Optimizing Win 7 for recording?

Hi, all. Just got a new Win 7 64-bit machine (as some of you are probably tired of hearing ;) and I'm wondering if there's anything I should do to tweak it for audio production? I know there were a slew of tips for optimizing XP... Right now, my desktop switches every 30 min or so, which seems like a (small) waste of resources -- any stuff like that, or bigger issues, that I should turn off or adjust, as well as how to do it since I'm Win 7 rookie. Thanks!

Googling "DAW optimization" will get you a ton of good resources. a particularly good one from Native Instruments. Two things that particular guide doesn't mention but that are worth looking into are disabling SpeedStep and C-States in the BIOS. Be scientific and methodical about it, so you learn what works for you and what doesn't. Change one thing at a time and note its effect on dpclat.exe's latency readout.

I've had to tweak my win 7 64 install a bit to enable 100% glitch free amp sim usage at 1ms buffer.If I was'nt wanting that kinda ridiculous performance and was just gonna be recording straight audio I'd have done nothing and set the buffer to 128 or something and started rocking. Like above..I would defo disable cpu throttling inthe bios and I would turn off the mobos built in sound too ,either way.

I installed Ubuntu on my new dell shortly after I got it. Like a moron, I overwrote the windows restore partition. Turned out to be a good thing. I got OS and driver discs from Dell, and now when I reinstall windows, I don't even install the onboard sound drivers. Plus I don't have all that Norton and McAfee crap, Skype, and all the other junk Microsoft thinks I can't live without. So for once my stupidity paid off! Edward

Yes I did, and they didn't wanna part with them either! They said it was a one-time deal. I explained to them what I did with the Linux blunder. But the discs I got are a win7 OS disc and the separate driver disc. No bloat ware at all. I'm actually glad I did it. Hahaha. But they did tell me it was not their policy to provide OS discs. So I think I got a nice guy in a good mood when I called. Edward

Thanks for all the replies. One clear consensus is tweaks in the BIOS. Any specifics on what I'm looking for in there? I've got a Dell XPS 8300. Gonna take some time and dig up some other articles as well. Btw, 1ms buffer, Cosmic?! That's insane!

On Win7 I still set the 'background services' thing and its always good not to have a lot of crap starting when you start your computer. I would clean out all the extra stuff Dell stuck in there. You might have to do a little research on all the goodies they stuck in there. :D I used XP for a long time too... you will like Win7, once you get it straightened out a bit. :cool:

This is nice, too:

CCleaner: Go direct to: and you can download the portable version 'Zip file, no installer', ultimate in system cleanliness :) Great app to delete unwanted files, not tried the registry cleaner, that is where there is potential for trouble so maybe don't bother. Also go to tools/startup and you can see exactly what runs on start-up and disable if needed.

A few articles I referenced while tuning my Windows 7 64-bit install: Note that on the last link, the material of interest starts about a third of the way down the page, and although the article reads 'for Cubase', the tips are pretty much universally applicable.