We're on a roll here with our tips 'n' tricks on how to get the most out of Windows Vista! If you find your system is bogged down by Vista, fear not!! There are several things you can do to make it run faster!
Note: The tips whose titles are underlined (2, 5, 6, etc.) are linked to the simple tutorial on how to execute the tip!
1. Quite simply, add more memory (RAM).
Vista is a memory hungry operating system that requires a minimum of 1GB to run. 2GB of course is better... and even 4GB isn't too much if you're running Vista Premium along with a few other applications.
2. Relocate Paging File
Another way to improve Vistas performance on your PC is to move the page or paging file. When Vista runs out of the physical memory (RAM) you have loaded on your system it turns to your hard drive as a substitute which is called the paging/page file.
Moving this file to another hard drive will speed up this process and your system's operation. Of course, to make this happen, you have will have to have another hard drive installed on the system OR you can put it in another partition of another hard drive. The key here is that it must NOT be on the main drive along with Vista... or any other applications for that matter! If you are going to partition the second hard drive give the partition file at least 2GB - 3GB.
3. Take a shot of ReadyBoost!
When adding physical memory isn't an option, try Microsoft's
ReadyBoost "a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use non-volatile flash memory, such as that on a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional memory "under the hood."
The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows
SuperFetch and can significantly improve system responsiveness."
4. Maybe a better video card is in order!
So, if you've got plenty of memory (RAM) the next most likely problem area is your video card... or lack there of! If your version of Vista has Aero you're going to need a pretty beefy (aka high end) video card. One way to check if your video card if the problem is by seeing what your
Windows Experience Index (WEI) score is for your system.
5. Dump the Unnecessary Services!
There are a lot of
superfluous (woo... big word!
) applications that load automatically when you boot up Windows. Okay, some of the programs are vital like anti-spyware or anti-virus programs but much of it you'll never use and never realize they're running in the background eating up your system's valuable and limited resources!
Some of the programs can be prevented from starting up by taking them out of the
Startup Folder. And many can simply be disabled through
Administrative Tools.
6. Tone down those visual effects!
There are a lot of visual enhancements that make Vista look like Vista... fading or sliding menus, shadows under the menus and mouse pointer, and thumbnails of graphics files... yadda yadda yadda... this list goes on! And you have a system with enough recourses, that's great! When you don't, these pretty frills serve to bog down your system.
7. Disable Icon Thumbnails
No doubt, Vista was intended to be pretty! But as in real life so it is with operating systems, Pretty comes at a price and that price is your system's resources! Even if your system seems to be running fine, you may decided you don't need so much pretty and can go without Vista's thumbnail icons.
Thumbnails are mini graphical representations of a file. This is great if you need to scroll through a large batch of images as it lets you see the image without having to actually open the file. Unfortunately, graphic files take longer to open therefore having the feature turned on if your system isn't fully equipped to handle Vista can really reduce overall performance. So, what to do... just disable this feature so that the files look like files and not pretty lil pictures!
8. Adjust indexing options
Similar to the way the index in a book helps you to keep track of its contents, the index in Windows keeps track of the files on your computer. The index stores information about files, including the file name, date modified, and properties like author, tags, and rating. You will never see the index, but it is used by Windows to perform very fast searches of the most common files on your computer.
Rather than having Vista index everything... selecting specific locations will result in less indexing and thus better overall performance! Nope, you can’t turn the indexing feature off completely! To adjust the locations indexted look for
Adjust Indexing Option (at left) in
Performance Information And Tools.
9. Defragment and Clean Up Your System
Vista or no Vista defragging and cleaning up your system is a must... what should be a regularly scheduled must! Just like in all previous versions of Windows, Vista provides a disk cleanup too. Clicking the following...
Start ->
All Programs ->
Accessories ->
System Tools. From there you can choose which drive you want cleaned up!
Defragmenting the disk rearranges data so that each bits of of the files are stored together. This allows Vista to access those files more quickly because all the data for each file is side-by-side. Again, as with all the other version of Windows, Vista has a built in disk defragmenter which you will also find in
System Tools!
10. "I can't give ye anymore power Captain!" Yes you can!
More power means more money on your electrice bill but it's not a lot of money! You can improve your system's power by simply giving it some more juice! Go to the Control Panel, click Power Options and select
High Performance. You may be surprsed to know that when the default set up is set to
Balanced, which limits the CPU to 50% power during normal operation.
11. Turn off the pretty pretty sidebar!
Definitely, Vista's sidebar has lots of cool features but if you're not using them...what's the point?! Right click on the sidebar, select
Properties, uncheck the box that says start sidebar when Windows starts. Close the sidebar with another right click and select Close.
12. Bite the bullet and turn off Aero!
Clearly, if you've tried all these options and STILL your system lags then chances are you've bought a version of Vista you're system just can't handle... right now. But that's okay, you can still run Vista perfectly, just without all the eye candy. Once you've upgrade your system, you can easily turn Aero back on and enjoy all the beauty that is Vista!
Linear Mode
