1. Increase Your RAM.
The latest version Windows Vista which has been pressed by Microsoft comes equipped with the requirement of at least 1 GB of RAM. This is different form Windows XP requirement of 512MB. Also, if you like to use all those graphical features and need to work on several programs simultaneously, you may be better off with 4 GB.
2. Apply the ReadyBoost feature.
Adding system memory or RAM is always been regarded as the most efficient way to improve a PC’s performance, since more memory means more applications are ready to run without accessing the hard drive. However, upgrading memory needs the owner to be an advanced PC user, otherwise he have to call a technician and pay for a lot of time and money. In addition, some machines have limited memory expansion capabilities, causing it impossible to add more RAM. ReadyBoost is a new concept in add-on system memory of Microsoft Windows, first introduced with Windows Vista in 2006 and also included with Windows 7. It works by using flash memory, USB 2.0 drive, SD card, CompactFlash or any kind of portable flash mass storage system as a drive for disk cache. 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 disk drive. Applying ReadyBoost-capable flash memory for caching allows Windows Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives.
3. Limit programs load at startup
It will take a longer time to load more programs when Windows starts up. So limit the amount of programs which are designed to load automatically when Windows starts up is an effective way for you to speed up your system running. But some kinds of programs need you to shut down them in a special way, because software manufacturers often set their programs to open in the background, where you can’t see them running, so they’ll open right away when you click their icons. Please check that you often use it or not, for these programs wastes precious memory and slows down the time it takes Windows to finish loading.
Even after you check the notification area, you might still have missed some programs that load automatically at startup. You can find and disable them using Windows Defender.
If you’re unsure about whether a program should open automatically at startup, you can try disabling it, restarting your computer, and then using the program. If that causes any problems with the program, you can go back and re-enable it to start automatically.
4. Check Viruses and Spywares.
Various kinds of files can be the best place for the hidden spywares and malicious programs. Some kinds of spywares and malicious programs may apply this place to attack your system indirectly and gain your personal information to make illegal profits. So you should invest in an excellent antivirus program with a powerful search engine and detect ability to prevent, detect, and remove malware, including computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, adware, spyware, and other forms of malware as soon as possible.
5. Clean and defrag your hard disk.
A hard disk drive is designed to store and provides relatively quick access to large amounts of data on an electromagnetically charged surface or set of surfaces. It contains various kinds of files, included the system and application localization resources, OS temp files, video format files, etc. These various file not only often mess up your system to a temp shutdown, but also are attacked by the malwares. Some malwares come into your hard disk when you are surfing on the Internet in order to attack your whole system and steal your personal information to make illegal profits through these files. By freeing up your disk space, your system will run more smoothly and faster than before.
6. Remove the Paging File
Paging serves as an important part of virtual memory implementation in most contemporary general-purpose operating systems, allowing them to use disk storage for data that does not fit into physical RAM. Paging file is usually implemented as architecture-specific code built into the kernel of the operating system. The main functions of paging are performed when a program tries to access pages that are not currently mapped to physical memory (RAM). This situation is known as a page fault. Windows keeps on increasing and decreasing the size of the page file, which in itself is not very efficient. This affects the accessibility of fragmentation of your files. You should rather define your own paging size. Select the minimum and maximum size of the virtual memory to be the same. A preferable size is about the double the RAM you have.
7. Temporary File Cleanup
A temporary file is a file which is designed to hold information temporarily while a file is being created. They are used to help recover lost data if the program or computer is abnormally halted. Temporary files may be created by computer programs for a variety of purposes; principally when a program cannot allocate enough memory for its tasks, when the program is working on data bigger than architecture’s address space, or as a primitive form of inter-process communication. This can happen because the program crashed or the developer of the program simply forgot to add the code needed to delete the temporary files after the program is done with them. In Microsoft Windows the temporary files left behind by the programs accumulate over time and can take up a lot of disk space. After the program has been closed, the temporary file should be deleted. Cleaning the temp folder in your windows is very essential to get rid of all the unwanted files. These files are the left-overs of the programs which you have uninstalled from the system or other unwanted files. If you do not delete the contents of this temporary folder, the files could gather up to 100 MB of practically no use. Some programs create temporary files and then leave them behind – they fail to delete them.
If you browse the internet with the help of explorer, the temporary cache files should be deleted from the temporary internet folder as well.
*To delete the files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, follow these steps:
1. Exit Internet Explorer and quit any instances of Windows Explorer.
2. Click Start, and then go to Control Panel, and then double-click on Internet Options.
3. Find out General tab, on the General tab, see Temporary Internet Files, and select Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files.
4. In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the Delete all offline content check box, and then click OK.
5. Click OK.
8. Turn off visual effects
If Windows is running slowly, you can speed it up by disabling some of its visual effects, such as sliding or fading menus, shadows for mouse pointer and menus, and animations when windows are maximized/minimized, by sacrificing the sake of mere prettiness increased productivity. It comes down to appearance versus performance. Would you rather have Windows run faster or look prettier? If your PC is fast enough, you don’t have to make this tradeoff, but if your computer is just barely powerful enough for Windows Vista, it can be useful to scale back on the visual bells and whistles.
You can choose which visual effects to turn off, one by one, or you can let Windows choose a bunch for you. There are 20 visual effects you can control, such as the transparent glass look, the way menus open or close, and whether shadows are displayed.
*To adjust all visual effects for best performance:
1. Click Start, and then go to Control Panel. See System and Maintenance, select it. See Performance Information and Tools, click it.
2. Click Adjust visual effects. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
3. Click the Visual Effects tab, click Adjust for best performance, and then click OK.
9. Adjust the Indexing Settings.
The index in Windows is designed to keep the traces of the files on your computer in order to speed up the indexing speed. It serves as a location which is used to store information about files, including the file name, any files that you have set up to be available for offline access, user profile folders, date modified, and properties like author, tags, and rating and make searching for files with lightening fast speed instead of looking through your entire hard disk for a file name or file property which allows most results to appear in a small fraction of the time that a search without the index would take. It is not visible, but it is has been integrated by Windows by default to perform fast searches of the most common files on your hard disk. The index is used for making an efficient searching for files with a faster speed.
Windows Vista works in the background to automatically index all the files in the Start Menu, user profile folders and files setup for offline access by default with a fast speed. If you have many files in these locations and the files change often, the indexing service may slow down your system’s performance due to the fact that the heavy load of files on the indexing service. Unlike Windows XP, Vista now allows you to easily tweak the indexing service following the steps below. It is recommended that you disable indexing for the other locations other than the Start Menu in order to get maximum performance. Bear in mind that while this adjustment speeds up your will improve overall Windows performance and lessen the background work that your system has to do, it will also slow you down when searching for files in those locations.
1. Click the Start menu and go to Control Panel.
2. Next, select System and Maintenance.
3. In the Task control panel on the left hand side, select Adjust indexing options.
4. Now we can see the locations that are indexed on the PC. By default these will include only the user files.
10. Tweak the power settings.
Windows Vista offers its users with the power options of a “Balanced” mode, power saving feature or the high performance. Laptop users can greatly improve performance by adjusting these settings. By default, the configuration is set as Balanced that limits the CPU usage to 50%.
*Vista offers three preset power supply plan, as shown in Fig. L:
• Balanced (automatically gives equal weight to energy savings and performance)
• Energy (minimums energy consumption to sacrifice performance to save energy)
• High performance (maximums productivity to sacrifice energy conservation for better performance).
*To adjust power settings:
1. Run the Control Panel and then go to the Power Options
2. Select the “Change Plan Settings” under desired plan to make changes
3. To adjust settings, select “Change advanced power settings”
11. Disable the Sidebar.
Some users will find the Sidebar a useful utility, it is not required if you don’t need to use its applets. Most users may desire the extra resources used by sidebar to be allocated for other applications or for the operating system. Follow the directions below to disable the Windows Vista sidebar.
1. Right click the Windows Sidebar icon in the system tray
2. Click Properties
3. Uncheck the Start Sidebar when Windows starts checkbox
4. Select OK
12. Disable Aero interface.
The Graphical User Interface in Windows Vista has developed to be a premium visual experience of Windows Vista, described by Microsoft. That is Windows Aero. Windows Aero is the graphical user interface and the default theme with redesigned user interface and visual style in most editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, operating systems released by Microsoft which is intended to be a cleaner, more powerful, more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing user interface than the previously used theme and includes new translucency, live thumbnails, live icons, animations and eye candy. Its name is a backronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open.
To disable Windows Aero and return to a simpler time, follow the steps:
1. Click Start, and then go to Control Panel.
2. Go to Appearance and Personalization.
3. Under Personalization, find out Change the color scheme, select it.
4. In the Appearance Settings dialog, click Windows Vista Basic, and then click OK. Or, if you prefer a Windows 2000-style interface, click Windows Standard, and then click OK.
13. Counters and Productivity Tools
One of the new lightening features of Windows Vista – Counters and productivity tools (Performance Information And Tools), which analyzes your computer’s hardware components and assigns a rating known as the Windows Experience Index (WEI) score, indicates the performance and overall capability of your computer’s hardware. The feature evaluates each of the elements: the processor, RAM, video card and the main hard drive. The lowest rating determines the overall system performance index.
• Managing startup programs to accelerate the loading speed of Vista.
• Configure visual effects to keep Vista at its high performance if you have an inadequate video card.
• Adjusting other advanced settings that affect performance, such as processor allocation and paging file location and size.
• Adjusting indexing options to reduce the burden of index search.
• Configure power settings to keep the CPU at its peak performance.
• Clean and defrag the hard disks in order to ensure Vista access data time.
• Changing advanced settings, such as applying the disk defragmenter, task manager, system information tool, event logs, and Reliability And Performance Monitor to offer a diagnosis to your PC’s performance and fix the problems which have been found.
