By adjusting for the best performance of applications instead of background services in Windows can increase the performance your system. For doing it, just follow the steps given below.

1. Open the ‘Control Panel’.

2. Double-click the ‘System’ icon.

3. In Windows 7 or Vista, click the ‘Advanced system settings’ option on the left pane and in Windows XP, just double-click the system icon and the ‘System Properties’ dialog box appears.

4. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, click the ‘Settings’ option under the ‘Performance’ section and the ‘Performance Options’ dialog box appears.

5. Under the ‘Processor scheduling’ section in the ‘Advanced’ tab, check the ‘Programs’ option for adjusting for the best performance of applications.

6. Click ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK’.

That’s all!

Windows 7 taskbar only show the icons of apps and not their names/text. But Windows XP/Vista show the text along with the icons and are not as big as Windows 7’s. The Windows 7’s new iconized taskbar feature shows the thumbnail of the app and saves space in the taskbar. Moreover it looks pretty too. So if you want this iconized taskbar feature in Windows 7, just follow the simple registry hack.

1. Type ‘regedit’ in ‘Run’ and hit Enter. Now the Registry Editor will be opened.

2. Navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics’.

3. Click on ‘Edit’ and select ‘String Value’ from the ‘New’ menu.

4. Create a new String Value named ‘MinWidth’.

5. Double-click on it and set its value to -255.

6. Now log off or restart your computer for the effect to take place.

NOTE: To get the old taskbar look, just delete the ‘MinWidth’ string value.

Now you could attain the Windows 7 taskbar appearence in Windows XP/Vista. But you won’t be able to get the thumbnail feature in Windows XP but you could get the iconized taskbar feature. But in Vista you could get both.

How to get the large taskbar icons in Windows XP/Vista as in Windows 7

The Windows Aero theme has a  variety of features that makes your  Vista/Windows 7 appear beautiful  but it takes a lot of memory for it  and ultimately it slows down  Vista/Windows 7. So you could turn  off the Windows Aero appearance  and put other simpler Windows  themes to speed up Vista/Windows  7. For doing it, just follow the steps  given below.

1. Open ‘Control Panel’.

2. Click on ‘Appearance and Personalization’ button.

3. Click on ‘Customize colors’ button under ‘Personalization’ option and from the window that appears.

4. Click on the ‘Open classic appearance properties for more color options’ option at the end of the page that appears.

5. Now, in the ‘Color scheme’ option you can switch to other Windows appearances other than Windows Aero i.e. ‘Windows Vista Basic’, ‘Windows Standard’ or ‘Windows Classic’. It will be better to select ‘Windows Classic’.

Thus, the Aero theme in Windows Vista/Windows 7 will be changed and this can speed Vista/Windows 7 a lot.

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I am introducing to you the ultimate guide to unleash Windows Vista which includes more than 25 tips and tweaks to speed up Windows Vista. Each and every tip inthis post is very simple and is very easy to understand. Hope you like it.

Windows Vista is an exellent operating system with an enhanced Graphic User Interface. Vista has a variety of features that are not created before and are very helpful. But these features may slow down your PC. But still you can get over this problem by performing certain actions. They are given below. I am not telling you to follow all of them, but you should follow atleast some of them to speed up Windows Vista.

1. Reduce Start-Ups

The number of start-ups should be limited to speed up Vista. There is no need of starting up programs if you don’t use them usually. Even those programs you usually use can also be started manually by clicking on them. So carefully select the programs which you really require as start-ups and all the unnecessary start-ups should be avoided. Always remember to remove all unwanted programs as these may force the system to slow down and speed up Vista. For preventing the programs from starting when Windows starts, click on ‘Start’ menu, type ‘msconfig’ in the search box and press the [Enter] key and the ‘System Configuration’ window pops up. In that, select the ‘Startup’ tab, clear the check boxes of the programs that you don’t want to start along with Windows and click on ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK’.

2. Restart the Computer

Your computer should be made to restart atleast one time in a week because restarting the computer helps the computer to clear out its memory and to prevent the harmful processes from starting.

3. Disable Windows Defender

Windows Defender real-time protection gives protection to your PC from malware and other threats. But if you are not attached to network or if you have other good Antivirus softwares, you won’t be requiring this since it slows down Vista or reduces Vista’s performance. So, you could turn off this feature. For doing it, select the ‘Control Panel’ and double-click the ‘Windows Defender’ icon. Click the ‘Tools and settings’ link, select ‘Options’, clear the ‘Auto Start’ checkbox and click ‘Save’ to save the changes.

4. Turn off Search Indexing

Windows has an index structure called the Search Index. This Search Index helps in the quick execution of files. This index always keeps a track of files so that they it can be quickly executed whenever the user needs it. Eventhough this tool is very handy, it may also be a reason for the reduction of your PC’s performance. So for turning off this feature, open ‘My Computer’ and right-click an appropriate drive. From the context menu, select the ‘Properties’ option and under the ‘General’ Tab, clear the ‘Index this drive for faster searching’ checkbox. There is another way to disable search indexing i.e. open the ‘Control Panel’, double-click the ‘Performance Information and Tools’ icon, select the ‘Adjust indexing options’ on the left pane and click the ‘Modify’ option located at the bottom of the ‘Indexing options’ dialog box. Then click the ‘Show all locations’ option located at the bottom of the ‘Indexed options’ dialog box. Then clear checkboxes of the locations which you don’t want to be indexed.

5. Set up Windows Ready Boost

Ready Boost is another feature of Vista Which can improve your system’s performance and speed up Vista.. It is a facility that can utilize your USB flash drive for providing quick accessmemory which the operating system can use as surplus RAM. To set up Ready Boost, connect a USB flash drive, open ‘My Computer’, right-click the USB Drive, select the ‘Ready Boost’ tab and select the ‘Use this device’ checkbox. Also select as much as space you can reserve to speed up the system. NOTE:If you remove the USB drive, then you will loose the ready boost feature till you do it again.

6. Disable Windows Hibernation

The Hibernation utility is another feature of Windows. It saves your current activities and also saves electricity(especially if you are using a laptop). But it also utilzes a lot of Windows resources. A person who does’nt use this feature frequently, might not require it. So if you don’t require it, you can disable the Hibernation facility. For doing it, open the ‘Control Panel’, doubl-click the’Power Options’ icon, select the ‘Change Plan Settings’ checkbox, click the ‘Change Advanced Power Settings’ link, expand the ‘Sleep’ option, expand the ‘Hibernate After Selection’ option, enter ‘0′ in the textbox and click ‘OK’.

7. Disable Automatic Disk Defragmentation

Automatic disk defragmentation in Windows Vista makes your system fit and healthy. It scans for all the files which are spread all over the hard disk and arranges them correctly. Although you should use the Disk Defragmentor at least once in week for building up a healthy system, Automatic Disk Defragmentation is not necessary since its frequent use reduces system performance. So you should disable it for speeding up Vista. For doing so, open ‘My Computer’, right-click an appropriate drive, select ‘Properties’, click the ‘Defragment now’ option on the ‘Tools’ tab, clear the ‘Run on a schedule’ checkbox and click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

8. Disable System Restore

In case of a virus attack, a system crash etc, Windows System Restore feature in Vista brings back your system to the prior condition and makes everything normal. Hence, it is a very useful tool. But if you want, you can turn off or disable the Windows System Restore feature and by doing so, you can improve your system performance and speed up Vista. For disabling this tool, first open the ‘Control Panel’. Then open ‘System’, select the ‘System Protection’ link, clear the checkboxes of the drives which you want to disablee the System Restore feature and click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

9. Disable the ScreenSaver

If you don’t require the screensaver, you should disable it for speeding up Vista. For disabling the screensaver, right-click on the desktop, select the ‘Personalize’ option from the context menu, click on ‘Screen Saver option’, select ‘None’ in the ‘Screen Saver’ tab and click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

10. Upgrade the system

If you have minimum system/hardware requirements for running Vista, then you could upgrade the system to speed up Vista.

11. Be free from Malwares

Scan for viruses, spywares etc and make sure that your system do not have any attacks from these so that you can speed up your system.

12. Disable excess Windows Services

Windows Vista has so many services installed. Some services are carried out automatically and if you don’t require them at all or are only sometimes required, you can change them to manual mode so that whenever you need it you can use them according to your wish since its frequent running will affect the system performance. If you don’t require a service you should disable it to speed up Vista. For disabling the services you don’t require, first open ‘Control Panel’. Then double-click the ‘Administrative Tools’ icon, double-click ‘System Configuration’, in the ‘Services’ tab clear the services you don’t require and click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

13. Disable unwanted Vista features

Windows Vista has a number of features. Some of them may be activated by default and mightnot be required by the user. Since these features unnecessarily utilizes memory and reduce your system’s performance, they should be disabled to speed up Vista. For disabling these features, open ‘Control Panel’, open ‘Programs and Features’, click the ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ link on the left pane, in the ‘Windows Features’ dialog box(which shows a list of both activated and deactivated features of your system), clear the checkboxes of the features that you don’t require and click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

14. Disable UAC

User Acces Control or UAC is a new feature in Vista that protects your system from malware. When an application is executed, it asks permission to do the further tasks. Though this feature won’t affect your system performance directly, sometimes it may become annoying for the user and you may wish to disable it. For disabling UAC, open ‘Control Panel’, open ‘User Accounts’, click the ‘Turn User Account Control on or off’ link, clear the ‘User Account Control to help protect your computer’ checkbox and click’OK’ to save the changes.

15. Disable the Sidebar

The sidebar is a feature in Windows Vista that uses a lot of system memory. If you  have the minimum system configuration to run Vista and if the sidebar is enabled in your system, then it will reduce your system performance and thus slow down Vista. Disabling the sidebar will solve this problem and by disabling it, you can speed up your Vista. For disabling the sidebar in Windows Vista, right-click the sidebar icon located near the clock display in the taskbar, select ‘Properties’, clear the ‘Start Sidebar when Windows start’ checkbox, click ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’, and to exit the sidebar, right-click the sidebar icon, click exit and in the window that appears, clear the ‘Start Sidebar when Windows starts’ checkbox and click ‘Exit Sidebar’. If you want to turn on/enable the sidebar after this, select ‘Run’ from the ‘Start’ menu, type ’sidebar’ in it and click ‘OK’.

16. Run Disk Defragmenter

Running disk defragmentation once in a while makes your system fit and healthy and speed up Vista. It scans for all the files which are spread all over the hard disk and arranges them correctly. You should run the Disk Defragmenter at least once in week for building up a healthy system. Since the Automatic Disk Defragmentation feature in Vista makes Vista slow you should disable the Automatic Disk Defragmentation and do it manually so that you can speed up your Vista. For running Disk Defragmenter, open ‘My Computer’, right-click an appropriate drive, select ‘Properties’, select the ‘Tools’ tab, click on the ‘Defragment now’ button in the ‘Defragmentation’ section and the ‘Disk Defragmenter’ window appears. Select the drive you want to defragment and defrag it.

17. Delete unwanted softwares, files etc

If any unwanted programs i.e. the softwares, files etc which you don’t use or which are not helpful to you are present in your computer, you should delete them since they are of no use and are simply wasting the hard disk space thereby slowing down Vista. So, surely you have to remove these unwanted programs to speed up Vista.

18. Disable GUI(Graphical User Interface) boot

You can disable the GUI boot to speed up the boot time to speed up Vista. By disabling it you can speed up the boot time not by much but a little bit. For disabling it, click on the ‘Start’ menu, type ‘msconfig’ in the search box and press [Enter] and the ‘System Configuration’ window appears. In that, select the ‘Boot’ tab and select/tick the ‘No GUI boot’ checkbox and click ‘OK’.

19. Use BOOT Advanced options to speed up boot time

You can use the multiple processor options to speed up the boot time and thereby speedup Vista. For doing this, click on hte ‘Start’ menu, select ‘Search’, type ‘msconfig’ in the search box and press [Enter] and the ‘System Configuration’ window appears. In that, select the ‘Boot’ tab, click the ‘Advanced options’ and make sure that the ‘Number of processors’ ckeckbox is selected. Then select the maximum number of processors i.e. if you have a single core, then you will be able to select 1 or if youhave dual core, then 2. Then make sure that the ‘Maximum memory’ checkbox is selected/ticked and put it to the maximum memory. After doing it, click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

20. Disable visual effects

By disabling visual effects in Vista which you don’t want can speed up your Vista since these visual effects use a lot of system memory. For doing it, open the ‘control Panel’, double-click the ‘System’ icon, click the ‘Advanced system settings’ option on the left pane and the ‘System Properties’ dialog box appears. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, click the ‘Settings’ option of the ‘Performance’ section and the ‘Performance Options’ dialog box appears. In the ‘Visual Effects’ tab four options are given. You can select the ‘Adjust for best performance’ checkbox for disabling all the visual effects of Vista or select the ‘Custom’ checkbox which enables you to select which all visual effects you want.

21. Adjust for the best performance of applications

By adjusting for the best performance of applications instead of background services can speed up your Vista. For doing it, open the ‘Control Panel’, double-click the ‘System’ icon, click the ‘Advanced system settings’ option on the left pane and the ‘System Properties’ dialog box appears. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, click the ‘Settings’ option of the ‘Performance’ section and the ‘Performance Options’ dialog box appears. Under the ‘Processor scheduling’ section in the ‘Advanced’ tab, select the ‘Programs’ button for adjusting for the best performance of applications.

22. Make changes to the Paging file location and size

Making changes to the paging file location and its size can speed up Vista. You can change the location of the paging file and speed up the access to the page data and you can also increase the size of the paging file or make it static so that instead of using the resources to increse or decrease the size, it always the same size and this can speed up Vista. For doing it, open the ‘Control Panel’, double-click the ‘System’ icon, click the ‘Advanced system settings’ option on the left pane and the ‘System Properties’ dialog box appears. Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, click the ‘Settings’ option of the ‘Performance’ section and the ‘Performance Options’ dialog box appears. Click the ‘Change’ option under the ‘Virtual memory’ section and the ‘Virtual Memory’ dialog box appears. If you clear the ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’ checkbox, you can change the location of the paging file and speed up the access to the page data. Next thing is to increase the size of the paging file or set a static paging file. To set a static paging file, click the ‘Custom size’ option and enter the same number in the ‘Initial size’ and ‘Maximum size’.

23. Run Disk Cleanup

Running disk cleanup once in a while makes your system fit and healthy. You should run the Disk Cleanup utility at least once in week for building up a healthy system and speeding up Vista. For running Disk Cleanup, open ‘My Computer’, right-click an appropriate drive, select ‘Properties’ and in the ‘General’ tab, click ‘Disk Cleanup’.

24. Change the power Plan

There is an another way to speed up Vista. It is by setting the power options to high performance. This will also help you to speed up Vista. For doing it, open the ‘control Panel’, click on the ‘Hardware and Sound’ options, click on ‘Power Options’ and select the ‘High performance’ option. Now your power options will be set to high performance and this can speed up your Vista.

25. Use simpler themes instead of Aero

The Windows Aero makes your Vista appear beautiful but it takes a lot of memory for it andultimately it slows down Vista. So you can turn off the Windows Aero appearance and put other simpler Windows themes to speed up Vista. For doing it, open ‘Control Panel’, click on ‘Appearance and Personalization’ button, click on ‘Customize colors’ button under ‘Personalization’ option and from the page that appears, click on the ‘Open classic appearance properties for more color options’ option at the end of the page that appears. Now, in the ‘Color scheme’ option you can switch to other Windows appearances other than Windows Aero i.e. ‘Windows Vista Basic’, ‘Windows Standard’ or ‘Windows Classic’. It will be better to select ‘Windows Classic’. Now, this can speed Vista a lot.

26. Use high quality cleanup softwares

You should use very useful cleanup softwares. The running of high quality cleanup softwares like  CCleaner, Tuneup Utilities etc can greatly help you to speed up Vista.

27. Disable Thumbnail previews

The thumbnail feature in Windows help the user to easily identify the files while browsing. It is a very help helpful feature especially if you are browsing through a long list of files. But it can make Vista slow. So, to speed up Vista, you could disable this feature. For disabling thumbnails in Vista, open ‘My Computer’, click the ‘Organize’ drop-down menu, select the ‘Folder and Search options’ checkbox, click the ‘View’ tab and under ‘Files and Folders’ section, tick the ‘Always show icons, never thumbnails’ checkbox. Now, always icons would only be shown and this can speed up Vista.

28. Find programs that slow down Vista

Some programs which are installed in your computer might not be useful to you.And not only that these programs are not useful to you but these also slows down Vista. So you should remove these programs or if some programs are partially useful to you and are startup programs, then you should remove them from startup using msconfig as instructed in tip 1 to speed up Vista. You can find which all programs are slowing down your Vista and remove them. For doing it, open ‘Control Panel’, open ‘System maintenance’, open ‘performance and tools’ and in the left pane click ‘Advanced tools’. Now, a list of programs that slow down your Vista will be shown.

29. Disable Remote Differential Compression

Remote Differential Compression feature checks modifications in the files in a network so that the files can be transferred with minimum bandwidth. Since it frequently checks for file modifications, it may slow down Vista. So by disabling this feature, you could speed up Vista. For disabling this feature, open ‘Control Panel’, open ‘Programs and features, click the ‘Turn Windows Features on or off’ option, from the list that appears in the new window, uncheck the ‘Remote Differential Compression’ checkbox and click ‘OK’.

30. Disable Transparency

The transparency feature in Windows Vista makes Vista beatiful. But Vista will take some memory to produce this effect which causes Vista to slow down a little bit. So by the disabling the transparency effect, you can speed up Vista. For doing it, open ‘Control Panel’, click on ‘Appearance and Personalization’ button, click on ‘Customize colors’ button under ‘Personalization’ option and from the page that appears, untick the ‘Enable transparency’ checkbox and click ‘OK’.

31. Disable Transient Multimon Manager (TMM)

The Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) is another feature Windows Vista which aims at increasing the user experience in connecting and disconnecting displays (especially for mobile user). When Windows Vista starts up, a small hold up can be experienced and after that an empty black page will appear. This happens because at that time Windows will be searching for external monitors. If you aren’t using an external monitor, then you could turn this feature off to speed up Vista. For disabling TMM, click on ‘Start’, select ‘All Programs’, move over to ‘Accessories’, ‘System Tools’ and select ‘Task Schedular’. On the left pane, expand the “Task Scheduler Library” option, then expand ‘Microsoft’, then expand ‘Windows’ and  click on ‘MobilePC’. There, you could notice a task named ‘TMM’. Just right-click on it and click on ‘Disable’ option.

32. Enable Write Caching

By enabling write caching on the disk, you can improve the disk performance and thus speed up Windows Vista. But a power shortage/power cut could cause data loss. But if you have a UPS, an inverter etc or if you are running Vista using a laptop, there is no problem since the battery in the laptop supplies power. To enable write caching, open ‘My Computer’, right-click an appropriate drive, click on ‘Properties, select the ‘Hardware’ tab and click on the ‘Properties’ option. From the window that appears, select the ‘Policies’ tab and tick the ‘Enable write caching on the disk’ checkbox and apply the changes.

33. Use Vista Services Optimizer

Turning off the services in Vista is a very risky job. It is not meant for the light hearted. It is very difficult to find out which all services you need/don’t need. If you shut down a service on getting the wrong information that it is not useful to you, then sometimes it would have been the most important service required for running one of your favourite programs and without that service it might be difficult to run the programme and later it might be difficult to turn that service on again. Sometimes, something ‘Big’ could go wrong due to the shutting down of a particular service.

Vista Services Optimizer is a free utility that turns off the unwanted services in your system and speeds up Vista. It is very helpful since it manages everything and reduces our job. But before you use this software, I suggest you to create a complete system backup to avoid a dangerous situation. I am not telling that there would be a problem but if in case an error occurs, for avoiding that situation youshould create a backup. But for running this program, the .NET 3 framework should be installed on you system(it will be pre-installed in modern Vista systems).

34. Turn off Super Fetch

Windows Vista has a new feature called Super Fetch. It reloads applications which are always used. Eventhough the Super Fetch feature launch specified applications fastly, it might not be required if you have less than 2GB of RAM since its performance will be poor if you have less memory. So, for disabling Super Fetch, click the ‘Start’ button and type ’services.msc’ in the search box. From the window that appears, select the ‘Disbled’ option from the ‘Startup type’ drop down menu and click the ‘OK’ button.

Hope you liked this post. If you liked it or if you have any suggestions i.e. if you know any other ways to speed up Windows Vista, then please do comment.

You can disable the GUI boot and use the ‘BOOT Advanced options’ to speed up the boot time. By doing it you can speed up the boot time not by much but a little bit. For doing it, follow the steps given below.

1.Click on the ‘Start’ menu.

2.Select ‘Search’.

3.Type ‘msconfig’ in the search box and press [Enter] and the ‘System Configuration’ window appears.

4.Select the ‘Boot’ tab.
5.Select/tick the ‘No GUI boot’ checkbox.

6.Click the ‘Advanced options’.
7.Make sure that the ‘Number of processors’ ckeckbox is selected.

8.Select the maximum number of processors i.e. if you have a single core, then you will be able to select 1 or if youhave dual core, then 2.
9.Make sure that the ‘Maximum memory’ checkbox is selected/ticked.
10.Put it to the maximum memory.
11.Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

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1.Connect a USB flash drive.
2.Open ‘My Computer’.
3.Right-click the USB Drive.
4.Select the ‘Ready Boost’ tab.
5.Select the ‘Use this device’ checkbox.

1.Open ‘Control Panel’.
2.Open ‘User Accounts’.
3.Click the ‘Turn User Account Control on or off’ link.
4.Clear the ‘User Account Control to help protect your computer’ checkbox.
5.Click’OK’ to save the changes.

1.First open ‘Control Panel’.
2.Then double-click the ‘Administrative Tools’ icon.
3.Then double-click ‘System Configuration’.
4.In the ‘Services’ tab clear the services you don’t require.
5.Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

1.First open ‘Control Panel’.
2.Then open ‘Programs and Features’.
3.Click the ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ link on the left pane. 4.In the ‘Windows Features’ dialog box(which shows a list of both activated and deactivated features of your system), clear the checkboxes of the features that you don’t require.
5.Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

1.First open the ‘Control Panel’.
2.Then double-click the ‘System’ icon.
3.Then select the ‘System Protection’ link.
4.Then clear the checkboxes of the drives which you want to disablee the System Restore feature.
5.Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.