Windows Vista Tweaks

Increase SATA Disk Drive Performance

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.

 

USB Storage & Windows Vista ReadyBoost

Windows Vista has a new performance feature called ReadyBoost. This feature enables the use of a USB storage device instead of the slow paging file on your hard disk when you're low on physical memory (RAM). The logic is simple - the USB storage device is faster than your hard disk drive.

In order for ReadyBoost to work in Windows Vista, your USB storage device must meet the following requirements:
- the device must have at least 64MB storage.
- the device must be USB 2.0 compliant.
- the device must have a minimum read speed of 3.5 MB/s.
- the device must have a minimum write speed of 2.5 MB/s.

Follow these steps to enable ReadyBoost:
1. Plug in USB storage device.
2. Go to Computer, right-click on the removable storage device and select Properties.
3. Click on the ReadyBoost tab.
4. Select Use This Device and set the amount of space to use for the system file.
5. Click OK.

 

Speed-up Windows Vista's Aero

Windows Vista is a step-up in terms of eye candy but it can slow your system down a bit. There are 2 things you can do to speed-up the Aero interface in Windows Vista:

Method 1: Disable Transparent Glass Effect
1. Click on the Desktop and select Personalize.
2. Select Windows Color And Appearance.
3. Uncheck Enable Transparency.

Method 2: Disable Windows Minimize/Maximize Animation
1. Click on the Start Menu, enter SystemPropertiesPerformance and hit Enter.
2. On the Visual Effects tab, uncheck Animate Windows When Minimizing/Maximizing.
3. Click OK.

 

Speed-Up Windows Vista's Start Menu Search

When you perform a search using the search box in the start panel, Windows Vista automatically searches the file index as well. The file index can be quite large because it includes all the files on your hard drive. One way to speed-up searching in your Start Menu applications is to narrow the scope of the search so that it does not include files on the hard drive:

Method 1: Registry Hack
1. Open registry editor using regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer and select Advanced.
3. Find and right-click on Start_SearchFiles and select Modify.
4. Set the Value to 0.
5. Restart the Explorer.exe process or reboot the computer.

Method 2: Start Button
1. Right-click on the Start Button and select Properties.
2. Click on the Customize button.
3. Uncheck Search Communications.
4. Set Search Files to Don't Search for files.
5. Click OK.

 

Tweak Windows Vista's Indexing Options

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. If you have many files in these locations and the files change often, the indexing service may slow down your system's performance. 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 for maximum performance. Bear in mind that while this tweak speeds up your overall system performance, it will also slow you down when searching for files in those locations.

1. Click on the Start Button and enter Indexing Options. Hit Enter and the Indexing Options should load.

2. Click on the Modify button, followed by Show all locations.

3. Scroll through the tree-view and uncheck all options except the Start Menu. Hit OK.

Note: For advanced users, you can also change other indexing options, like the file types to index, by clicking on the Advanced button.

 

Stop Applications That Auto-start On Startup

There are 2 ways to stop applications that auto-start when you login to Windows Vista. You can either use the System Configuration Utility or the new Software Explorer in Windows Defender:

Method 1: System Configuration Utility
1. Click on the Start Button, enter msconfig and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Startup tab.
3. Uncheck items that you do want to auto-start and click OK.

Method 2: Windows Defender
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Windows Defender and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Tools from the top menu bar.
3. Click on Software Explorer and select Show for All Users.
4. Select an application to either Remove or Disable.