Optimizing Vista Vista Tips Discuss Optimizing Vista in the Windows Vista forums; Here is some of the Optimizing Vista tips which i came across on Windows Operating System Hope it will help u all toooo.. Tweak Windows Vista’s Indexing Options ...

[allen6368]

Here is some of the Optimizing Vista tips which i came across on Windows Operating System Hope it will help u all toooo..

Tweak Windows Vista’s Indexing Options

Windows Vista works in the background to automatically index all the files in the Start Menu, user profile folders and files setup for offline access by default. If you have many files in these locations and the files change often, the indexing service may slow down your system’s performance. Unlike Windows XP, Vista now allows you to easily tweak the indexing service following the steps below. It is recommended that you disable indexing for the other locations other than the Start Menu for maximum performance. Bear in mind that while this tweak speeds up your overall system performance, it will also slow you down when searching for files in those locations.
1. Click on the Start Button and enter Indexing Options. Hit Enter and the Indexing Options should load.
2. Click on the Modify button, followed by Show all locations.
3. Scroll through the tree-view and uncheck all options except the Start Menu. Hit OK.

Speed-Up Windows Vista’s Start Menu Search

When you perform a search using the search box in the start panel, Windows Vista automatically searches the file index as well. The file index can be quite large because it includes all the files on your hard drive. One way to speed-up searching in your Start Menu applications is to narrow the scope of the search so that it does not include files on the hard drive:

Method 1: Registry Hack

1. Open registry editor using regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer and select Advanced.
3. Find and right-click on Start_SearchFiles and select Modify.
4. Set the Value to 0.
5. Restart the Explorer.exe process or reboot the computer.

Method 2: Start Button

1. Right-click on the Start Button and select Properties.
2. Click on the Customize button.
3. Uncheck Search Communications.
4. Set Search Files to Don’t Search for files.
5. Click OK.

Increase SATA Disk Drive Performance

You can squeeze a more performance out of your SATA hard disk drive by enabling write caching. The price though, is an increased risk for data loss/corruption should you experienced a power loss - this risk is less in a laptop because of its battery:
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.
5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

Speed-up Windows Vista’s Aero

Windows Vista is a step-up in terms of eye candy but it can slow your system down a bit. There are 2 things you can do to speed-up the Aero interface in Windows Vista:

Method 1: Disable Transparent Glass Effect

1. Click on the Desktop and select Personalize.
2. Select Windows Color And Appearance.
3. Uncheck Enable Transparency.

Method 2: Disable Windows Minimize/Maximize Animation

1. Click on the Start Menu, enter SystemPropertiesPerformance and hit Enter.
2. On the Visual Effects tab, uncheck Animate Windows When Minimizing/Maximizing.
3. Click OK.

Speed-up Windows Vista’s Aero

Windows Vista is a step-up in terms of eye candy but it can slow your system down a bit. There are 2 things you can do to speed-up the Aero interface in Windows Vista:

Method 1: Disable Transparent Glass Effect

1. Click on the Desktop and select Personalize.
2. Select Windows Color And Appearance.
3. Uncheck Enable Transparency.

Method 2: Disable Windows Minimize/Maximize Animation

1. Click on the Start Menu, enter SystemPropertiesPerformance and hit Enter.
2. On the Visual Effects tab, uncheck Animate Windows When Minimizing/Maximizing.
3. Click OK.

Stop Applications That Auto-start On Startup

There are 2 ways to stop applications that auto-start when you login to Windows Vista. You can either use the System Configuration Utility or the new Software Explorer in Windows Defender:

Method 1: System Configuration Utility

1. Click on the Start Button, enter msconfig and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Startup tab.
3. Uncheck items that you do want to auto-start and click OK.

Method 2: Windows Defender

1. Click on the Start Button, enter Windows Defender and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Tools from the top menu bar.
3. Click on Software Explorer and select Show for All Users.
4. Select an application to either Remove or Disable.

[allen6368]

This is some of the tweaks i gathered to share with you all friends so that we can make the same ground for vista as we use to feel the ease with Windows XP. And the good news is that Microsoft is coming with its Vista Service Pack 1 by Mid March

[Znod]

Thanks allen. I use some of the tweaks. One issue will take care of itself over a short time (indexing), and some tweaks sort of defeat the purpose of Vista (stopping animations and turning off Aero), but if one's machine is underpowered, then, of course, why not?

[noxela]

Here's what I do in-order to optimize Vista...

Turn off the following:

System Restore / Previous Versions
Windows Defender
UAC
Automatic Updates
Indexing of my drives
Stop and disable the Superfetch service

Also add a USB memory stick and turn on ReadyBoost. Vista runs quite well after that. Disk is very quite where as after a clean install for me - even after running for a few weeks - my disk was still chugging away almost constantly.

[Znod]

Well, I would never turn Superfetch off. It is a biggie. And, ReadyBoost provides very little of a boost even on underpowered machne. I run no swapfile on my desktop since I have more than an adequate of ram; use both disk-performance increase options; run with customized interface options; run with customized startup; use a 20% OC; and keep it clean.