Vista speed up – Windows Vista is a great looking operating system, especially with all the bells and whistles switched on, but of course this can put major overheads on processors, RAM and even the hard disk.
Luckily Windows Vista is very flexible and there are a number of ways to get some good performance increases out it just by changing settings.
Before we go ahead with this, remember you can only get so much performance from a processor – hard drive or ram.
Processor
If the processor is a single core type – this will be a major bottleneck running Vista, although initially it may appear to run ok, after installing a few applications and utilities it will crawl along, so a dual core processor is simply a must.
RAM
Trying to run Vista with less than 2gb of RAM will cause performance issues especially when you attempt to launch other applications or if your computer has a shared memory video card, minimum RAM needs to be around 2gb, 3-4gb is better though.
Hard Drives
Older slower IDE hard drives can hamper a systems performance, some older drives may literally be 50% slower than the newest SATA types which makes a major difference loading large files or when Windows is using the pagefile.
computer adviser vista speed up article
Custom Page File
Setting a Custom Page File
A custom page file offers better performance than a system managed one especially if you can run it on a separate drive or partition from the operating system – This can be accessed from Control Panel – System – Advanced System Settings – Performance – Advanced – Now select Change – Untick Automatic manage paging file size for all drives and select Custom Size – At the bottom of the screen you will also see a recommended value enter this into initial and maximum size and if possible choose another drive apart from C.
computer adviser vista speed up article
Defragmenting
Not just with Windows Vista, but every Windows based computer needs to have the hard drive defragmented on a regular basis, around every 2 weeks is adequate as this prevents fragmentation becoming severe and taking long periods to eventually defragment. Defragmenting your hard drive enables files to be stored contiguously in one location as opposed to being broken down and stored in 2 or 3 locations more here ..
Chkdsk
If your computer is having issues running or launch files or Windows gives spurious errors or freezes every so often, then a CHKDSK could be just what is needed, it should be part of a good preventative maintenance schedule in any case and should really be run every 2-3 weeks.
Viruses and Spyware
If your computer is infected by Viruses or Spyware, this is in essence another application (of course not a very nice one) but just another application that is just tying up your computer processor and RAM, so both must be installed and kept up to date
Turn off the Glitz and Glam
As a rule Vista will have all the graphical effects loaded as a default when first installed, this looks great, but can take a heavy toll on resources such as RAM, Video and Processor, so one simple way is to turn this off, if you find it to be a little too grey for your liking why not only disable parts of it to suit your needs.
This can be accessed from Control Panel – System – Advanced System Settings – Performance – Visual Effects – the more you have turned off the quicker it will run.
This can also include the Vista Side Bar, which is a nice feature, but if you do not use it, that it is just wasting resources.
To stop it loading Right Click it – Select Properties – Uncheck the box to start the side bar when Vista Starts.
Power saving
In particular if you are using a laptop the power saving settings can be both a godsend and hindrance – Go to Control Panel – Power Settings now you will see 3 settings Balanced – Power Saver and High Performance, choose the one that will best suit your needs, of course if you have a laptop you may wish to set if for High Performance when using mains power and Power Saver when running solely from the battery – by choosing each plan you can select when it will be active to save manually keep changing this.
computer adviser vista speed up article
Disk Cleanup
Running a disk cleanup removes temp and unused files, this can be beneficial for a number of reasons, firstly it means defragmenting the drive does not have so much work to do, and secondly a hard drive that is clogged up with lots of small files or running low on disk space will run much slower.
Checkout our laptops guides to help you find a laptop that is right for your requirements
computer adviser vista speed up article