FAQ: Are there any Windows settings that can improve Quicken’s performance?

Rocket J Squirrel

Are there any Windows settings that can improve Quicken’s performance?

Yes, there are some settings which can potentially speed up Quicken. But whether they will work for you on your PC depends heavily on your hardware and, to some extent, other software on your PC. The information below is based on Windows 10 and may differ on other Windows versions.

Improve Graphics Settings

Let’s start with graphics settings. You might not think Quicken would be demanding on your PC’s graphics capabilities; it’s not a video game, after all. But a good portion of Quicken’s display code is old and inefficient and can benefit from any help it can get.

Close Quicken if it is running.

In the Windows search box, type “Graphics”. You should see “Graphics Settings / System Settings” at the top of the resulting list. Click on that.

At the top of the resulting window, you may see “Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling”. If you do see it, set it to ON. This setting potentially can speed up any application which uses the GPU. You will need to reboot your PC for this setting to take effect. You can do that now or later. If you don’t see this setting, your PC does not have the hardware to accomplish this. Nothing to see here, move along.

In the same window, you should see “Graphics performance preference”. You want to add Quicken to this list and tell Windows to give it high graphics performance. Under “Choose an app to set preference”, choose “Desktop app” (not “Microsoft Store app”, your only other choice). Click Browse and navigate to the location of your Quicken executable file, usually C:\Program Files(x86)\Quicken\qw.exe. Add that file to the list of apps (it may be your first one). “Quicken Windows” should appear in the list. Click it, then Options, High Performance, and Save.

If you enabled hardware accelerated GPU scheduling in the previous step, reboot your PC now. Then, when you start Quicken, you may see an improvement in graphics rendering speed. If so, great! You have sped up Quicken (and probably other applications) without any risk or cost.

Curious nerds out there can read more about this feature at
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/hardware-accelerated-gpu-scheduling/

Disable Malware Scanning

If you are willing to take a little risk, you can disable malware scanning of Quicken’s files. Windows Defender can slow down Quicken because of all the checking it does.

In Windows Defender, under “Virus & threat protection settings”, under “Exclusions”, click “Add or remove exclusions”. Add the folders that Quicken uses, namely

·        C:\Program Files(x86)\Quicken

·        C:\ProgramData\Quicken

·        C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Quicken

·        C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Local\Quicken

If more than one user account uses Quicken, add their Appdata folders as well.

Also add the Quicken executables

·        qw.exe

·        qwSubprocess.exe

If you use an anti-virus program other than Windows Defender, perform the equivalent exclusions according to that program.

Raise Process Priority

You can also “cheat” a little by raising Quicken’s process priority from normal to above normal.

To do this, create a shortcut on your desktop or task bar with the following target:
cmd /c start "Quicken" /abovenormal "C:\Program Files (x86)\Quicken\qw.exe"

When you invoke this shortcut, the Windows command processor will set Quicken’s process priority to “abovenormal”. This will give Quicken a bit of an advantage over other processes which are competing for the run queue.

You can also set the shortcut to start in Quicken’s application data folder by setting that to
%APPDATA%\Quicken

Good Luck!

That’s it! Hopefully, one or more of these hacks will speed up Quicken for you.