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via MakeUseOf.com by Sharninder on 9/15/08
Windows Vista has often been criticized for being bloated and slow and everyone unanimously seems to agree that
I’ve been using
In this post, I’ll share 4 tips to help you speed up Vista PC and live with that bloated beast.
1. Disable Aero
Aero is the fancy marketing term for the not-so-fancy graphics that you see in Windows Vista. Sure, some of those effects look pretty and might even impress your girlfriend (or boyfriend) but Aero is a resource hog. If you are running
To disable the Windows Aero look, right click anywhere on the desktop and click Personalize -> Window Color and Appearance. This will open a window like the one shown here.
Now chose one of the color schemes in the list. Windows Aero will enable all effects, Windows Vista Basic will disable the snazzy effects you see while switching between Windows using alt-tab, or the window preview that you see if you hover your mouse over the taskbar. The Basic setting is a nice compromise between speed and usability, though. You can try the Windows Standard and Windows Classic settings too if you want to.
You can get some more juice out of
2. Disable the Vista Sidebar
The Windows Vista Sidebar is a nice looking but mostly useless piece of bloat that most
To remove the Sidebar, right click on the Sidebar and select ‘Close Sidebar’. In the dialogue box that you get, uncheck “Start Sidebar when Windows starts”, and click OK.
3. ReadyBoost
ReadyBoost was one big hyped up feature of Windows Vista. The feature supposedly lets Windows use a flash drive connected to the PC as a memory cache and since most flash drives are faster than regular hard drives, this apparently helped Windows perform faster. The reality is that most people don’t use this feature and for them, it is only slowing down the system. To disable this service, go to ControlPanel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Double-click on the ReadyBoost service and select ‘disable’ from the drop down box.
4. Disable User Account Control
This tip will not really speed up the computer as such, but will definitely let you use the computer faster. User Account Control (UAC) is one of the most talked about features of Windows. Talked not by Microsoft, but by people who like to hate
For those people, it is best to disable this feature altogether. Here’s how :
Click on Start - > Control Panel -> User Account. In the User account window, click on the link named “Turn User Account Control on or off”. In the dialogue box that follows you can disable UAC altogether. Click OK, reboot and move on.
If you guys have any more tips to help speed up
(By) Sharninder is an IT professional making a living writing enterprise software. He is also passionate about open source and loves to ride around the country on his motorcycle. Read all about his exploits at his weblog - NomadicRider.
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