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Windows 11 Audio Workstation Tweaks

Windows 11 comes with a lot of features designed for low spec PC, or laptop and mobile devices. Assuming that your Digital Audio Workstation is built cloning one of ours DAW from our PC Part lists, there are meany features meant to save RAM, and power consumption that can be safely disabled on an high specs audio production PC. Each tweak won’t do much, but cumulatively, you could be able to add ten or more VST instruments to your template, to reduce DPC Latency, and improve performance and stability.

These are not your typical gaming Windows optimization guides. We only provide tweaks that come from Microsoft official optimization guides. These are usually publicly available, but difficult to find if you are not an IT expert.

Disable Hibernation

Hibernation was designed for mobile computers and might not be available for all PCs. Hibernation uses a hibernation file to provide a fast startup experience

How to make hibernation unavailable

  1. Press the Windows button on the keyboard to open Start menu or Start screen.
  2. Search for cmd. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then select Run as Administrator.
  3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, select Continue.
  4. At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press Enter.
  5. Type exit, and then press Enter to close the Command Prompt window.

How to make hibernation available

  1. Press the Windows button on the keyboard to open Start menu or Start screen.
  2. Search for cmd. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then select Run as Administrator.
  3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, select Continue.
  4. At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate on, and then press Enter.
  5. Type exit, and then press Enter to close the Command Prompt window.

More information

The Hiberfil.sys hidden system file is located in the root folder of the drive where the operating system is installed. The Windows Kernel Power Manager reserves this file when you install Windows. The size of this file is approximately equal to how much random access memory (RAM) is installed on the computer.

The computer uses the Hiberfil.sys file to store a copy of the system memory on the hard disk when the hybrid sleep setting is turned on. If this file is not present, the computer cannot hibernate.

Disable Page Files and Create a Dedicated Crash Dump Page File
Page file enables the system to remove infrequently accessed modified pages from physical memory to let the system use physical memory more efficiently for more frequently accessed pages. “However when large physical memory is installed, a page file might not be required to support the system commit charge during peak usage. The available physical memory alone might be large enough to do this” (Microsoft Official Documentation). A dedicated dump file might still be required to back a system crash dump.

Our recommendation is to test your system, install all your software, make some music. Once you know that your workstation is stable, disable page file, and disable crash dump files, or alternatively enable a dedicated crash dump file.

Disabling Page Files
  1. Navigate to Control Panel, System, and then Advanced System Settings.
  2. Click Performance “Settings” in the Advanced tab
  3. Under Virtual Memory, click Change and uncheck “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.”
  4. Select “No paging file,” and click Set, then OK.
  5. Restart your computer.

You can always re-enable the page file by following the same steps and selecting “System managed size” or “Custom size” instead of “No paging file.

Enabling a Dedicated Crash Dump File

The procedure is quite involved, we will link here the official Microsoft guide on how to do it.

Disable Write Debugging Information

If you disable the page file, but you don’t enable a dedicated Crush Dump Page File, remember to disable Debugging Information.

  1. Navigate to Control Panel, System, and then Advanced System Settings.
  2. Click Startup and Recovery “Settings” in the Advanced tab.
  3. Select None in Write debugging information.
Application requirements

Some products or services require a page file for various reasons. For specific information, check the product documentation. Our guides work for our digital audio workstations, which are solely dedicated to audio production.

Disable Device Encryption & Standard BitLocker Encryption

BitLocker provides offline-data and operating-system protection for your computer. It helps ensure that data that is stored on a computer that is running Windows is not revealed if the computer is tampered with when the installed operating system is offline.

BitLocker runs in the background to encrypt drives, and even if it relies on the TPM microchip, it still uses valuable system resources, and will affect drives performance. For a dedicated digital audio workstation it is better to disable it.

Disable Device Encryption (Windows 11 Home Edition)
  1. Type and search [Device encryption settings] in the Windows search bar, then click [Open].
  2. On the Device encryption field, set the option to [Off].
  3. Confirm whether you need to turn off device encryption, select [Turn off] to disable the device encryption function.
Turn off Standard BitLocker Encryption (Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise)
  1. Navigate to Control Panel and open BitLocker Drive Encryption.
  2. Click [Turn off BitLocker] on the drive that you want to decrypt. If the drive is under locked status, you need to click [Unlock drive] and type the password to turn off BitLocker.
  3. Confirm whether you want to decrypt your drive, then select [Turn off BitLocker] to start turning off BitLocker, and your drive will not be protected anymore.