significantly speed up photoshop 6 program startup time with freeware utility

On Mon, 22 May 2006 17:11:27 -0700, Mike Scirocco
graced us with:

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

Mike, unfortunately any patches from Adobe that look for a specific size abnd byte signature will be rendered useless unless this thing allows you to restore the exe to it’s original state.

It’s seems worth looking into though, thanks for the heads up…

:subdude

subdude wrote:

On Mon, 22 May 2006 17:11:27 -0700, Mike Scirocco
graced us with:

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

Mike, unfortunately any patches from Adobe that look for a specific size abnd byte signature will be rendered useless unless this thing allows you to restore the exe to it’s original state.
It’s seems worth looking into though, thanks for the heads up… :subdude

I didn’t think that would be a problem because v6.0.1 is already updated and I’d be surprised if they released any more patches for it. For myself the load speed is so much faster it would be worth doing a reinstall if I needed to add a patch.

If you do try it would you mind posting how much of a load time savings you saw?

Mike

On Tue, 23 May 2006 13:32:58 -0700, Mike Scirocco
graced us with:

subdude wrote:

On Mon, 22 May 2006 17:11:27 -0700, Mike Scirocco
graced us with:

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

Mike, unfortunately any patches from Adobe that look for a specific size abnd byte signature will be rendered useless unless this thing allows you to restore the exe to it’s original state.
It’s seems worth looking into though, thanks for the heads up… :subdude

I didn’t think that would be a problem because v6.0.1 is already updated and I’d be surprised if they released any more patches for it. For myself the load speed is so much faster it would be worth doing a reinstall if I needed to add a patch.

If you do try it would you mind posting how much of a load time savings you saw?

Mike

I was thinking more along the lines of CS2, not to mention other proggies that might have patches that look for a specific file signature.

I’ll look into it, but it won’t be until the weekend at the earliest.

:subdude

"Mike Scirocco" wrote in message

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

can you tell me what exactly you typed to run the program? i opened command prompt, went to folder where i put upx and tried typing upx C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Photoshop.exe
but it says FileNotFound

Wheeler wrote:

"Mike Scirocco" wrote in message

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

can you tell me what exactly you typed to run the program? i opened command prompt, went to folder where i put upx and tried typing upx C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Photoshop.exe
but it says FileNotFound

I’m a VB programmer so I wrote a VB program that automates the process. I can send you a copy if you like.

Otherwise I think it’s easiest to copy upx.exe into the adobe photoshop folder, then open a dos window and navigate to that folder then for each exe and dll file type:

upx filename

It sounds like you typed that correctly. Did you include a full path to upx if it wasn’t in the folder you were executing the command from?

Mike

"Mike Scirocco" wrote in message

Wheeler wrote:

"Mike Scirocco" wrote in message

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

can you tell me what exactly you typed to run the program? i opened command prompt, went to folder where i put upx and tried typing upx C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Photoshop.exe
but it says FileNotFound

I’m a VB programmer so I wrote a VB program that automates the process. I can send you a copy if you like.

Otherwise I think it’s easiest to copy upx.exe into the adobe photoshop folder, then open a dos window and navigate to that folder then for each exe and dll file type:

upx filename

It sounds like you typed that correctly. Did you include a full path to upx if it wasn’t in the folder you were executing the command from?
Mike

Photoshop 7.0
before after
(Kb) (Kb)
ace.dll 452 180
agm.dll 908 337
asn.er.dll 696 130
bib.dll 164 60
cooltype.dll 1424 608
extendscript.dll 456 174
extendscriptide.dll 60 26
js32.dll 324 143
mps.dll 3404 1339
msvcrt10.dll 206 93
opp.dll 92 34
pdfl50.dll 2852 1134
photoshop.exe 15528 5181
photoshop.dll 876 390
plugin.dll 52 23.5
shfolder.dll 21.5 9.5

TOTAL 26.8 Mb 9.62 Mb
opening time
26.86 sec 9.85 sec

Wheeler wrote:

"Mike Scirocco" wrote in message

Wheeler wrote:

"Mike Scirocco" wrote in message

I significantly reduced my photoshop 6 startup time by several seconds using the following freeweare utility:

upx200w.zip Win32 console version 245 kB

available here:

http://upx.sourceforge.net/

The utility packs all program exe’s and dll’s so they’re smaller, they can be reduced to 20%-50% of the original size, and the load time savings is generally significant.

It worked great on my Win98 SE Photoshop 6.0.1.

If you want to try this and you’d like a VB program that lets you select the photoshop folder and takes care of the rest email me for a free copy. I wrote it for my own use because it made Firefox so much faster I wanted to go over most of my programs.

It did NOT work on AVG Antivirus Free Version (program failed digital signature test) and it did NOT work on Office 2000.

It did work on:

IE 6
Opera 8.5
Firefox 1.5
Thunderbird
Open Office 1
Netmeter
Photoshop 6.0.1

Mike

can you tell me what exactly you typed to run the program? i opened command prompt, went to folder where i put upx and tried typing upx C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Photoshop.exe
but it says FileNotFound

I’m a VB programmer so I wrote a VB program that automates the process. I can send you a copy if you like.

Otherwise I think it’s easiest to copy upx.exe into the adobe photoshop folder, then open a dos window and navigate to that folder then for each exe and dll file type:

upx filename

It sounds like you typed that correctly. Did you include a full path to upx if it wasn’t in the folder you were executing the command from?
Mike

Photoshop 7.0
before after
(Kb) (Kb)
ace.dll 452 180
agm.dll 908 337
asn.er.dll 696 130
bib.dll 164 60
cooltype.dll 1424 608
extendscript.dll 456 174
extendscriptide.dll 60 26
js32.dll 324 143
mps.dll 3404 1339
msvcrt10.dll 206 93
opp.dll 92 34
pdfl50.dll 2852 1134
photoshop.exe 15528 5181
photoshop.dll 876 390
plugin.dll 52 23.5
shfolder.dll 21.5 9.5

TOTAL 26.8 Mb 9.62 Mb
opening time
26.86 sec 9.85 sec

Thanks very much for the excellent details!
I’m happy to see you got a significant time savings. UPX is a pretty impressive freeware utility, no?

Mike