You can squeeze a more performance out of your SATA hard disk drive
by enabling write caching.
The price though, is an increased risk for data loss/corruption should
you experienced a power loss - this risk is less in a laptop because
of its battery:
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.
5. Click OK and close Device Manager.
Source: www.vistaultimate.com
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It has been quite some time since the Windows Vista, the long awaited operating system from Microsoft, was released. Vista offers a rich, secure and user friendly environment. Despite of all these bells and whistles, Vista tends to slow down you system, even if you meet the recommended system requirements. If you were thinking of upgrading your hardware before switching to Windows Vista, think again. This guide will help you tweak Vista to run super fast on your existing hardware.
Why is Vista too slow?
Vista slows down even systems that are way above the recommended requirements. Such problems are noticeable when you run graphic intensive applications like games etc. There are two main reasons for this. One is lots of services loaded in your RAM. If you have 1GM RAM it gets limited to 512 MB due to all the services loaded in the rest 512 MB. Gamers get a low FPS as Vista consumes 32MB of graphics memory itself.
One easy but expensive solution is to upgrade to more memory. Other solution is to disable the “services” running in the background. This guide will help you optimize your system performance for Windows Vista.
Use ReadyBoost 
With Vista you can use your USB drive to improve performance. It does not increase the physical memory (RAM), but it serves as a cache. Hard drives are a very show medium as compared with the contemporary USB drives, the reason is that USB drive is a circuit (direct access) and hard drive involves rotational motion. ReadyBoost caches the disk reads so it can retrieve data quickly when needed. ReadyBoost also encrypts the cached data for privacy concerns.
It is recommended that size of USB drive should be equal to that of main memory (RAM). If you have 1GB RAM than go for a 1GB USB. Choose a USB with higher read/write speeds. For example Kingston Migo and Elite have much higher speeds. Such small factors can really boost performance to much larger extent. Do not use a USB drive with less than 64 MB memory or read/write speed below 3 MB/s.
To use ReadyBoost for making Vista perform super fast, follow the procedure:
- Plug-in your USB drive
- Windows will show a message to either use it as an external drive or as ReadyBoost drive. If no window is displayed then right click and select the ReadyBoost tab manually. If there is no such tab then your USB drive is not compatible with this technology.
- Choose ReadyBoost.
- You can also change the amount of space to be used for ReadyBoost.
- Click the OK button to finalize.
Disable the Indexing Service
Indexing services in Windows Vista indexes all the files and folders for faster access. It basically makes search function faster. By default all files are indexed, but you probably won’t need that. It is recommended that you should disable the indexing service on all the items other than the start menu. To speed up Vista, follow these steps:
- Select Start and type "index options", without quotations
- After the Indexing Options are loaded, click the Modify button.
- Then click Show all Locations
- A list of locations will be displayed in the form of a tree. Uncheck those folders which you do not want to be indexed. You can also use the Advanced button to specify file types to be indexed, but this part is optional.
- Click OK button to finalize.
Enable advanced write caching
Vista comes with built-in support for SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives. By default Vista does not enable write caching. To improve your data retrieval speed you must enable the write caching. Just follow these steps:
- Go to the hard drive properties
- Select the Policies tab
- Select the radio button labeled Optimize for performance.
- Check the boxes titled “Enable write caching on the disk” and “Enable Advance Performance”
- Click OK button to finish.
Speed up Start Menu Search
The search option in Vista is very handy. It lets you search pictures, emails, documents, control panel and the start menu itself. To tweak performance you should narrow down the search space. To improve performance, follow the simple procedure:
- Place mouse pointer on Start button and right click
- From the menu select Properties option
- Click on the Customize button
- If the Search Communications option is checked then uncheck it.
- Click OK buttons to commit the changes.
Disable Unwanted Startup Services
The good old MSCONFIG option is available in Vista as well. Lots of crappy programs load at boot time which consume large amount of memory and processor. To tweak follow these steps:
- Go to Start>Run or press Windows + R
- Type “msconfig” and click OK
- The System Configuration dialogue box will be displayed, select the Startup
- You will see list of checkboxes, most of them will be checked. Uncheck those ones which are not needed. More unchecked boxes will lead to better performance.
- Click OK button to finish this tweaking step.
Tweak the Side Bar
Vista comes with lots of bells and whistles. Side Bar is one cool looking component of Vista’s interface. The Side bar provides easy access to the gadgets you install. To improve overall performance I recommend you to disable this feature or at least use those gadgets that are extremely important. By applying this performance tweak you will free lots on Memory and processing power. To improve performance, just follow these steps:
- Position your mouse pointer on the Side Bar and Right Click
- Click on the Properties option
- In the menu uncheck the box titled Start Side Bar When Windows Starts
- Click the OK button. From now on the bar won’t be loaded on startup.
Tweak Aero: Disable Transparency
Aero is the default theme for Vista. Although the theme looks pretty cool buts it is a resource hog for your hardware. You have to modify its settings to make it run well on your system.
You can remove transparency in Vista to boost performance. Just follow the steps:
- While on the desktop, Right Click
- Select the Personalize option
- Click the “Windows Color and Appearance” option
- Uncheck the box “Enable transparency”
- Press OK button to finish.
Tweak Aero:
Fine Tune Flip 3D To tweak Vista performance you can also fine tune the Flip 3D option available in Aero. Flip 3D feature lets you switch between windows by pressing Alt + Tab repeatedly. This feature is very intuitive, but it’s too costly for your hardware
To speed up Flip 3D, just follow these steps:
- Select Start>Run
- Type the command “regedit” without quotations and press OK button
- Registry Editor Window will show up
- Before going any further I recommend you to make a backup of your registry. Use the
- File>Export option in the Registry Editor window
- Go to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>DWM.
- While DVM is selected right click to create a new DWORD
- Assign any value between 4 and 9 to the newly created key. You can play around with different values to get most of your hardware without sacrificing much of cool looking interface.
- Reboot to finalize.
In Vista, Aero theme also offers animation of windows while they are minimized or maximized. To speed up performance you have to follow the simple procedure:
- In the Start menu type “SystemPropertiesPerformance” and press enter button.
- In the window go to Visual Effects tab
- Uncheck the box with label Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing.
- Finally press OK button.
You will definitely feel the difference in Vista performance after completing this tweak. Stop extra services There are lots of services that are automatically started by default in Vista. Many such services are of no use for the user. There are services that get automatically added to the list when you install different third party software. They consume lots of RAM and processor. To speed up just follow these steps:
- Go to Start>Run and type “msconfig” without quotations.
- System Configuration window will be displayed.
- Go to the Services tab (middle one)
- To be on the safe side check the box “Hide all Microsoft Services”
- Now you will have a reduced version of the list, select ones that you feel are unnecessary.
- Press OK to finish.
There are some Windows Vista’s services that you can disable without any glitch:
- Windows Error Reporting
- Tablet PC Input Service ( don’t disable if you are using a tablet PC)
- Remote Registry
- Offline Files
- IKE and AuthIP IP Keying Modules
- Distributed Link Tracking Client
- Computer Browser
Increase Internet Explorer 7 downloads
By default Internet Explorer 7 restricts user from downloading more than two files from the same server. In vista you can tweak IE settings to get maximum downloads, follow these steps:
- Start>Run and type regedit to open the Registry Editor
- Navigate to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Internet
- Look for a key named “MaxConnectionsPerServer”
- Right click to modify it.
- Assign it a decimal value larger than 2 (it’s the max download limit, by default its 2)
- Similarly perform the same operation for “MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server”
- Restart your computer
Disable Network Printer Search
Disabling network printer search may greatly improve Vista’s performance. When you browse through folders Vista is always looking for network printers. This search ends up in consuming lots of resources. To speed up performance just follow these steps:
- While you are in the explorer (My Computer), go to the Tools menu
- Select Folder options
- Go to the View tab
- Uncheck the box named “Automatically search for network printers” After completing this step you would certainly feel the difference.
Vista’s defragmentation is the last thing to do tweak performance. Defragmentation procedure basically removes empty spaces and arranges similar files in a sequential manner for faster access. Interface of Vista’s default defragmenter is pathetic. You can look for third party software like Diskeeper if you want a better and intuitive user interface. If you defragment once in a while you will certainly feel the difference.
1. If you hate the look of Aero, click Start/Control Panel/Themes and you can choose a non-Aero theme, such as Windows Classic.
2. Windows Vista's installer can detect serial-ATA (SATA) drives without the need to provide a driver diskette. Don't bother creating a diskette for your SATA drives before you install Vista.
3. If, for some reason, the Vista installation gets interrupted due to an unintentional shutdown or reboot, start the computer without booting the Vista DVD. Windows Vista's installer should pick up where it left off. If it does-n't, then restart the installation over from scratch.
4. When you perform a search with Vista's new, instant search feature, you can save the search in a special folder. This powerful feature allows you to create a virtual folder which, by default, is saved in your \\Searches\ folder. Every time you open such a folder, the search results are updated.
5. In Windows Vista, you can add additional clocks to the system tray. Click the clock, and then click Date and Time Settings. Click the Additional Clocks tab. You can add one or two additional clocks to the tray and select their time zones.
6. You can save your progress in most of the games included with Windows Vista—even the carry-overs from earlier versions of Windows.
7. You can create XML documents, which are more secure than regular text files or even word processor docs. Just create a document in a word processor, print it via the options menu, and select the XPS printer.
8. If you upgrade your graphics card in preparation for Windows Vista, be sure to get a new card with as much local memory as possible. Since Windows Vista renders everything—even the desktop and windows them-selves—as 3D surfaces, local 3D memory greatly improves performance...sometimes even more than a more powerful GPU.
9. Windows Vista games deposit their saves into a special directory, called Saved Games, in your personal folder. In theory, that will make upgrading to a new system much easier for gamers, who like to migrate their game saves.
10. When using the Help system, it's usually advantageous to include Microsoft's online database in your search. The online/offline status of your search is located on the bottom right of the Help window. You can click it to toggle.
11. The Games folder is a powerful repository of all things gaming. From within, you launch games, update games with the latest patches, enable parental controls to protect younger users from harmful content, and more. Invoke it by clicking Start/Games.
12. Several applications are available to help you tweak Windows Vista for maximum performance. They in-clude TweakVI (www.totalidea.com), TweakVista (www.tweakvista.com/tweakvistautility), and VistaBootPRO (www.vistabootpro.org). And don't forget about Windows ReadyBoost, which lets you use a removable flash memory drive to boost system memory.
13. Do you use the icon in the upper left corner of system and application windows? A quick double-click closes the window (instead of a single click on the X at the upper right). Though Microsoft left the icon out in Vista, the function remains.—Sarah Pike
14. In Microsoft Windows Explorer, you can use column headers (Name, Size, and so on) to sort files. Savvy users may right-click on a column head to remove items or add some—say, Dimensions for images. There are around 45 such columns available in Windows XP. Windows Vista has well over 250, covering a multitude of metadata.—Sarah Pike
15. If you've become used to surfing your Program Menu to get to applications, you'll be in for a shock when you first use Microsoft Windows Vista. The new Program Menu shows you only recently used applications and requires extra clicks to navigate to submenus. This can be very frustrating but, thankfully, the Search box Microsoft has added to the Start menu is a great replacement—as long as you're an accurate typist. As quickly as you can type, it returns intelligent results in apps, files, even e-mail messages.—Dave Cardinal, freelance writer
Source: www.pcmag.com
Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 GB of system memory
- 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
- WDDM Driver
- 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
-Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
-32 bits per pixel
- DVD-ROM drive
- Audio Output
- Internet access (fees may apply)
Additional Requirements:
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features and edition of Windows Vista will run on your computer.
While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.
Home Premium / Ultimate
TV tuner card required for TV functionality (compatible remote control optional).
Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
Windows Tablet and Touch Technology requires a Tablet PC or a touch screen.
Ultimate
Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption requires a USB Flash Drive and a system with a TPM 1.2 chip.
Home Basic:
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 512 MB of system memory
- 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
- DVD-ROM drive
- Audio Output
- Internet access (fees may apply)
Additional Requirements
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features and edition of Windows Vista will run on your computer.
While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.
Windows Vista minimum supported system requirements
Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
- 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
- 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for Super VGA graphics
- CD-ROM drive
Home Basic / Home Premium / Business / Ultimate
- 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
- 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
- Support for Super VGA graphics
- CD-ROM drive
Windows Vista introduces a new feature: Previous Versions. This allows you to "roll back" the clock to an earlier version of a file that you may have accidentally saved over or edited. In the Documents Explorer, open a document, edit it, save it, and then close it. While selecting the document, choose the Previous Versions option on the command bar, which will bring up a list of previously saved versions of the individual file. Choose a previous version and Windows Vista will restore your file to that version. Careful: all edits since that version will be lost.
Source: Microsoft
Windows Vista introduces a new concept for adding additional performance to a running system. Windows ReadyBoost™ lets people use flash memory on a USB 2.0 drive, SD Card, Compact Flash, or other memory form factor to provide additional memory cache—memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Insert a USB 2.0 memory drive with at least 512 MB capacity. When prompted, click use this device to speed up my computer.
Source: Microsoft
XPS documents are a new archiving format perfect for preserving content and for securely sharing information in an application independent way. To create an XPS document, open any document in virtually any application, and select the print option. In the printer selection menu, choose Microsoft XPS Document Writer, and save the file. Double click on the file, which should open it in the XPS Viewer, which is hosted by Internet Explorer 7. The XPS document is a pixel-perfect rendition of the original source material.
Source: Microsoft
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