Product differentiation and the idea that the buyer
is getting more for their purchasing dollar drive vendors to constantly
add new features to applications. Whenever a feature is active, whether
you use it or not, it consumes system resources. In some cases, application
features provide an essential service, such as the spelling and grammar
checking that most word processors provide in the background. However,
some of these features consume so many resources that the application
slows to a crawl. The feature might be a good idea, but the cost of
running it is too high. Finally, some application features don’t have
any useful purpose for a particular user at all. For example, Microsoft
Office provides Smart Tags — a useful feature for some office workers,
but not necessarily important for the home user.
The problem with all of these new features is that the
vendor simply assumes that you want to use them. After all, the vendor
has devoted considerable time and resources to create the feature,
so someone must need it. An application, such as a word processor,
which works fine on your machine today, might not work well tomorrow
because of the new features the vendor provides. When you don’t need
the feature, then the application is actually creating a dirty environment
— one that doesn’t use resources efficiently. Your old hardware would
probably work with the new application if you remove the features
you don’t need. In short, applications require installation tuning
to ensure they include just the features you need. For additional
information on application tuning requirements, see the “Tuning Your
Applications” section of Chapter 1.