Increase Windows Stability

Xtra Windows Stability is an interesting piece of software that was mentioned in Shellcity’s top 25 software of the year series. The product was especially designed to increase Windows stability by forcing important subsystems of Windows into separate processes.

The user can choose to force the following subsystems into separate processes to increase the stability of your Microsoft Windows operating system: Desktop, Explorer (Folders) and Internet Explorer.

All three or only some can be selected during installation and a restart is required before the changes take effect. The big question is however if the program delivers what it promises. I fired up Process Explorer from Sysinternals and checked if there would be more than one process when I opened Windows Explorer.

A new process was indeed added which means that the software is indeed dividing important subsystems into different processes which means that the chance is higher to recover the system if one subsystem fails.

Many open folders or Internet Explorer windows can increase memory usage slightly which is the downside of using this tool. The software can be downloaded and run from any location that you unpack it to.

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Tags: freeware, windows software, Xtra Windows Stability
Categories: Operating Systems, Windows, software

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5 Responses to “Increase Windows Stability”

1. Kaixi says:

   December 30, 2007 at 7:04 pm

   Wow, thanks!
2. Kris says:

   December 30, 2007 at 9:02 pm

   This will just modify three registry keys – you might as well just use the .reg file rather than a program dedicated to it.

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
   “DesktopProcess”=dword:00000001

   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
   “SeparateProcess”=dword:00000001

   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BrowseNewProcess]
   “BrowseNewProcess”=”Yes”

   (note that the .reg file needs to be saved with ANSI encoding for Windows to recognise it).

   I have put a copy here for your convenience:
   http://a.nfshost.com/separate_processes.reg
3. cresc says:

   January 7, 2008 at 12:52 pm

   @Kris: a big Thank you :-)

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

1. Xtra Windows Stability 1.1… mejora la estabilidad de tu Windows : says:

   December 30, 2007 at 8:05 pm

   [...] Xtra Windows Stability 1.1 obliga al sistema de Windows a ejecutar los subsistemas en distintos procesos, estos subsistemas son: Escritorio, Explorador (carpetas) y Internet Explorer. [...]
2. Xtra Windows Stability Makes Windows More Stable says:

   January 12, 2008 at 8:43 pm

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