Here are few techniques that can help speed up your Vista system in minutes ..

1. 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.


2. 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.


3. Speed up Start Menu Search ..
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.


4. 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


5. 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.

6. Use ReadyBoost ..

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@shish {Cool Wizard}

Labels: Performance Tweaks, Vista