Microsoft Windows Vista is an Operating system par excellence, the most visually stunning OS from the Windows family so far. Microsoft Vista has a wonderful graphical interface (GUI), Microsoft AERO. However, Vista is very resource-thirsty. It needs more than 1 GB of system memory (RAM) and high processor power. Everything about the new Windows is superlative (Windows AERO itself takes up 128 MB of RAM). Hence, it warrants doing some system tweaking to get high performance out of Vista. Here are some tips to increase the speed of MS Vista PCs.
1. Disable Unnecessary Features
Windows AERO interface is a great and visually stunning feature that makes Vista look wonderful. The AERO glass, flip 3D, live thumbnails, etc., make Microsoft Vista a very beautiful OS. But this all are at a price. A very hefty system is required to run AERO alone, which takes up as much system memory as required to run the whole of Microsoft Windows XP. This is why Vista is too heavy to run on ordinary systems. You don’t need AERO if you are not using the system just for visual appeal. Vista’s graphics is stunning even without AERO, and all your programs will run just fine. So you can get rid of Windows AERO. For this, right click desktop and choose Personalize. Click on Window Color and Appearance, and then Open classic appearance properties for more options. Here you can turn off AERO by choosing Windows Vista Basic under color options. Vista AERO is available only in four editions of Vista, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, and Vista Ultimate; it is not shipped with Vista Home Basic.
Every time Windows starts, Vista gives a welcome screen, Windows Welcome Center. This feature helps the novice Windows users tweak their systems for the first time use. If you are familiar with Vista and want to get rid of the Microsoft Welcome Center, then you can follow this simple Windows registry tweak. Open registry (type ‘regedit’ in Start->Run); search for “Windows Welcome Center” from registry’s Edit->Find menu option; remove the key when you find that under Windows->CurrentVersion->Run.
Another feature that may be turned off for performance boost is UAC (User Account Control). This feature can be turned off from Control Panel. However, this is a great security feature of Vista, and it is not recommended to turn it off completely.
Vista has a Sidebar, which houses some useful widgets on the side of the desktop. These small applications like clock, calendar, currency converter, and more you can download from Microsoft website (Windows Support Website) may be removed safely for a better performance of the system.
You can get a list of all the programs installed with Vista in Control Panel->Uninstall a Program->Turn Windows Features On or Off. In this window, you can view all the applications currently installed in the system. If there is any new feature that you wish to remove, just uncheck it.
2. Disable Unwanted Startup Programs
This is the same with Windows XP Operating System. All Windows versions have some built-in startup programs that are loaded when the OS loads (Windows Live Messenger for instance). These startup programs can be disabled. You can use Windows Defender for this. Windows Defender in Vista is an antispyware application that monitors more than spywares. It monitors Internet Explorer settings, startup programs, system configuration changes, etc. So, make use of Defender for disabling the startup programs that may be running in the background. This can be done from the system tray icon of Defender. Retain only the applications that you need to run Windows effectively.
3. Readyboost
Readyboost and Superfetch are two brand new Microsoft applications supplied with Vista. They are Windows tools, which boost the system performance by optimizing the system memory. This is done with the help of additional storage media like USB Flash drives. Readyboost can use the Flash storage devices and SD cards as system memory, and Superfetch will make the applications more optimized for this memory cache. If you can get a fast Flash drive, you have two uses with that in Vista. One is normal use of data transfer and storage. The second is it can be used as an external RAM cache to supplement the memory capacity of the system. So, get hold on the fastest Flash drive out there, and get it to working.
4. Enable Advanced Disk Performance
Advanced Disk Performance feature, accessible from Disk Management in Device Manager, is a disk write optimizing tool, which enables hard disk write caching. The contents to be written to hard disk are not written directly; instead, it is stored into a cache first. The data are transferred to the hard drive only at the end. This can dramatically improve the performance when applications accessing HDD a lot are being run. However, there is a risk of data loss in cases of power failure. So, this warrants the use of good power supply in the background for the hard disk drive.
This feature can be enabled from Device Manager->Disk Manager->Disk Properties, and then in policies, you can click Advanced Disk Performance option.
These performance tweaking options, when worked along with the other normal performance options for generally all versions of Windows should give you great performance boost in Windows Vista.
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