Many of us have to deal with the new operating system from Microsoft on duty or when necessary. As you know, it is very demanding on system resources: a video card, RAM and processor speed. However, the situation can be slightly corrected. There are standard ways to speed up Windows Vista on your existing hardware. These are mainly well-known methods that are familiar to us from previous versions of Windows.

Of course, no optimization will make Vista work as fast as on the fastest processor with several gigabytes of RAM and an expensive video card. But if Windows XP was running fast on your computer and Vista is slow, these tips can help.

Clean house

One of the main causes of “brakes” in the system is a lot of extraneous applications that run in the background and clog up RAM. It is necessary to get rid of everything unnecessary.

Disable unnecessary services.
Services are background processes that are activated completely unnoticed and without notice. Since Vista tries to start as many processes as possible by default, there are likely to be unnecessary ones among them. To destroy them, run the command interface through Start - Run and run the services.msc command . A list of services appears on the screen. By double-clicking the properties of each of them are displayed. There you can change the download options, including disabling the default download.

Here are some examples of services that you hardly need: Secondary Logon , Remote Registry , Computer Browser , KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator , Tablet PC Input Service and Distributed Link Tracking Client . There are dozens of others. Examine the list, use the Internet search by name.

The order on the hard disk
Like most users, you probably have many extraneous programs installed that eat up disk space. To get rid of unnecessary programs, you can recommend CCleaner program , which works much faster and better than the native tool for VistaAdd / Remove application .

Speeding up loading
When Vista starts, it automatically downloads a bunch of programs, among which there are also extra ones. Using System Configuration Utility or Windows Defender, you can clean up the mess.

In the first case, the procedure is as follows.
1. Open msconfig (use the Instant Search function from the main menu: press the Windows key, type the word “System” and press Enter).
2. Select the Startup tab .
3. Disable objects that should not load at system startup, and click OK .

How to do the same with Windows Defender.
1. Launch Windows Defender.
2. Select the Tools menu on the toolbar.
3. Select Software Explorer .
4. Item Show for All Users .
5. Select the application and the option for it: remove (Remove) or deactivate (Disable).

Defragmenting the hard disk
Fragmentation of files on the hard disk inevitably accumulates during the operation of the system. Due to the fact that separately pieces of files are physically located in different places of the hard drive, there is a slowdown in access time to files, which depresses the operation of the entire system. Combining files into single clusters on your hard drive is called defragmentation.

It must be said that Vista by default automatically defrags in the background once a week. But this seems like a bear service, because the vast majority of users do not need to defragment files so often, and this process greatly affects system performance. Therefore, it is better to turn off the automatic start of the process and start manual defragmentation as necessary.

To manually start defragmentation, open the My Computer folder , right-click on the desired drive, select Properties and the Tools tab , where you will see the Defragment Now command .

Unfortunately, the Vista defragmenter is deprived of many additional important options that we have been accustomed to since XP, so for better defragmentation you need to resort to specialized programs, for example, the free Disk Defrag utility from Auslogics.

Use ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is one of the most attractive features of Windows Vista. Simply put, it allows you to use any external drive to store cache memory. For example, you can take a quick USB flash drive and Vista will dump memory dumps onto it. All information is automatically encrypted, so even in case of loss of a flash drive, your secrets will remain with you.

In some cases, the ReadyBoost function can speed up the operating system, but this is not an alternative to upgrading the operating memory, of course.

Use vLite

To free up space on your hard drive, you can install the free vLite program . It reduces the size of the operating system distribution by about half, destroys without a trace a number of components, such as Windows Media Player, Windows Mail, Windows Photo Viewer, MSN components, desktop wallpaper and SlideShow. This saves gigabytes of hard disk space.

Accelerating Vista on Old Computers

The chic graphical interface of “Vista” is pleasing to the eye, but it puts a very heavy load on the central processor and video card. Because of this, old computers can “slow down”. It is not necessary to upgrade, you can simply change the system settings.

* Get rid of Aero. The operating system itself will disable this interface if it considers the video card on your computer too weak. However, this may not happen. Then launch the Window Color and Appearance window (right-click on the desktop) and select Open classic appearance properties for more color options . There you can choose other options besides Aero.

* As a less radical option, just turn off the glass transparency option, which is responsible for the bulk of memory usage.

* Another option to reduce the load on resources is to disable animation and other visual effects.

* Disable Sidebar , because widgets also want RAM, and disabling it will further accelerate the operation of the operating system.

via Wired How-To Wiki