[TIPS] Performance tweaks for Windows RT (8.1)

[Lobbie1978]

Hi guys,

So, I bought a Surface RT the other day, and I was looking for some tweaks to speed things up a little. I found some really useful stuff, so I decided to share

Here are my tweaks I implemented so far. Feel free to add more if you have some.

- Disable Windows Defender

As Windows RT is coded for ARM bases SOC's, it's pretty useless to have malware detection running in the background. So, why not speed things up a little by disabling the Defender service.

Disable real-time protection: Open Local Group Policy Editor (run: gpedit.msc) - Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Windows Defender - Real-time Protection. Double click on 'Turn on real-time protection' and change the setting from 'Not configured' to 'Disabled'

Disable the Defender Service: Open Services (run: services.msc) Double click on 'Windows Defender Service' - Change Startup type to 'Disabled'

Now, reboot your Windows RT device.

- Speed up browsing by blocking advertisements

The more advertisements, the slower pages load. So there is an option in Internet Explorer to block ads:

Block ads by adding Tracking Protection Lists: - Open the Desktop Internet Explorer - Internet Options - Click on Programs tab - Click on Manage Add-Ons - Click tab on Tracking Protection - Add the blockers from the list (you can select them all, but I suggest choosing only a few of the best rated)

- Disable Bluetooth

If you own a Surface, you don't need Bluetooth to be enabled to connect to a keyboard or something else, so disabling Bluetooth can save you some battery life:

Disable Bluetooth to save battery life: - Open the Charms menu - Tap on Settings - Tap on Change PC Settings - Tap on Wireless - Disable Bluetooth

- Increase the responsiveness of the touchscreen

With this little reg tweak, the touch screen responts a little snappier

- Open regedit.exe (run: regedit) - Go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\TouchPrediction - Change the values of both ‘Latency’ and ‘SampleTime’ from 8 to 2. - Reboot your device

- Disable logging for performance boost

Windows RT is a tablet OS, so who needs logging, right? Disabling logging, can mean a huge increase of performance of the system. If you need some troubleshooting, you might want to re-enable this though.

Disable logging: - Open gpedit.msc - Go to: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Error Reporting - Enable the following settings: ‘Disable Logging’ and ‘Disable Windows Error Reporting’ - Reboot your device

- Optimize the SSD drive

Normal Harddrives need some defragmentation once in a while, but SSD's need some maintenance as well. You can manually 'Trim' the drive for extra harddrive performance:

Trim the SSD: - Open Control Panel - Go to System and Security - In Administrative Tools, click on Defragment and Optimize your drives - Click on the SSD and choose Optimize.

 

[Lobbie1978]

[reserved for future tips]

 

[Lobbie1978]

[reserved for future tips 2]

 

[xandros9]

I'm pretty sure you can turn down graphical animations and stuff like in a normal Windows PC.

Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > (under Performance) Settings
(IIRC)

 

[ZombieXboxBlog]

Is disabling Defender OK to do on RT? This is still one of the top results on Google search so hope it's OK to post on a relatively old thread. When I go into services.msc the startup type box is greyed out so I can't change it anyway?

One thing I've done that has drastically sped up the system is changed OneDrive files to online only, this freed up nearly 2GB and the extra space was really useful. It seemed to be slowing up when I wobbled around 1GB of space or less.

 

[Lobbie1978]

I haven't disabled Defender for a while. After Windows RT 8.1 was released for the Surface RT, I didn't feel the need anymore. I will test it again however to see if it causes any noticible performance differences and / or issues. I'll keep you posted in this thread

 

[several potatos]

I'm thinking of giving my rt to my sister. This will make things so much better for her. Thanks!

 

[xandros9]

Is disabling Defender OK to do on RT? This is still one of the top results on Google search so hope it's OK to post on a relatively old thread. When I go into services.msc the startup type box is greyed out so I can't change it anyway?

One thing I've done that has drastically sped up the system is changed OneDrive files to online only, this freed up nearly 2GB and the extra space was really useful. It seemed to be slowing up when I wobbled around 1GB of space or less.

I snooped around with the same question. Looks like its been patched up so it no longer impacts performance with 8.1 and after.
Looks like someone tested it as XDA and it didn't really affect anything now.
However disabling Defender won't really do anything since virii will be unable to do anything.

 

[several potatos]

I just got my old RT running a lot faster. I reset it completely and used these suggested settings. Thanks a bunch! Now my sister can stop using her old XP machine.

 

[Steve Adams]

A little bump up on this one. Do all these tweaks work to speed up the tablets?

 

[anthonyng]

Wait, we need to manual trim the RT SSD?

 

[Steve Adams]

First I have heard of it. My asus has been pretty smooth recently. I am not messing with it. I used a SP3 today at the source and it was REALLY NICE.

 

[Shyama Karan Dubey]

Thanks for this post. I installed windows 10 yesterday yesterday but I was facing slow speed issue. Today I followed your instruction and now my PC is running awesome.

 

[Shyama Karan Dubey]

Thnks

 

[Shyama Karan Dubey]

How to fix lagging issue?

 

[Bobvfr]

Please be aware that these tips are for devices running Windows RT (Please note, that is RT, and not other versions of windows).

If whatever device you have has managed to upgrade to Windows 10 then it cannot be a Windows RT device because as we all know RT cannot upgrade to 10.

In other words, this is for RT, I repeat RT devices, if you choose to do any of these tips on any other devices that do not run RT, please consider your ability to find your way around an internet forum to be suspect.......

No one is saying that doing any of these tips that are intended for Windows RT devices wont work on other OS's but it surely would be better to figure out before making such changes by maybe asking in other parts of the forum that are not dedicated to WINDOWS RT.

 

[Talderon]

Well,

This is more of a Storage Tip, but a good one nonetheless.

If you have an SD Card in your RT Tablet (I have a 64GB in my 2520), you can move your libraries to the SD Card freeing up some space and reducing the risk of filling up your main drive unintentionally.

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Create a folder for your libraries to live
3. Create a folder for each library that you wish to move
--You can move your: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Videos
4. In Windows Explorer, select the library folder you wish to move (Right Click or Long Press on the screen)
5. Select Properties
6. Select Location
7. Click Browse and locate the corresponding folder you created
8. You will be asked if you want to move the files to the new location (Yes or No, up to you)
9. Repeat 5-8 until all of the items you want to moved are moved

This will ensure that any files that go into any of these folders by default go to the SD Card rather than the internal storage.

This is particularly helpful with Downloads and Pictures. Music too if you use Groove or other service that caches/downloads to the Music folder.

[INFO]Also, this works with ALL versions of Windows 8 and Windows 10 (other than phones) - I do this for my main PC to keep my files off my SSD in case it does or when I decide to clean install my OS so I don't have to back them up or risk losing them.[/INFO]