Why Microsoft Windows turns on defragmentation by default, we don't know, but its not necessarily good for servers. It is particularly terrible if you have Solid State Drives as it affects the longevity of the device by interfering with the drive's wear leveling algorithms. We suggest turning it off from being automatic.

• Click on the drive containing the database server
• Right click to get properties
• Click on the Tools tab
• Click on the 'optimize' button
• Look at the bottom to see if optimization is on (or off)
  • The button to turn it on and off is on the lower right
  • The current state is on the lower left

For most versions of windows servers, you want to do controlled update so that you can pick the time of outage. We recommend using the sever versions of Windows as they behave as you expect (so far). Windows 10 has a mind of its own and may need some special treatment.

Windows Automatic Updates is now found in Services in Windows 10.

How to locate:

• Open Control Panel and Administrative Tools
• Select Services
• In the Services window, scroll down to Windows Update and turn off the process.To turn it off, right-click on the process, click on Properties and select Disabled.
• Note: windows 10 sometimes listens to you, most times it does not, despite what you indicate in various settings and you may have to:
  • prevent it from downloading updates
  • which may involve doing some registry entries which could require you to gain control of some protected registry entries
  • Windows 10 isn't pretty - you are better using 2012 R2 or some earlier version of windows like 8.1 if you must

For watever reason, Windows (out of the box) tends to be set to maximum power-saving which includes setting your network connection to go to sleep when it can:

• especially on workstations, and
• especially if you go take an extended coffee break or have a meeting.

This is not the best setting for any application, like Theatre Manager, QuickBooks or other accounting software that needs to connect to a database on a server.

We suggest disabling power management on the ethernet card.

• use instructions like this for windows 7 and 8
• Use instructions below for Windows 10 (they are very similar to windows 7)
  • Open Control Panel
  • select network and Internet
  • Pick Network Connections. the screen should look like below
  • click the network card
  • right click and show properties
  • click configure

    

  • click power management and uncheck the highlighted item per the image below

    

In addition, please make sure to disable power management except for monitors.

Windows defender can prevent Theatre Manager auto updates from occurring in Windows 10 and can interfere with restarting of TM server. It can be addressed by:

• Using 2012R2 or 2016 server for server processes instead of Windows 10. 2012R2 server does what you tell it with Defender, windows 10 does not - it automatically turns itself back on unless you
  • Set windows defender exclusion to all theatre manager folders on that machine -and/or-
  • Turning the Defender policy off -or-
  • Installing some other AV software that disables Defender and takes over. (we dislike this option - other AV software is much much worse)
• Make sure to turn off DEP on windows 10 for all but essential programs - it might affect TM server from starting on startup

Make sure to also turn off power saving on your ethernet card on all servers and workstations.

Create a custom Power Plan

1. Open the control panel.
2. Click Power Options.
3. Click the Create a Power Plan option
4. Select the bullet next to "High Performance"



5. Click Next.
6. Change the Display setting to "Never"



7. Click Create.

There are a couple of ways to disable indexing.

Using Control Panel

You can usually turn of most indexing by clicking on the properties of the device. However, it seems windows 10 doesn't fully listen, so it may be best to approach this task via the control panel.

1. Open Control Panels
2. Look for where things are indexed
3. Follow these instructions to disable indexing or something like the intent of the instructions.

Disabling indexing of disk from C drive properties

1. Double-click on My Computer (or Computer).
2. Right-click on C: drive (or the drive letter that Postgres is installed under).
3. Select Properties from the popup context menu.
4. Click the General tab.
5. Remove the check in the "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" box.

   

6. Click Apply.

   It may take several minutes for Indexing to complete. If a message pops up indicating Administrator permissions are required click Ok. If the current user is not the Administrator a prompt for the Administrator password will appear. Enter the password and continue. If a prompt appears indicating select folders cannot be altered it may be they are already open. Click Ignore All and let the process continue.

7. Click OK.
8. Reboot the computer.

Repeat this setting on the Web Listener computer, and the Apache server as well

1. Double-click on My Computer (or Computer).
2. Right-click on C: drive (or the drive letter that Postgres is installed under).
3. Select Properties from the popup context menu.
4. Click the Quota tab.
5. Remove the check in the "Enable quota management" box.

   

6. Click Apply.
7. Click OK.
8. Reboot the computer.

To check if the setting is turned on:

• Double-click on My Computer (or Computer).
• Right-click on C: drive (or the drive letter that Postgres is installed under).
• Select Properties from the popup context menu.
• Click the Previous Versions tab.

If Folder Versions reads "There are no previous versions available" this option is turned off. However, if backups are listed with date and time stamps, the feature is enabled and needs to be turned off.

1. Click Start >> Control Panel.
2. Click System in the Control Panel window.
3. Click System Protection in the left column.

   

4. Select the drive Postgres is installed on.
5. Click the Configure button.
6. Move the bullet to "Turn off system protection".

   

7. Click Apply.
8. Click OK.
9. Reboot the computer.

1. Right-click on My Computer (or Computer).
2. Select Properties from the popup context menu.
3. Double-click on System Properties in the left column.
4. Select the Advanced tab.
5. Move the bullet to "Adjust for best performance".

   

6. Click Apply.
7. Click OK.
8. Reboot the computer.

1. Open the control panel.
2. Click User Accounts.
3. Click the Change Users Account Control Settings link under Action Center
4. Move the slider down to Never notify.
5. Click Ok.