Fixing Slow Insight Performance in Windows 7

Windows 7 has introduced a whole slew of issues centering around network performance.  One particular area that Insight customers on Windows 7 have noticed is that Insight is slow to generate and display a list of files and folders in the various dialogs that displays file lists i.e. Open, Parts Library etc.

 

There is a known issue with Windows 7 and SharePoint WebDAV performance.  SharePoint performance issues obviously in turn affect Insight’s performance.  The culprit is Internet Explorer.  The fix is quick and simple, turn off IE’s automatic proxy settings detection.

Here are the steps for turning off IE’s automatic proxy settings detection:

In Internet Explorer, open the "Tools" menu, click "Internet Options".

Select the Connections tab.

Click the "LAN Settings" button.

Uncheck the "Automatically detect settings" box.

Click "OK".

Click "OK".

For more on this particular issue check out this Microsoft Technet discussion.

I will be writing additional posts on Windows 7 network performance issues with Solid Edge so stay tuned.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, even though this post focuses on Insight, you should make this tweak for Windows 7 regardless, even if you use unmanaged Solid Edge as the tweak improves *all* WebDAV performance.

Enabling Automatic File and Folder Name Completion in the DOS Command Prompt

This is one of those simple little tweaks that just comes in handy if you’re a system administrator and have to spend any amount of time working with DOS command prompts.  Not many people are aware that the DOS command prompt has automatic file and folder name completion capabilities.  Unfortunately for some strange reason auto completion is turned off by default. 

To enable auto completion on an individual command prompt window, use the /f switch.  In the Start -> Search box type “cmd /f:on”.   Now you can use Ctrl-F for automatic file name completion and Ctrl-D for automatic folder name completion in the individual command prompt window.

To enable automatic name completion all of the time for all DOS command prompt windows without having to type the /f switch simply modify the following registry keys:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor]

"CompletionChar"=dword:00000006

"PathCompletionChar"=dword:00000004

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor]

"CompletionChar"=dword:00000006

"PathCompletionChar"=dword:00000004

For you convenience a registry file with the above tweaks can be downloaded here.

Using these registry keys you can also change the default key strokes used for auto completion.  By default Ctrl-F or hexadecimal value 06 is used for the file name completion; Ctrl-D or hex value 04 is for folder completion.  Simply change the hex values to whatever key stroke combination you would rather use.  For a list of hexadecimal values look here.

Better Lighting...For Your Computer

 

F.lux is a handy utility to automatically adjust the color of your display based on the time of day, geographical location and ambient lighting conditions. 

When configuring f.lux the trick is to set the monitor screen color to look like the pages of a book under your ambient environment.  It took me a while before I realized this tip.

F.lux is a simple utility with a very limited focus on what it does but it does it well.  Once you get used to having f.lux on your systems you’ll be lost without it.  Try it for a few days and then turn it off... you’ll notice the difference.

Go ahead and install f.lux today... your eyes will thank you.

Get f.lux here.

Opening AutoCAD .dxf Files In a Single Instance of Solid Edge

Yesterday’s post covered  how to hack the Windows registry so that AutoCAD .dwg files always open in a single instance of Solid Edge.  Logically following up from that is opening .dxf files into a single instance of Solid Edge.

It doesn’t take much of a leap to figure out that from yesterdays post you simply have to change the registry entries from .dwg to .dxf.  But for those that like things as simple as possible, here is the .dxf version of the hack:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.dxf]

@="SolidEdge.DraftDocument"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.dxf]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.dxf\OpenWithList]

"a"="Edge.exe"

"MRUList"="a"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.dxf\OpenWithProgids]

"SolidEdge.DraftDocument"=hex(0):

And to make it simpler still, the downloadable registry file to add the entries automatically.

And yes I fully appreciate this post could be considered a cop out on publishing an entirely new useful tip but it is what it is ;-)

Opening AutoCAD .dwg Files Into a Single Instance of Solid Edge

I keep seeing this question come up, “Associating .dwg files with Solid Edge launches multiple instances of Solid Edge.  Is there a way to open the .dwg files into a single instance of Solid Edge?”

As it turns out there is.  GTAC Solutions Center article # 002-7002894 covers this very question.  You will need a WebKey account to access this article.

This is a Windows Explorer issue not a Solid Edge issue per se.  By tweaking the Windows Explorer registry we can make the .dwg files open into a single instance of Solid Edge.  Add or modify the following registry entries:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.dwg]
@="SolidEdge.DraftDocument"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.dwg]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.dwg\OpenWithList]
"a"="Edge.exe"
"MRUList"="a"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.dwg\OpenWithProgids]
"SolidEdge.DraftDocument"=hex(0):

If you are not comfortable working in the registry then download this registry file and simply double-click to add the entries automatically.

Anybody have other Solid Edge registry tweaks they care to share?

Tweak and Optimize Windows 7 with GIGATweaker

Out of the box (OOTB) most software comes preconfigured between a mix of functionality and performance.  Windows 7 is no different.  There are plenty of tweaks you can make to Windows 7 to improve and optimize the overall performance.  Unfortunately most of those tweaks are either registry hacks or command line utilities.   

GIGATweaker is a free tool that combines many of the common Win 7 tweaks into a simple easy to use interface.  And to add icing to the cake, GIGATweaker is completely portable so you can load it onto your support USB or Dropbox account and take it with you to every machine you need to tweak.

GIGATweaker offers a lot of tweaks.  Some are fluff like changing the Windows registered user information.  Others are real meat and potatoes like disabling and deleting unnecessary programs from the Autostart list or increasing the size of the L2 Cache.

There are too many tweaks to cover in any single post but some you might want to look at include:

• Visual Effects – set to best performance.

• Force unloading unused DLLs from memory

• If you use a third-party ZIP archive tool (7-Zip anyone?) turn off browsing archives 

• Increase the L2 cache and file system caching memory size

• Disable recent shares in Network Places

• Remove unnecessary performance robbing Autostart programs such as Adobe Reader

GIGATweaker can be downloaded from http://7room.net/gigatweaker/.

Anybody got any other tweaking tools you'd recommend?

Installing VMware Tools

I am amazed on my travels at the number of people I work with who use VMware server and workstation images that do not have the VMware Tools installed on their VM images.

Some of the biggest headaches when using VM images are:

• low video resolution
• having to use ctrl-alt to move the mouse in and out of the console window
• inability to copy and paste from the desktop to/from the console window

Installing the VMware Tools will fix all of these issues (and a few others) for you.  So go ahead and make your life (and mine) easier when working with VMware images, install the Tools.

Installing VMware Tools on VMware Workstation: 

1. Start the VM image.
2. Log into the image.
3. In the Menu pull down select VM -> Install VMware Tools…
4. Follow the install prompts.

Installing VMware Tools on VMware vSphere: 

1. Start the VM image.
2. Log into the image.
3. In the Menu pull down select Inventory -> Virtual machine -> Guest -> Install/Upgrade VMware Tools
4. Follow the install prompts.

Of course there are other ways to get the VMware Tools installed but the instructions above should get you going after the fact you don't have them installed already.  For more on VMware tools check out VMware KB 340.

Anybody got any tips or tricks for working with VM images?