I’ve been using Windows Vista since the last one year and contrary to what most people think, I actually feel it is a better operating system than Windows XP. Even though, I’m mostly a Linux/Unix user, I have had to use Vista because of my job and I started with using the SP1 service pack and use the latest service pack (SP2) right now and haven’t really had any problems with it.
Sure, the resource usage is a bit high but then with the amount of RAM and CPU power most modern machines have these days, running Vista hasn’t really been a problem for me. And there are ways
But, the fact that I’ve been a happy Vista user since the last one year doesn’t mean that Vista is flawless. And even though, Windows 7 is out now, I thought I’ll share some tips to help you guys use Windows Vista as efficiently as possible.
In this post today, I’ll take you through some of the optimizations I’ve made to make my Vista experience better.
Disable Aero
Microsoft touted the Aero interface as one of THE main features of Vista when it was released. But, as many early adapters realised, Aero was not only a resource hog, it also tends to bog you down with all those fancy pop-ups and fade-in-fade-out effects. I’m not too big a fan of Aero and so prefer to have it disabled at all times.
To disable Aero, Right click on the Desktop and chose the Preferences option. Now, click on Window color and Appearance. Chose the Windows Vista Basic color scheme and click on ok.
Disable User Account Control
UAC is one of the most annoying features Microsoft has ever developed. Period !
If you’ve ever been bothered by windows popping up constant reminders and warning while performing a task on Windows, you’ve encountered the user account control, or UAC, built in to Windows Vista. Thankfully it’s quite easy to disable it completely.
To disable UAC, go to the Control Panel and open the User accounts panel. Click on the link titled Turn User Account Control on or off.
Disable highlighting newly installed Applications
This feature, while not as annoying, bothers me equally. Whenever I install a new application, Vista highlights it in the Start menu and continues to do until I use the applications for the first time. I don’t know about you guys, but I do get bothered by this. Thankfully, disabling the feature is also quite easy.
Right click on the task bar and chose properties. Now, select the Start Menu tab and click Customize.
De-select the Highlight newly installed programs option and click Ok.
Readyboost
Vista includes a technology called Readyboost which makes Windows use a flash drive connected to the computer as an on-disk cache. Since, flash drives as usually much faster than hard disks, using the flash drive as a cache makes Vista actually perform routine tasks faster.
To tell Vista to use a particular device as a cache store, connect the USB flash drive to the computer when it appears in My Computer, right click it’s icon and select the ReadyBoost tab. Here you can either enable or disable the use of this device as a cache store and also decide how much of the space on the device do you want to devote for the purpose.
So, what other optimizations have you guys made to your setup to make Windows Vista faster ? Let me know in the comments.
Programmer, blogger and a geek making a living shifting bits around the Internet. Sharninder is the owner of Geeky Ninja
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How is a device connected via USB faster than an internal hard drive? ReadyBoost does not work with an additional drive attached internally?
What Readyboost requires is a device with non-volatile flash memory. You can also use an SD card if you have one available. You can use a regular computer hard disk for the purpose.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/readyboost.aspx
thanks for the explanation geekyninja. If you talked about Aero, wonder why you missed out on BitLocker. Its an extra, but i think its a good addition to have.