The Ultimate Guide to Optimize your Windows PC for the Stage

1. Introduction

2. BIOS and UEFI settings

1. Power saving features

2. Spread Spectrum

3. Hyper-Threading Technology

4. Disable hardware you do not need

3. Disable unnecessary hardware in Windows Device Manager

4. Power settings optimization

1. Create a power plan for ultimate performance

2. Device power management

3. Fast Startup

4. Core parking

5. Control what is running in the background

1. Remove all unnecessary programs

2. Remove unnecessary features

3. Control which programs run on Windows startup

4. Optimizing Windows Services

5. Task scheduler

6. Xbox Game bar and Game Mode

7. Cortana

8. Windows Privacy settings

6. Update mechanisms

1. Microsoft Store automatic updates

2. The Windows Update Service

3. Antivirus updates

4. Installed application updaters

5. Audio applications and plugin updates

6. Integrated system utilities updates

7. Optimize your Windows settings for the maximum performance

1. Turn off Windows sounds

2. Optimize your visual effects for the best performance

3. Page file settings

4. ReadyBoost

5. Indexing of your drives

6. Optimize and defragment drive

8. Optimize your sound card and audio software settings

1. Audio drivers

2. Choose your buffer size and sample rate

9. Other best practices and tips

1. Create a full system backup of working configuration

2. Registry backup

3. Full system antivirus scan before turning it off

4. Microsoft Defender SmartScreen feature

5. Use quality USB hubs

6. Portable applications

7. Keep your ASIO driver and firmware of your audio interface up-to-date

8. Test the entire gig

10. Troubleshooting

1. Exclusive Mode

2. Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth

3. Nagle’s Algorithm

4. Check disk

5. System file checker

6. Test your RAM

7. Performance monitoring

8. Troubleshooting DPC and ISR latency issues

11. Why Gig Performer?

12. Checklist!

13. Conclusion

Introduction

This guide is intended to help musicians optimize their Windows PCs to process audio as fast as possible.

To get the most from your Windows operating system for digital audio processing, many Windows settings and features need to be configured properly. By following this guide, you will learn to avoid issues like crackles, dropouts, audio glitches, high latency and more.

You will explore many Windows settings to understand deeply what is happening in the background, and how to adjust those settings to fit perfectly your needs as a live or session performing musician.

As an IT engineer, I have spent over twelve years configuring and optimizing Windows, Windows Server and Linux operating systems for very specific scenarios. As a guitar player for twenty years using software-based setups, I have tweaked many Windows PCs to address their audio-specific issues and to make them run reliably.

In this guide I will condense all this experience into step-by-step instructions along with many screenshots in an easy to follow format.

Gig Performer® was created by people who are both developers and serious touring musicians. While including features particularly important to performers, Gig Performer® is also highly optimized when it comes to computer resources making it the perfect tool for creating a glitch-free environment both on-stage and in the studio.

This guide focuses on Windows 10 and Windows 11 Pro, and will be updated occasionally to address relevant changes in future versions. Please visit https://gigperformer.com to make sure you have the latest edition of this guide.

Important: be aware that some tips presented in this guide are only relevant if you have a dedicated PC for audio processing. If you use your PC for other purposes or for everyday use, you might want to skip some guidelines as it may be impractical to revert back to a computer usable for day-to-day work.

Disclaimer: Use this guide at your own risk. Create a full system backup before following these guidelines, and once you have modified your settings, it is critical that you test your entire gig carefully to make sure that these optimizations work correctly.

We will start by configuring BIOS and UEFI settings and conclude with a checklist that will help you to be fully prepared for your next glitch-free live performance.

Get this book as PDF, HTML or in other e-book formats at https://gigperformer.com/docs/ultimate-guide-to-optimize-windows-for-stage/

BIOS and UEFI settings

This guide starts with the first thing you will encounter while powering on your PC or laptop - the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) or the more recent Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) - a successor to the legacy PC BIOS. Please note that the actual BIOS/UEFI settings and their organization depend on your PC’s manufacturer.

You usually enter your BIOS/UEFI by pressing one of the function keys (F1-F12, please check the documentation of your manufacturer) when your computer powers on.

Power saving features

To prolong a laptop’s battery life, manufacturers can opt to reduce power consumption by slowing down the CPU. Consequently, you may experience cracks, pops and clicks while you are rehearsing, recording, composing or performing live.  So first, we will review those power consumption settings that directly impact the speed of your CPU:

Disable CPU Power Management settings and adjust all the other settings to Maximum Performance.

Review all other power saving features such as Adaptive Thermal Management and also set them to Maximum Performance.

Spread Spectrum

To meet strict US FCC regulations, computer engineers use a method called spread spectrum clocking to reduce the amount of electro-magnetic interference (EMI). Since even the smallest variation in a clock signal can be enough to create data transfer errors, it is recommended that you set these entries in BIOS to Disabled.

Review your BIOS settings to see if there are any entries related to Spread Spectrum and if so, disable them.

Hyper-Threading Technology

If you have a modern Intel processor, you probably have a Hyper-Threading Technology setting in your BIOS.

This technology delivers two processing threads per physical core of the CPU. Simply said, this means that your CPU core can run two tasks at once. This enables e.g. a two-core processor to process four tasks at once. Highly threaded applications can benefit from this technology, getting more work done in parallel, and completing tasks sooner.

However, in many circumstances disabling hyper-threading can bring about improvements in audio performance, so some experimentation here may be necessary to see which setting provides more performance for your audio setup.

The main reason that this technology often doesn’t work well in audio applications, is that two intensive audio tasks run on a single CPU core, instead of two separate cores, which results in a significant loss of performance, especially at very low latency levels.

Experiment with this BIOS setting to see which option works better on your own audio setup.

Disable hardware you do not need

Depending on your BIOS manufacturer and your PC configuration you may have options to disable hardware devices and I/O ports that you do not need for your audio setup. Examples include Bluetooth, the integrated camera, your card reader, a fingerprint device and a LAN.

You may also want to disable the integrated sound device on your PC since you are (hopefully) using an external audio interface.

If there are no settings in your BIOS to disable Bluetooth and other devices, refer to the next section and disable them via the Device manager in Windows.

Please check thoroughly other BIOS/UEFI settings on your PC to get to know your system, then save your changes and reboot your computer once you are done.

Disable unnecessary hardware in Windows Device Manager

Unnecessary hardware can be disabled in the Windows Device Manager.

Use the Win key + X combination to open the Quick Access Menu and select Device Manager:

Review this list and disable any devices that you do not need, such as the Web camera, Bluetooth, DVD/CD-ROM drives, Ethernet or Wireless network adapters, and any other unneeded devices.

To disable a device, right click on the device name and click Disable device. If you need that device later, you can re-enable it by right clicking as before and clicking Enable device.

If you only need a Wireless network adapter on your live performance computer to receive MIDI events or OSC messages from your tablet, you can safely disable your Ethernet adapter (and vice versa).

Hopefully, you have a dedicated external sound card or audio interface, so you can safely disable the built-in sound device. For best performance, we strongly recommend a dedicated audio interface with low latency drivers. Internal sound card drivers are notorious for poor latency and are really not suited for real-time audio processing.

Some benefits of disabling unnecessary hardware include:

-More CPU power for your PC,

-Windows will not load unnecessary drivers,

-RAM not needed by such drivers and hardware becomes available to your application.

Depending on the device and your power management settings, your operating system may turn them off, or at least put them into a low power state. These power management settings are very important and are discussed in the next chapter.

Power settings optimization

Windows PCs are configured to save power by default. To get the most out of your PC for reliable real-time audio processing, without audio glitches, power settings need to be set up properly.

In Windows 10, there are two power models for PCs: the legacy S3 power model and Modern Standby. Modern Standby systems can still be connected to a wireless local area network while in standby, and can resume normal operation faster from a low power state.

Click on the Start button and type: choose a power plan to open your Power Options:

If your computer supports Modern Standby then by default only the Balanced power plan will be immediately available. The good news is that you can add and/or enable other plans:

Rather than just having one power plan, best practice suggests the Balanced power plan for regular use of your PC/laptop and at least one more plan optimized for audio processing to use for your live performance. Although a new custom power plan can be created by clicking on Create a power plan, we will show you how to enable two additional power plans intended for better performance.

Create a power plan for ultimate performance

Open your Powershell, press Winkey + X to open the Quick Access Menu, and select Windows PowerShell (Admin) or Windows Terminal (Admin) on Windows 11 :

Copy the following commands (one at a time, just the text in italics) to your clipboard, paste them into the PowerShell Window and press Enter to install each new plan.

High Performance:

powercfg -duplicatescheme 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

Ultimate Performance:

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

Open your Power Options again and you will see that two additional power plans are now available:

We will use the Ultimate Performance power plan and optimize it further for our audio-processing scenario; select it and click on Change plan settings:

If not already selected by default, choose Never for every combo box, and then click on Change advanced power settings:

Many options are correctly configured by default for this power plan, e.g. see the Hard disk section above. You definitely do not want Windows to turn off your hard drives, whether you are running on battery or plugged in. We do however recommend that you always plug in your laptop for your live performance.

Set the other options accordingly (use the same parameters for both On battery and Plugged in modes):

•Internet Explorer -> JavaScript Timer Frequency: Maximum Power Savings; although this setting affects IE users only, we do not want to pay much attention to JavaScript execution here.

•Desktop background settings -> Slide show: Paused; although a background slideshow on your desktop is quite an appealing feature, turn it off, as you do not want to spend even a bit of CPU power for this during your gig.

•Wireless Adapter Settings -> Power Saving Mode: your choice. If you did not disable your wireless adapter (in the previous chapter) you are probably using it to send OSC/MIDI messages to your audio plugin host or a DAW, so set it to Maximum Performance.

•Sleep settings are correctly configured for the Ultimate Performance power plan. You do not want your PC to go into Sleep, Hybrid sleep or Hibernation mode during your performance.

•USB settings -> USB selective suspend setting: Disabled; every PC used for live performance is going to be using some USB devices, such as a USB audio interface, USB MIDI keyboards or possibly even a USB mouse. You do not want these USB devices to be suspended while you are gigging.

•Intel(R) Graphics settings: leave as is (Maximum Performance).

•PCI Express -> Link State Power Management: Off; this means we do not want any power savings, and the PCI Express will stay active regardless of the state of the PC or laptop.

•Processor Power Management -> set both Minimum and Maximum processor state to 100%; this means we do not want to use any CPU power saving mechanisms, so the CPU is always ready for processing at full capacity. Additionally, set System Cooling Policy to Active (if this setting is available). This means that the operating system will not reduce your CPU power to cool it down, but instead will increase the speed of your fans.

•Display: leave as is (Never).

•Multimedia Settings: leave the default configuration of these settings for this power plan.

•Battery: leave the default configuration of these settings for this power plan.

After you configure these settings, click on the OK button to save your changes.

Device power management

When you open your Device manager, you may notice that some devices have the Power Management tab in their Properties:

Such devices include Network adapters and Universal Serial Bus controllers; right click on one of these devices -> Properties -> Power Management and untick the option: Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.

Fast Startup

Another power option you may want to consider turning off is Fast Startup. This feature is designed to reduce the time it takes for the PC to boot up. If you enable the Fast Startup feature and shut down your PC it looks like it is completely shut down; however, your PC has entered a state between hibernation and shutdown. Your PC does not really shutdown completely and consequently audio glitches and distortions may occur when you turn it back on.

These problems are due to compatibility issues with audio devices that do not support sleep mode or hibernation. Examples are some UAD devices, where we strongly recommend that you disable the Fast Startup feature.

As shown above, click on the Start button and type: choose a power plan to open your Power Options:

Click on the Choose what the power button does option:

Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable (1) and then uncheck Turn on fast startup (2).

Core parking

We conclude this chapter with one last thing to review: the hidden core parking power plan setting. The core parking feature enables you to completely shut down CPU cores to save power. Although this feature should be disabled in Windows 10 and Windows 11 high performance power plans by default, you might want to double-check this power setting to confirm it is disabled.

To unhide this setting, we need to use the Registry Editor. Note: Refer to chapter Other best practices and tips to make a registry backup before proceeding.

Press the Win key + R combination to open the Run dialog, type in regedit and click on the OK button:

Click on the Computer (1), then open the Find dialog (2) by pressing the key combination CTRL+F, and type in dec35c318583 as shown in the picture above (3). Press the F3 key or click on the Find Next button to start searching:

Make sure your search results are related to PowerSettings (1), and ignore other search results not related to PowerSettings. Double click on the Attributes value (2), and type in 0 as the Value data paremeter (3). Repeat the search by pressing the F3 key, as there might be more entries related to PowerSettings (ignore all other entries) and set the Attributes value data to 0.

Once you are done, open your power plan, as explained in the beginning of this chapter, and navigate to the now visible setting called Processor performance core parking min cores, and make sure it is set to 100% :

This way you make sure that CPU cores will not be parked which will prevent delays when Windows is parking and unparking CPU cores. These delays may lead to drop-outs in intensive real-time audio processing.

Control what is running in the background

In this chapter, we will remove all unnecessary programs, features and services, and configure their startup mode. Afterwards, we will deal with Windows privacy issues, and conclude with other tips.

Remove all unnecessary programs

PCs and laptops with preinstalled Windows often come with many unnecessary applications which can be removed with no consequences. Such products include third-party security software, various trial applications and so on. These applications may already be running in the background and consuming RAM and CPU cycles. Owners of some brand-name PCs and laptops are familiar with this and here is a typical example from one such brand:

Make yourself familiar with all the installed software on your computer to determine which applications can be safely removed. We recommend creating a system backup before you start removing unnecessary software from your PC. Such software might include various download managers, “app explorers”, support assistants, etc.

Use the Win key + X combination to open the Quick Access Menu and select Apps and Features.

The Apps & features window appears though which modern UWP apps (formerly Metro apps) and unwanted traditional desktop applications can be removed, see (1):

Remove UWP apps you do not use here, such as: 3D Viewer, Mail and Calendar, Microsoft Solitaire Collection, Mixed Reality Portal, Skype, Snip & Sketch, Weather, Xbox Console Companion, Xbox Live, Voice Recorder, Movies & TV, Paint 3D, One Note, Feedback Hub, and Groove Music.

Some of these applications cannot actually be uninstalled, such as Your Phone, so instead click on each of them, select Advanced Options, and under App permissions -> Background apps click the toggle button to show Off. You do not want these applications running in the background:

Click on Programs and Features (2) to open the control panel applet Programs and Features, where only desktop applications can be removed; remove all unnecessary applications, e.g. various cloud storage applications, if you do not use them. Be careful not to remove important applications and libraries such as Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable as these are necessary for running your audio software.

Make sure you understand the purpose of specific applications and/or are certain you do not need them before actually removing them.

Remove unnecessary features

Look at the screenshot from the previous section where Apps & features are shown: (3) and (4) are places where you can list features on your Windows 10 operating system. Here is a side-by-side view of these windows:

Look on the left window and remove all installed features you do not need; for example, you may not need the Math Recognizer, a feature for recognizing handwritten math expressions, on your audio computer. On the right window, you can safely delete the Microsoft XPS Document Writer. XPS was intended to be a competitor to Adobe PDF, but due to widespread acceptance of the PDF format, XPS remains unused by most people.

Make sure you understand the purpose of these features before removing them.

To access Optional features on Windows 11, click on the Start button, type in "Optional features" and then click on the Optional features setting.

From that window you can access the Windows Features window - just click More Windows features under the Related settings.

Control which programs run on Windows startup

When you install certain applications, such as various cloud-based services, they automatically run in the background after Windows starts running, and may often place icons in the Notification area. To see which programs run on Windows startup, click on the Start, type in "task manager" and then click Task Manager (or use the key combination: Ctrl+Shift+Esc):

Click on the Startup tab to see the list of applications that run automatically; right click on each line and select Disable for each application to prevent it from running automatically.

Many of those programs have their icon displayed in the Notification area and allow you to control their startup behavior through their Preferences.

Review these applications and disable all the ones you do not need.

Optimizing Windows Services

Windows services are long-running executable applications that run in their own Windows sessions. These services can be automatically started when the computer boots, and they do not show any user interface.

Windows services are programs that run unattended in the background, often continuing to run even if no user is logged in. They are used to implement functionality such as mail or cloud services, time services and other ongoing operations independent of users.

As you may have guessed, there are many unnecessary Windows services that you do not need and so can be turned off on your audio-processing and live-performance PC.

Open your Task Manager, as shown in the previous section, and click on the Services tab:

Although you can review the status of your services from here and start, stop or restart them, click on the Open Services button to open the Services management tool, as it provides more control of your services:

Read the description of your services and identify which ones are unnecessary (we have a list of 40 or so to get you started below). Double click on a service to see what options are available to control its behavior:

Click on the Stop button to stop this service, and set the Startup type to Disabled. When you reboot your computer, this service will not run in the background.

Carefully review your services. Here is a list of 40 services you might want to disable if they exist on your system:

•AllJoyn Router Service – if you do not use smart devices (e.g. smart bulb) or do not want to control them through your PC.

•AVCTP service – if you do not use Bluetooth Audio Devices or Wireless Headphones.

•BitLocker Drive Encryption Service – if you do not use BitLocker storage encryption.

•Bluetooth Audio Gateway Service – if you do not use a Bluetooth audio handsfree device on your gig.

•Bluetooth Support Service – if you do not use any Bluetooth devices.

•Bluetooth User Support Service – if you do not use any Bluetooth devices.

•Connected User Experiences and Telemetry – unless you want to send your data to Microsoft so they can assess and analyze how you are using Windows on a daily basis.

•Downloaded Maps Manager – if you do not use the Bing Maps app on your PC.

•Fax – disable it unless you want fax sending and receiving capabilities on your PC.

•GameDVR and Broadcast User Service – this service is used for Game Recordings and Live Broadcasts, so if you do not use it – disable it.

•Geolocation Service – this service shares your location with apps.

•HV Host Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor. Presumably you do not run any virtual machines on your PC/laptop dedicated to real-time audio processing tasks.

•Hyper-V Data Exchange Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V Guest Service Interface – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V Guest Shutdown Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V Heartbeat Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V PowerShell Direct Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V Remote Desktop Virtualization Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V Time Synchronization Service – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Requestor – a service related to the Hyper-V hypervisor.

•IP Helper – you can disable it if you do not use IPv6 connections.

•Netlogon – disable if you are not on a domain controller (Active Directory) environment.

•Parental Controls – safe to disable.

•Phone service – this legacy service manages the telephony state on the device.

•Print Spooler – disable it if you do not have a printer attached to your PC/laptop.

•Printer Extensions and Notifications – disable it if you do not have a printer attached to your PC/laptop.

•Remote Registry – disable it to prevent remote access to your Registry.

•Retail Demo Service – this unnecessary service allows your PC to run in demo mode to showcase the operating system's features to potential customers or resellers.

•Secondary Logon – disable this service if you are either the administrator or the only user of your PC.

•TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper – this service provides legacy support for NetBIOS over TCP/IP. If your network does not use NetBIOS and/or WINS for file and printer sharing, disable this service. See more information here.

•Telephony – provides telephony API support for programs that control telephony devices through a LAN.

•Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service – disable if your PC/laptop doesn’t have a touch-enabled screen.

•Windows Error Reporting Service – disable unless you want to send error reports to Microsoft.

•Windows Image Acquisition – disable if you do not use a scanner.

•Windows Camera Frame Server – disable if you do not use a webcam or an integrated camera.

•Windows Insider Service - the Windows Insider Program enables power users to test upcoming builds of Windows before they are available to the general public. Disable it as you will not want to risk any instabilities.

•Windows Mixed Reality OpenXR Service – disable if you do not use HoloLens 2 and immersive devices like Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

•Xbox Accessory Management Service – another service for gamers that you do not need.

•Xbox Live Auth Manager – another service for gamers that you do not need.

•Xbox Live Networking Service – another service for gamers that you do not need.

There are other services that you might want to consider disabling. Please refer to the chapters below where update mechanisms are discussed.

Task scheduler

The Task Scheduler is a Windows tool to schedule the launch of programs or scripts at pre-defined times. Many software update methods or backup activities rely on the Task Scheduler.

You definitely do not want to update your software or perform automatic backups and negatively impact your CPU, RAM and storage in the middle of your gig. Execution of these tasks during your gig will almost certainly cause latency issues, audio glitches or other unwanted behavior.

Click on the Start button, type in "task scheduler", and then click on Task Scheduler:

Click on Task Scheduler Library to show your scheduled tasks. Note that these tasks are often scheduled to run late at night, like the Dropbox Update Task, just when you might be in the middle of your gig. We recommend that you disable all tasks before your live performance (or to re-schedule them, at least) so you are sure that unwanted tasks and programs do not run in the background during your performance. Right click on each scheduled task and select Disable to disable it. Double click on each scheduled task to edit its various parameters (triggers, actions, schedule, etc.).

We are not done yet, that was just the tip of the iceberg! Expand the Task Scheduler Library and you will see many scheduled tasks that are organized in folders and need your review:

Review tasks that are triggered when the computer is idle.

Another option to review for each task is Run the task as soon as possible after a schedule start is missed:

You do not want to run lots of tasks when you power on your PC and prepare for your gig, if those tasks did not execute when scheduled. We suggest that you untick this check box.

Carefully review these tasks, as there is a description available for every task, their scheduled time for execution and what triggers them. Afterwards do the following:

•While you should not just delete tasks arbitrarily, it may make sense to delete all tasks you are absolutely sure you are never going to need.  For example, if you do not have an Xbox, you might want to delete all Xbox-related tasks. You might also delete all the Customer Experience Improvement Program tasks as you probably do not need tasks that collect and send usage data to Microsoft from your PC.

•If you do not need some tasks now but you might need them in the future, then rather than deleting them, you can Disable them instead. Such tasks might include Bluetooth or DiskCleanup tasks. We recommend that you run the Disk Cleanup utility manually once in a while to clean your drive of unnecessary files.

•Reschedule other tasks so as not to overlap with the period of your live performance. Good examples are System Restore or Windows Backup tasks.

This way you have more control over your scheduled tasks.

Xbox Game bar and Game Mode

Speaking of unneeded features, we have mentioned Xbox apps, services and tasks. In this section we want to make sure that the focus of your optimizations is on audio rather than on gaming. Click on the Start button, then Settings and select Gaming:

Turn off all features here, including the Xbox Game Bar, Captures -> Background recording, and Game mode:

This way you are sure your PC is not optimized for playing video games at the expense of your needs for live performance.

Cortana

Microsoft's digital assistant Cortana is a standalone app and it is no longer an integral part of the Windows platform, as of the Windows 10 May 2020 Update.

As of that version, you must be signed in to use Cortana. When you are signed in, Cortana learns about you using information such as your searches, calendar, contacts, and location. Cortana can access your calendar, email, messages and other data by default.

By default, Cortana app is added to the Startup programs and so is started automatically when you turn on your PC. If you do not use Cortana or you want to disable its background presence on Windows 10 and Windows 11, you can disable it from the Task Manager, as shown in section Control which programs run on Windows startup.

If you cannot find Cortana in the Startup section in your Task Manager, you can completely remove it through the PowerShell. If you remove it, you will free up CPU cycles and some RAM, and have one less privacy concern.

To completely remove Cortana through your PowerShell, press Win key + X to open the Quick Access Menu, and select Windows PowerShell (Admin) (or Windows Terminal (Admin) on Windows 11):

Copy the following command to your clipboard:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.549981C3F5F10 | Remove-AppxPackage

then paste it into the terminal window and press Enter to remove Cortana.

If you change your mind later you can always re-install Cortana from the Microsoft Store, as it is just a standalone app.

Windows Privacy settings

We finish this chapter by reviewing Windows privacy settings. Various data collection procedures run in the background by default and send the collected data to Microsoft.

As seen in the previous sections, services, scheduled tasks, and the Cortana digital assistant are used for collecting and sending data to Microsoft. Unless you want to send this data to Microsoft, we recommend that you review your privacy settings, and remove the triggers for collecting and sending data to Microsoft in background.

Click on the Start button, type in Privacy settings and then click on Privacy settings:

There are many settings here, such as online speech recognition, typing history, diagnostic and feedback data, tailored experiences, activity history, among others that you might want to turn off.

You may also want to adjust app permissions here, e.g. which applications have access to your location, camera, microphone, calls, e-mails, and which can run in the background:

Carefully review these settings and turn off all unneeded ones.

In the next chapter we focus on the numerous update mechanisms that may run in the background while you are performing live.

Note: make sure to review privacy and tracking settings of your plugins as well. Tracking mechanisms of some plugins can heavily impact your CPU usage. Read this blog article for such an example.

Update mechanisms

In this chapter we cover the numerous mechanisms that update your operating system and applications such as updates through the Microsoft Store, Windows Update, antivirus updates and others.

The best practice is to turn off all your update mechanisms before your live performance to make sure automatic updates features do not download new updates and install them in the background. Auto-installation of new updates might significantly interfere with your live performance and cause many unwanted issues.

We recommend that you always perform manual updates and then test your whole PC-based setup, including whole gig and plugin setup, many weeks in advance before you go on tour or perform live. This will give you time to address any issues you encounter.

Note: some updates from Microsoft may cause Gig Performer to think you are on a different computer and you will have to activate it again (it won't use up an additional activation).

We strongly recommend that you do not update or upgrade your PC nor any applications while you are on tour to avoid unexpected problems. Windows updates, anti-virus updates and even seemingly unrelated application updates can cause havoc due to underlying changes they may make to the system.

Microsoft Store automatic updates

Microsoft Store apps (modern, UWP apps) are configured to automatically update by default, whether or not you are signed into the Microsoft Store. We recommend that you disable such automatic updates.

On Windows 10, click on the Start button and select Microsoft Store:

Click on the menu button and select Settings:

Turn off the option for updating apps automatically.

On Windows 11, click on the Start button, type in Microsoft Store and then click on the app. Notice that there is no three dots menu and that you need to click on the Account icon, and then select App settings. Then turn off the App updates toggle button.

The Windows Update Service

Windows Update is a service that automates downloading and installing Windows software updates over the Internet. This service is configured to regularly check with Microsoft for updates by default.

Since the focus of this guide is to create a stable system that provides maximum audio performance, we will make sure these updates are downloaded and installed in a way that allows you to test the updated PC long before using it for live performance.

The largest Windows updates are Feature Updates as they introduce a new set of features and major improvements to the Windows operating system. An example of such an update is Windows 10 May 2021 Update (codenamed "21H1"). See more information s me

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