5 More Tips To Speed Up Windows Vista
Following my Latest article 7 Tips to Speed Up Windows Vista, here are some more tips I have collected and think will be useful for every one who is using Windows Vista. These tips are a bit more complex to perform.
Hope You find it interesting:
1. Install a Defragmentation Software
Surprisingly enough Windows Vista’s file defragging application does
not handle files above 64mb (what???). You want
to install a defragmenting software that will do the job much better than Windows Vista I recommend Defraggler as a very good option, You can also try Perfect Disk.
2. Cancel the Indexing Service
![Windows Vista Indexing_thumb[1]](http://thetechfaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/windowslivewriter5moretipstospeedupwindowsvista-11e64windows-vista-indexing-thumb1-thumb.jpg)
Here we meet an old friend from Windows XP, the Indexing Service, which is supposed to make searching your file system quicker. In order to do it’s job properly he keeps and updates massive lists of files while wasting valuable CPU resource and HD Resources, so you are better of disabling it. Use Google Desktop instead.
3. Temporary Turn of Aero Glass
![Windows Vista Aero Glass_thumb[3]](http://thetechfaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/windowslivewriter5moretipstospeedupwindowsvista-11e64windows-vista-aero-glass-thumb3-2.jpg)
If you want to give yourself a boost you can shutdown Aero. Just click Start and then Run and enter the following command:
Rundll32 dwmApi #104
To turn it back on, type in the next command:
Rundll32 dwmApi #102
Sometimes it is important for games to keep Flip3D on while Aero is off, all you have to do is use this command:
Rundll32 dwnApi #105
4. Speed up your SATA Interface
![Windows Vista Sata Advanced Settings_thumb[1]](http://thetechfaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/windowslivewriter5moretipstospeedupwindowsvista-11e64windows-vista-sata-advanced-settings-thumb1-2.jpg)
This tweak can result in loss of data incase of a power interruption, but if you have a laptop or a UPS its safe. Go to the Device manager in the control panel, click on the + next to the Had Drives, right click on the SATA drive, Select Properties and check “Enable Advances Performance”
5. Adjust your Virtual Memory Definitions
![Windows Vista Virtual Memory_thumb[2]](http://thetechfaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/windowslivewriter5moretipstospeedupwindowsvista-11e64windows-vista-virtual-memory-thumb2-2.jpg)
Windows Vista handles the Virtual Memory in a file which changes it’s size all the time. It is recommended to give this file a constant size and thus take off the load of managing it’s size all the time. If you have more than one HD it is recommended to get Vista to locate the file on a different drive than the one Vista is installed on. Go over to the same setting window –> performance like before, click on Advanced and then, on Performance options, click on Change. Remove the check off “Automatically manage paging file size” and make a custom size file that its initial and max size are the same value which equals to exactly the amount of RAM you have.
If you need help just comment
Amit
Related posts:
March 17th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Just a heads up, your website breaks in both IE7 and FF, seems to be because of the google ads.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:37 am
Thanks for the tips, just a few questions:
How does turning Aero make Vista faster? I have a rather old computer, and turning Aero off only seems to make it slower. All it costs is 100megs of ram.
And if I cancel the indexing entirely, will I still be able to launch applications from the startmenu search bar? And doesn’t google desktop also index your filesystem?
March 17th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Google desktop eats up CPU power indexing ur files too.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Thanks to tinco for the remark. i believe it is fixed. 100meb of ram is a lot of resources especially if you have a rather old computer and for google desktop, it also takes CPU but it has 2 advantegase:
1. it is much more efficient that the indexing services
2. the search is so much better
Amit
March 17th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I don’t see any performance increase on my middle-range laptop (intel X3100 graphics) if aero is disabled. I really like the Vista UI, so I leave it on anyway.
As for defragmenting, make sure you have a VSS friendly defragmenter if you are defragging a VSS enabled volume on Vista, otherwise you may mess up shadow copies. I use Diskeeper 2008 Pro, and it’s awesome. Runs fast and smooth without using much in the way of resources, yet keeps the drive defragged nicely.
The single most annoying thing about Vista is the stupid UAC. I’ve read that tweakUAC will cause it to run in silent mode, but have not tried it out myself.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hi
I’m not sure if I agree with you on the Indexing Service. One thing is sure; the Indexing Service in XP is not the same as the one in Vista. The one in Vista is Microsoft Desktop Search, which can be downloaded separately if you use XP. Microsoft Desktop Search works in the same way as Google Desktop Search.
I do not know if Google Desktop Search is better/faster than Microsoft Desktop Search. But if you have some documentation to back up your claim that Googles offer is superior, please post it.
That said, I don’t think disabling the Indexing Service is really desirable. Sure, you will get less hard disk activity, but I can’t live without my start menu search and search in outlook. I do suggest you change what the Indexing Service indexes, if you, like me, only need search in the start menu for your applications and in your mails, just set up the indexing service to index only that. That will save you a lot of hard disk and processing time.
Incidentally, I wrote a similar blog post last December, of my favourite vista tips and tricks: http://www.egil.dk/2007/12/24/my-favourite-vista-tricks-and-tweaks/.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:29 am
I use tweakUAC and it is fantastic. I also turned off Aero and gained about 15% of my RAM back (55% to about 40% usage on 2GB RAM)
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Turning off Aero will make your computer slower, not faster. With Aero on, the CPU unloads graphics to the GPU. Turning off Aero forces the CPU to take care of Aero as well as its other responsibilities.
Turn off Aero to save battery; turn it on to gain performance.
May 31st, 2008 at 7:42 am
Nice ones…
YOu can check out for some more over here
http://www.bizzntech.com/2007/12/12/15-tips-to-speed-up-windows-vista
there are 15 of them
Cya
Joe2cool