How to Disable Windows Memory Compression for Windows 10/11

In this blog post, I will explain how to disable memory compression on a Windows 10/11 system via PowerShell.

For those who don’t know, Windows compresses infrequently used memory instead of writing them to the page file. This way if your computer needs to use that particular data, it just has to decompress it in memory rather than access the much slower page file on your hard drive or SSD.

Since memory compression uses up CPU cycles, this can potentially slow down a computer.

Interesting Fact: Microsoft disables memory compression, by default, on Windows Servers. That right there tells you memory compression can potentially slow down a computer system.

ℹ️  Notice:

Disabling memory compression on computers with limited RAM ( < 16GB ) can decrease performance rather than improve it. It is always recommended to run benchmarks before and after disabling memory compression to verify that you indeed received a performance increase from turning off memory compression.

To disable memory compression on Windows 10/11, run the following command in an Administrator PowerShell terminal.

 

Disable-MMAgent -mc

 

Disable Windows Memory Compression

 

Of course, if you wish to re-enable memory compression, just type the following command.

 

Enable-MMAgent -mc

 

Enable Windows Memory Compression

 

ℹ️  Notice:

It would probably be a good idea to reboot Windows after disabling or enabling memory compression to make sure the change is applied.


Posted in Code Snippet, Command Prompt, Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, PowerShell, Tips & Tutorials

How to Repair Corrupted Windows System Files using SFC and DISM

If you have used Windows for a long enough time, you may encounter an issue with corrupted system files.

This can be due to:

  • An improper system shutdown (e.g., power loss).
  • A failing hard drive or SSD.
  • Faulty RAM
  • A failed Windows update.
  • A third-party program that modifies system files (e.g., anti-virus).
  • A user accidentally deleting a system file (rare, but can happen).

Corrupted system files can cause Windows to become unstable, leading to blue screens, application crashes, slow performance, and possible data loss.

In this blog post, I will show you how to initiate a Windows system repair using SFC and DISM.

First let’s open PowerShell as Administrator (your computer may show “Command Prompt (Admin)” instead).

Open PowerShell as Admin

Now let’s type in:  sfc /scannow

Run SFC

Wait for the process to complete.

SFC Process Complete

Now if SFC has found no issues (like shown in the image above), then you should be OK. However, if SFC finds issues that it cannot fix, or if you’re experiencing more significant problems, you can then run DISM. This tool can help fix issues that SFC might not be able to address. You can run it with the command:  DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Run DISM

Wait for the process to complete.

DISM Complete

Please note that in some cases, system file corruption can be too severe for these tools to resolve. If that’s the case, you may need to restore from a system backup (if available) or perform a complete re-installation of Windows.


Posted in Code Snippet, Command Prompt, Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, PowerShell, Software, Tips & Tutorials

Test-Connection: How to Ping Computers with PowerShell

You can use the commands below to ping computers with PowerShell.

 

Pinging a Single Computer

Test-Connection google.com

You may add (without the quotes) “-IPv4” to the end of the command to tell PowerShell to only ping the IPv4 address of the specified computer.

 

Pinging Multiple Computers

Use a comma [ , ] to specify multiple computers at once.

Test-Connection google.com, yahoo.com


Posted in Code Snippet, Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, PowerShell, Tips & Tutorials