Windows has been designed for a wide variety of applications. Unfortunately that means that, out-of-the-box, it works correctly for office or entertainment applications, but for DAW applications, several settings and features have to be fine-tuned.

Merging highly recommends you "defer feature updates" in Windows 11, see Updates section below. 

1.BIOS

If you can access your computer BIOS, it is recommended to disable all power management features of your CPU, as this implies changes in the CPU speed and that is far from optimal for any audio application.
Same applies to overclocking.
Please have a look at your motherboard manual to locate those settings, may vary depending of the manufacturer.
Intel Turbo Boost Technology: Disabled
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E): Disabled
C-State Support (C3, C6, C7, C8 State): all Disabled 
CPU EIST Function: Disabled (also called Intel Enhanced SpeedStep, that should always be disabled) 
CPU power saving mode: Disabled
VT-d, VT-x, Hyper-V: Disabled for MassCore Users (Virtualization features)
Note: Laptops usually have very few BIOS options to prevent CPU power management issues.  Please see if you can configure Windows Power Options (see below)

2.WINDOWS CONFIGURATION

• Microsoft account : 
  Since Windows 11 25H2, a Microsoft account is required to install.
  If you want to switch to a local account after the installation:
  Go to Settings > Accounts > Your info.   
  Click "Sign in with a local account instead".
  Follow prompts to create a local user.

• During Windows installation, Windows will ask you to configure your privacy settings ; Merging recommends you turn off all options ( Diagnostic Data to Microsoft can be set to "Basic".)
  You should also skip the User Experience, OneDrive and Office Trial.

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DEVICE DRIVERS INSTALLATION

WINDOWS CONTROL PANEL

BitLocker Drive Encryption

• BitLocker Drive Encryption may seriously degrade drive performances.  
  Please make sure that BitLocker is off for the System and Media drives.

Device Manager

• Ports (COM & LPT)
  If you use 9pin-RS422 connection:
  Communication Port (COM x) > Properties
  Ports Settings tab > Advanced > set both Receive and Transmit buffer to Low (4)

• Universal Serial Bus controllers
  Check each USB Root Hub / Host controller and disable power management if any, by right clicking on it and accessing its properties.(Power Management tab)

• Network Adapters
  AES67/RAVENNA ASIO users must configure the network adapter used for Audio-Over-IP
  Right click on your network adapter and access its properties to disable the power management features:
  Disable Energy Efficient Ethernet, Green Ethernet, Ultra Low Power mode, System Idle Power Saver and all Power Saver / Power management features (feature names depends of the manufacturer).
  AES67/RAVENNA ASIO users have to set WOL & Shutdown Link Speed to Not Speed Down (or Reduce Speed on Power Down to Disabled)
  For better performance, AES67/RAVENNA ASIO users should use a dedicated network adapter for Audio-Over-IP.
  Find more details on this page.
  Please also follow the Native recommendations from this page. 

File Explorer Options

Power Options 

• First, please disable the "Fast Startup feature", which indeed put the computer to sleep when you select shut down.  
  Click on "Choose what the power buttons do” on the left hand side of Power options page.
  Then click on "Change Settings that are currently unavailable" and uncheck the "Turn on fast startup" option.  Click on Save Changes.  Note also that hibernate / sleep is not supported.

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• In the main Power options page :
  Set the power scheme to High Performance or Ultimate Performance.
  If those power schemes are not displayed, click on Show additional plans.

• Now that the power scheme is selected, please click on Change plan settings - Change advanced power settings, and apply the following settings:
  Screen Saver (Turn off the display) is usually set to Never.  If you are recording, you surely don’t want the display to turn off after several minutes!
  Put the computer to sleep must be set to Never
  Access Change advanced power settings and make sure that:   
  Hard Disk > Turn off Hard disk after: Never
  Desktop background settings > Slide show: Paused
  Sleep > Sleep after: Never / Allow hybrid sleep: off / Hibernate after: Never / Allow wake timers: Disable.
  USB Settings > USB selective suspend setting: Disabled
  PCI Express > Link State Power Management: Off
  Processor power management > System Cooling policy : Active
  Minimum and Maximum processor state: 100%
  If those power schemes are not displayed, click on Show additional plans.

• Laptop users may not have access to such power plan settings.
  If you have access to the Minimum and Maximum processor state, please set it to 100 %.  If the laptop is overheating in such case, reduce both values ( usually 85-90% are sufficient in such case).
  If you don't have access to any parameter, please contact your laptop manufacturer. 

Sound

User Accounts - Disable Windows User Account Control (UAC)

Windows Defender Firewall

WINDOWS SETTINGS

Settings page can be accessed through Windows Start > Settings icon

System

Display > Graphics

• Advanced Graphics Settings. Merging recommends to enable the Hardware accelerated GPU Scheduling feature if available on your system (depends on the graphic card capabilities - graphic card driver must be installed).

• Custom Settings for Applications.  Graphic Power Management features can be set per applications.  
  Select "Desktop App" and browse to C:/Program Files/Merging Technologies.
  Add Pyramix.exe - Ovation.exe - VCube.exe - Aneman.exe depending on your configuration.
  Then select the application(s) and click on Options, set the graphics preference to High Performance.
  If you use Microsoft Edge, please also set it to High Performance.
  If you use Google Chrome, browse to C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application, and set it to High Performance.
  This setting is important, especially for laptops with dual graphic cards.

• Optimization for windowed games: Off

Notifications

Power

• Desktop Computers : Nothing to configure, it has been done already in the Windows Control Panel > Power options.

• Laptop Computers : the Battery Saver feature can seriously limit the system performance.
  Merging recommends you disable the Battery Saver during recordings and critical real time operations.
  Go in Power & Battery, and set the Battery saver to Off.
  You may still set the Battery saver on if your battery falls below a specified %, activate the “Turn battery saver on automatically if my battery falls below” and set a value (Merging recommends 10 %).

Multitasking

About > Advanced System Settings

• Advanced tab
  Click on the Settings button in the Performance section.
  

• Visual Effects tab

• System Protection tab
  Back in the main System windows, switch to System Protection tab:
  

  
  Make sure protection is turned on for your system drive.
  Select the system drive and click on Configure.
  Select Turn on system protection, and set a value for Disk Space Usage (usually 10% max).
  Disable the system protection on the Media drive(s), as this feature only works on system files and programs.

• Hardware tab
  Back in the main System windows, switch to Hardware tab:
  Click  on Device Installation Settings and select the “No, let me choose what to do" option.
  This will prevent Windows update service to automatically change the system drivers.

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Personalization

Apps

• In Installed Apps, uninstall all unnecessary applications, by clicking on the 3 dots next to the application.
  Some applications cannot be uninstalled (Alarms & Clock for example), uninstall button will be disabled.
  Bonjour is required for Merging products, do not uninstall it.
  Merging recommends you uninstall Microsoft News, Weather, Xbox & Xbox Live.
  You may also remove Feedback Hub, Mail and Calendar, Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Solitaire Collection, Office (trial), Power Automate, Xbox.

• Computers with low CPU resources should also disable background running applications.
  The following applications background running can be disabled :
  Feedback Hub, Groove Music, Mail and Calendar, Microsoft News, Microsoft One Drive, Microsoft To Do, Movies & TV, Office, Power Automate, Weather, XBox
  ...and other applications installed by the Windows Store.

  To prevent the application to run in background, click on the 3 dots next to the application, and select Advanced Options.
  Then in Background Permissions - Let this app run in background, select Never.

• Default Apps
  In Default Apps, select Google Chrome, and click on the Set Default button.

• Startup
  Please do not disable RTX64Bootcheck (RTX64 System Tray can be disabled).
  Please do not disable Microsoft Edge, it can cause issues (or introduce graphic latencies) inside Windows.

• Advanced Apps Settings
  Share across devices: in some rare circumstances, the Share across devices service (CrossDeviceService.exe) may badly interact with the Merging Audio Device driver, causing clicks and drops.
  In such case, it is recommended to set the Share across devices option to Off.
  Please also open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), navigate to the Startup tab, right-click on Mobile Devices and select Disable.
  Reboot your computer for such change to apply.

Gaming 

Privacy & Security

• Windows Security
  Full Virus Scanning should not run at the same time as Merging software.
  If you plan to install an Antivirus software, Windows Defender will be disabled (AVAST has already caused a lot of problems with several Merging programs, it is therefore not recommended.)
  You should also disable scanning of the Pyramix files (pmx, pmf, pml, pad, pmw) but also media files (wav, aif, flac, mp3,...), because each time the DAW have to access such file, your antivirus may scan it.
  See this page for help on configuring your antivirus exceptions.
  Windows Defender users can download and run a script to include the required rules in Windows Defender.
  MTWindowsDefenderExclusions.zip
  
  Windows Defender automatic scans have to be configured in Windows Task scheduler.
  Go in Windows Start menu > All apps > Windows Tools > Task Scheduler.
  Browse the Task scheduler library to Microsoft > Windows > Windows Defender.
  Right click on the Windows Defender Scheduled Scan task and select Properties.
  in the Conditions tab, set it to Start only if the computer is idle, and Stop if the computer ceases to be idle.
  
  Smart App Control (SAC) is a new security feature available through the Windows Security app to block untrusted or potentially dangerous applications.
  This feature has not been fully tested yet.

  • Core Isolation / Memory Integrity should be turned off, in Windows Security > Device Security : Core Isolation.
    MassCore users: Masscore is not compatible with the Memory Integrity feature, it has to be disabled.
    Native - Sentinel Safenet users: a new driver can be installed manually, compatible with the Memory Integrity feature.
    https://supportportal.thalesgroup.com/csm?id=kb_article_view&sys_kb_id=e88691ba37edcb08cc47261953990e80&sysparm_article=KB0016514

  • Windows Permissions
    In General, Merging recommends you turn off "Let apps show me personalized ads by using my advertising ID" and."Show me suggested content in the Settings app".
    In Diagnostic & Feedback, Merging recommends you only send the Basic diagnostic data ; Send optional diagnostic data, Improve inking and typing, Tailored experience and View diagnostic data can all be turned off.
    In Activity History : "Send my activity history to Microsoft" should be turned off, to reduce the OS internet traffic.
    In Searching Windows, Find my files should be set to Classic (Enhanced will increase CPU consumption).

Windows Update

ADDITIONAL CONFIGURATIONS

Windows Store

OneDrive 

WinSAT

Media Drives

• By default; Windows will index the content of all drives, which allows Windows Search to work faster.
  But this indexing task takes CPU power and can result in performance issue when recording.
  To disable the Windows indexing, open the File Explorer, select This PC, right click on the Media Drive(s) and select Properties: disable Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties checkbox.  
  NEVER USE “Compress this drive to save disk space”.

• External drives: access your external drive properties through Windows Device Manager > Disk drives  and set it to optimize for performance.
  

• Format block size:  if you only use audio files, the best size is 64 Kb when formatting the drive.
  But if you also need to use video files, 64Kb is not the optimal size, in that case keep the Default Allocation size (128Kb).
  The best way is to use separate drives for video and audio, if possible.

System Configuration & Startup

• Services
  Check the box Hide all Microsoft services, those are critical for Windows and should not be disabled.
  Service Bonjour is critical for RAVENNA networks and Virtual Transport, do not disable it.
  Do not disable your graphic card and ASIO card driver or service.
  Common services that can be disabled are: printer services, Skype, QuickTime updaters ...

• Startup
  Open the link to Task Manager to access the list.
  Do not disable Microsoft Windows Operating System or any other critical driver – program for your system.
  Common programs that can be disabled are Adobe Reader, Java updater, Skype, QuickTime...
  Those programs will be still be installed and accessible, but will not be loaded during Windows startup.
  Cortana should be left disabled.

WINDOWS 11 UPDATE CONFIGURATION

DPC LATENCY CHECK