10 Ways to Speed Up Vista

Background: Has Windows Vista slowed down for you... Already?!?! Got a few pop-ups you want to stop hassling you? Well, here’s ten ways you can fix those problems.

Tutorials:

1. Turn off Automatic Disk De-fragmentation: Windows Vista and its always-on defragment feature isn't really that necessary and can cause system slow down. Just remember to run a defrag manually every week or so.
   1. Click Start then Computer
   2. Right Click the C: Drive
   3. Click Properties
   4. Select the Tools Tab
   5. Click Defragment Now
   6. Uncheck Run on Schedule

1. Turn off Remote Differential Compression: Remote Differential Compression measures the changes in files over a network to transfer them with minimal bandwidth rather than transferring an entire file that has previously been moved. By constantly checking for file changes, this service can hinder system performance
   1. Open Control Panel
   2. Switch to Classic View
   3. Select Program Features
   4. Choose turn Windows features on and off
   5. Scroll down and uncheck Remote Differential Compression

1. Turn off Windows Hibernation: Windows hibernation background services can use a large amount of system resources. If you don’t use the Hibernate feature on a regular basis you may want to disable it to give Vista a performance boost.
   1. Select the Control Panel then Power Options
   2. Click Change Plan Settings
   3. Click on Change Advanced Power Settings
   4. Expand the Sleep selection
   5. Expand the Hibernate After selection
   6. Crank the selector down to zero
   7. Click Apply

1. Turn off System Restore: Analysis and restore point creation by Windows Vista can eat a fair amount of system resources. Disabling this service will obviously mean the system restore feature in Vista will not be available in the event of a system crash. Change this at your own risk
   1. Control Panel>System
   2. Click System Protection on the left panel
   3. Uncheck the main system drive

1. Disable User Access Control (UAC): This much-loathed new Vista feature attempts to protect your system from malware infection by making you manually confirm a whole host of everyday user operations. While it doesn’t directly impact performance, it can be annoying and might be more hassle than good.
   1. Click start then Control Panel
   2. Select User Accounts
   3. Select turn user account on or off
   4. Uncheck user account control box
   5. Restart as recommended.

1. Disable excess Windows Services that Auto-Launch at Start-up: Just like Windows XP, Vista ships with all kinds of services enabled that load at start-up and may never be used by most users.To see what loads at start-up and disable the ones you likely won’t be needing (they can always be started manually later)
   1. Select start then control panel
   2. Select Administrative Tools
   3. Choose system configuration
   4. Click Services Tab
   5. You may safely deselect:
   * Offline Files (unless you’re using Offline File Sync)
   * Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC)
   * Terminal Services
   * Windows Search (If you have already disabled indexing)
   * Fax (unless you’re using a fax modem)

1. Disable Excess Windows Features: Windows ships with other features that are listed separately in the Vista operating system from the startup services.
   1. Clicking Start then Control Panel
   2. Select Program Features
   3. On the left panel, select Turn Windows Features on or off
   4. You can safely deselect:
   
   * Indexing Service
   * Remote Differential Compression
   * Tablet PC Optional Components
   * Windows DFS Replication Service
   * Windows Fax & Scan (unless you use a modem for faxing)
   * Windows Meeting Space (unless you use the Live Meeting Service)

1. Add a 2GB or higher USB Flash drive to take advantage of Windows Ready Boost (Additional Memory Cache): Ready Boost is Microsoft’s name for using a USB thumb/flash drive to provide some quick access memory the operating system can use as extra RAM. The Ready Boost system can significantly improve system performance.
   1. Insert USB Flash Device
   2. Click start then My Computer
   3. Right click the USB in my computer
   4. Select the Ready Boost Tab
   5. choose Use this device
   6. Choose as much space as you can free up (RAM Usage vs Storage usage)

1. Turn off Automatic Windows Defender Operation(not recommended): Windows Defender real-time protection against malware continues to run despite having Automatic operation disabled.
   1. Open Control panel
   2. Select Windows Defender
   3. Choose tools from the top menu
   4. Select Options
   5. Uncheck autostart at the botem of this window

1. Turn off Windows Search Indexing (not recommended): Windows Vista search indexing is constantly reviewing files on your system to make their contents available for quick searching. This is handy, but can severely impact system performance.
   1. Click start then My Computer
   2. Right click on the drive you wish to stop indexing on(normally C
   3. On the general tab, uncheck index this drive for faster searching
   4. On the subsequent dialog box, select Include subfolders and files