It’s no secret that there are some hidden commands that you can use on your Windows PC to help speed up some specific tasks. Regardless if it’s turning off write caching to speed up your Steam downloads or using different settings in your bios to speed up your computer, there are dozens of different ways to improve your daily driver. But some of these supposed “tricks” don’t offer anything more than a placebo, and this common recommendation doesn’t actually speed up your NVMe drive or save your SSD in the long run.
For the longest time, I’ve heard that altering the DisablePagingExecutive option in the registry would save an SSD and make writing on your disk much faster. But it’s been proven time and time again that it doesn’t genuinely do anything noteworthy. Why won’t this schoolyard rumor ever go away?
What does DisablePagingExecutive actually do?
And why does this Kernel-level function always get brought up?
Yasir Mahmood / MakeUseOfCredit: Yasir Mahmood / MakeUseOf
Ever since the days of Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, the DisablePagingExecutive tweak has been making its rounds throughout the internet. Early messaging boards spoke of this mythical fix that would supposedly increase your performance, save your hard drive, and so much more. I mean, here’s a post from 2009 of a user asking if this tweak actually works. DPE is supposed to keep kernel-mode drivers and other portions of the system in your physical RAM, then be shared to your SSD, NVMe, or HDD. The problem is, it doesn’t really do anything noteworthy.
There are plenty of tweaks that you can make to your PC that will have noteworthy benefits, especially when it comes to reading or saving data on your devices. But DisablePagingExecutive is not one of them. In fact, if anything, it may cause your system to potentially use more RAM and slow down your daily practices.
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What practices can actually speed up NVMe and SSDs?
Get rid of the myths and start seeing some genuine results
Seeing as DisablePagingExecutive is kind of a dud, you may be left wondering if there are any legitimate ways to increase your NVMe or SSD speeds on your computer. Thankfully, with a little bit of patience and some technical know-how, you can speed up your read speeds with a few different practices. Outside of search indexing and write caching, which we’ve discussed in the past, you can also access your PC’s BIOS and enable a few settings to increase your read and write speeds. If you want to see your current speeds, I can recommend using CrystalDiskMark to benchmark your drives.
Accessing your BIOS is rather easy — keep an eye out for which button you’re prompted to push when powering on your PC next time. For me, I need to press F12, but this can vary by individual motherboards and PCs. You’ll want to search for PCIe x4 mode while combing around in your BIOS, and it is typically found under the Advanced, Onboard Devices Configuration, or Chipset menu. Enabling this, or changing your PCI_E Gen Switch to a higher variable than Auto can help increase your speed.
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Messing with the registry can seriously harm your PC
Knowledgeable users can access the registry without many faults, but be cautious if this is your first time
The Windows Registry is a powerful tool, and if you know what you’re doing, you can access and modify some of the OS’s fundamental features. But one wrong step can lead to unintended consequences, like your PC being unable to boot up. In my eyes, the risk of ruining my PC and having to start from scratch with a fresh OS install isn’t worth the potential of getting a slightly faster NVMe read time.
If you want to explore the Windows Registry, I strongly suggest exploring it cautiously. There are programs that you can use that allow you to explore and see what it has to offer more safely, but if you’re a curious user, be sure to do your research before diving in. Much like the olden days of people saying that deleting System32 can help speed up your computer, one wrong click could be the start of an extra-long project for you in the future.
Some registry tweaks can be legitimately beneficial
DPE isn’t the tweak you’re looking for, but you could attempt these instead
Speeding up your PC is never a bad thing, especially as RAM prices and other PC components are skyrocketing in price. Regardless if you want to reduce the amount of time between animations or get the Start Menu up faster than ever before, some registry tweaks can be beneficial in your daily life.
But as I mentioned multiple times throughout this article, do your research before diving into the Windows Registry. More often than not, users will be fine if they’re going in and just checking out what makes their operating system work behind the scenes. But if you’re going to change anything, be sure that you do a proper search on the web to see what it can change, and what repercussions you may see from making that particular change.
It’s time to put the DPE myth to rest
It’s like Mew being under the truck in Red and Blue — it’s just not true
If there’s one thing you take away from this article, I hope it’s this: no matter how long a rumor has been in circulation, there’s always a good time to put it off to the wayside. The myth of the miracles that DisablePagingExecutive could bring to your daily life is nothing more than a tall tale, and may result in slower usage than you would likely expect from a registry tweak.
Just like downloading RAM or Bonzi Buddy, this is one of those things that should have been left in the past. But I’ve been seeing forum posts recommending the DPE tweak more often than ever lately, and I hope this can put the rumor to bed for the foreseeable future. DPE should really stand for “Doesn’t Produce Efficiency”, but at the end of the day? It’s funny to see this relic of years past poke its head out of the ground for, hopefully, the last time.
