Yup most of it is not rocket science. Be careful of course (don't do anything stupid like disable UAC for instance (does not improve performance anyway) or disable essential services), however what's far more important than performance tweeks is having a decent backup strategy.

Don't forget to turn off USB selective suspend (in the Power options advanced)

 The first thing I do is disable UAC. It's annoying. 

g_randybrown

robert_e_bone
There USED to be tweaks folks would do in XP, and maybe other versions of Windows, but to the best of my knowledge, this particular tweak was suggested by Cakewalk staff to NOT be done any longer, with Windows 7 or beyond in any case.
 
I believe setting it to background services was to get it to do streaming audio better/faster, but if I recall correctly it may adversely affect program performance and may not be needed or desired any longer.
 
Are you having some sort of processing issues?  If so, please list any tweaks you may have done - and give an indication of whether or not your drivers and Windows are up to current maintenance levels.
 
Bob Bone

 Hey Bobaloo, no I'm not having processor issues I just scanned the article to see if I might be missing anything and noticed this.
It seems to me that "programs" was always the way to go but it might have been in one of the Sony Vegas forums.
If one is not running anything in the background it seems it should be set to programs no?
Thanks bud,
Randy
 

I believe the default for that is to give Programs the edge, rather than background services.  I haven't messed with any of those Viper or Black Viper tweaks since XP Pro.
 
About all I tweak now is Power Management options, to leave it all maxed - high performance, never hibernate/sleep, turn off USB Selective Suspend, and I set Minimum Processor State to 100%.  I ALSO go into my Network Adapter and turn off Selective Suspend there too, but that isn't a Sonar tweak, just a system tweak I do.
 
But that's about it for me.
 
Bob Bone
 

kitekrazy1
 The first thing I do is disable UAC. It's annoying. 

Not a good idea sorry:
http://www.howtogeek.com/...-shouldnt-disable-uac/

Cool, I'll just leave it set to "programs" then...that just caught my eye while scanning the page and noticed it is the opposite of what I thought I'd heard for years.
Thanks guys,
Randy

Splat

kitekrazy1
 The first thing I do is disable UAC. It's annoying. 

Not a good idea sorry:
http://www.howtogeek.com/...-shouldnt-disable-uac/

I never had a problem after disabling it.  I tend to do a lot more daring things with my systems. 

We were told long ago, other Daws run asio,... as background tasks.
 
Sonar runs them as daughter processes.
 
So don't change it.

You were sadly told wrong - ASIO is so clearly not a background task by Windows' definition of "background task".  Worryingly, the internet is full of so-called experts who get treated as gurus.
 
Nor is it a "daughter process" (which is meaningless in Windows' terminology).

kitekrazy1

Splat

kitekrazy1
The first thing I do is disable UAC. It's annoying. 

Not a good idea sorry:
http://www.howtogeek.com/...-shouldnt-disable-uac/

I never had a problem after disabling it.  I tend to do a lot more daring things with my systems. 

The IgnoraneIsBliss Virus wants to make a change to your system: ALLOW.