Speed up Windows Vista and increase performance
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How to increase Windows Vista computer boot speed?
How to speed up Windows Vista?
Windows runs pretty well on its own, but there are
many things you can do to increase performance.
I could write many books on all the tweaks you can do,
but in this chapter I will focus on the key things you can do to get the most out of doing the least in terms of performance.
As always, I recommend you make backups before
making major changes to your system. Refer to the backup Windows Vista page for guidance.
Enhance SATA Disk Performance and speed up Windows Vista
This guide will help you improve the performance of
your SATA hard drive by enhancing write caching.
If you are not sure whether or not you have an SATA
drive in your computer, please check with your
manufacturer.
A quick warning: If you turn this setting on and your
computer is not connected to a battery backup, losing power increases you risk of data loss or corruption. If
you are using a laptop, the chances of this are unlikely
as you have a battery in the laptop that will act as a
power source if there is an outage.
1. Click on the Start Button and type in Device
Manager in the search box
2. Hit Enter
3. Click on the + Next to Disk Drives
4. Right click on your hard drive and select
Properties
5. Select the Policies tab and check Enable
advanced performance
6. Now click OK and close Device Manager
Speed up Your External Hard Drives to speed up Windows Vista
The default setting in Windows Vista disables write
caching for external drives. This is done so that you
can eject the drive at any time without data loss. If you
are willing to eject your drive each time, you can
increase the performance of your external hard drives.
To turn write caching back on and activate advanced
performance, do the following:
1. Click on the Start Button and type in Device
Manager in the search box and hit enter
2. Click on the + Next to Disk Drives
3. Right click on your external hard drive and select
Properties
4. Select the Policies tab and select Optimize for
performance
5. Check Enable write caching on the disk and
Enable advanced performance
6. Click OK and reboot your computer
Move Page File to Different Physical
Drive and speed up Windows Vista
If you have more than one physical drive in your
computer, this guide is for you. The page file can take
a considerable toll on your system drive; by moving the
page file to a separate drive, you can increase overall
performance. Learn how to move the Windows Vista
page file to another drive in this guide.
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1. Press Start, right click on Computer, and select Properties
2. In the left-hand pane, select Advanced System Settings
3. Click the Advanced tab and under Performance,
select Settings...
4. Click the Advanced tab and under Virtual
Memory, select Change...
5. Uncheck "Automatically Manage Paging File Size
for All Drives"
6. Select the different physical drive that you want
your paging file to now be stored on (e.g. D) and
select System managed size and press Set. (make sure this is the first partition on the second drive) |
7. Select the drive that contains your paging file
(usually C), select the Custom Size option, set the original and maximum size, and press Set Your page file will now need to rebuild on the new
drive - this may temporarily slow performance.
Note: The reason for keeping around 1GB on the OS
drive is because Windows Vista needs still some pagefile space there.
Rebuild the Page File to speed up Windows Vista
Windows Vista creates a pagefile, which essentially acts
as RAM on your hard drive. This page file speeds up
access to commonly used programs and becomes
fragmented over time.
Rebuilding the pagefile eliminates fragmentation; learn
how to rebuild the pagefile in this guide.
1. Press Start, right click on Computer and select
Properties
2. In the left-hand pane, select Advanced System
Settings
3. Click the Advanced tab and under Performance,
select Settings...
4. Click the Advanced tab and under Virtual
Memory, select Change...
5. Uncheck Automatically Manage Paging File Size
for All Drives
6. Select the drive that contains your paging file
(usually C) and select the Custom size option
7. Edit the minimum and maximum page file size to
0 and press set
8. Now restart your computer
9. Now follow steps 1-5 and replace step 6 with
System managed size and press Set
10. Press OK to save and after a brief period of
sluggishness, while the computer rebuilds the
page file, you should notice improved speeds.
Move Search Index to a Different
Physical Drive and speed up Windows Vista
If you have more than one physical drive in your
computer, this guide is for you. The search index can
take a considerable toll on your system drive; by
moving the index to a separate drive, you can increase
overall performance.
To move your search index, do the following:
1. Press Start, type index in the search bar and
press Enter
2. Press the Advanced button
3. Press Select new at the bottom and select a new
location on a different physical hard drive
4. Press OK.
Your search index will now need to rebuild, which may
temporarily slow performance.
Disable Superfetch to Save Memory and speed up Windows Vista
Windows Vista Superfetch learns your typical activities
with files and application access. By learning, it
predicts your computer use actions and puts your most
commonly used applications in memory. This is great if
you have a lot of RAM, but if you have less than 2GB,
then I suggest you disable this feature - saving you
from sluggish computer use.
Please Note: Even with less than 2GB of ram, you may
find this doesn't help. If you notice no difference after
a day or two, then you can probably re-enable
Superfetch.
To disable Superfetch, do the following:
1. Press Start, type services in the search bar and
press Enter
2. Locate Superfetch in the list of services, right
click it, and select properties
3. Change the Startup Type dropdown box to
disabled and click the stop button
4. Now click OK
Please remember, this will only help if you have less
than 2GB of RAM.
Disable "Last Accessed" File Attribute to speed up Windows Vista
Every time you access a file on your computer, a Last
Accessed file attribute is updated. You will likely not
need this, so you can remove some overhead by
following this guide.
Download the Registry Hack
If you don't feel confident working with the Registry
Editor, you can download this registry hack. Simply
extract the file and double click on
DisableLastAccess.reg. To re-enable the Last Access
option, double click on ReEnableLastAccess.reg
Manually Disable Last Access File Updates and speed up Windows Vista
1. Press Start, type regedit in the search bar and
press Enter (or press Winkey+R)
2. Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
3. Update the value of
NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate to 1
4. To undo this change, simply change the value
back to 0
In order for this to take effect, you may need to restart
your system.
Make Windows Shut Down Faster to speed up Windows Vista
As you install programs on your computer, it slows
down - we all know that. However, what you may not
know is that the programs install what we call services.
Windows is "kind" enough to patiently wait for these
services to stop when you shut down your computer. It
really doesn't pay off to wait.
Decrease the time it takes for Windows to shut down
by doing the following:
1. Click the start button and type regedit in the
search bar
2. Hit the enter key
3. You will see a screen like the one below. Find
your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control in the left menu
4. In the right window you will see a key called
WaitToKillServiceTimeout, with a default value of
20000 (20 seconds.)
5. Right click on the key and select Modify...
6. Change the value from 20000 to 5000.
This can potentially reduce your shut down time by 15
seconds.
Please note: I do not advise setting this value to less
than five seconds.
This article is written by Mintywhite.com and is part of the Windows Vista Pocket Guide
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