes me wish Linux was usable as a music production OS, as music is the only thing keeping me from switching (and yes, I know there are free and commercial Linux plugins, synths, DAWs, etc. but until my thousands of dollars of Windows vsts work in Linux, switching is not worth it)

[dellboy]

No offense, but you are a total screw loose. Only a total screw loose would go through all this shit.

Thank you but my PC runs fine and I don't do any of this shit.

Where do you find the time to make music?

Bit harsh eh ?

Daheesh gave some good advice as far as I can see.

[Examigan]

I did a clean install of Windows today, but before I did, I am glad I remembered to deactivate my iLok licenses first. I'll reinstall iLok maybe by tomorrow and get everything working again.