Part Two

In my previous post I’ve used Auslogics Antivirus as an example to show you some basic ways to configure your antivirus software for maximum performance. Today I’m going to tell you how to fine-tune Auslogics Antivirus, so that it becomes even faster and lighter on system resources.

1. Tune-up Real-time Protection

All antiviruses offer real-time protection. This means that everything that happens on your computer is monitored and analysed by your antivirus. But keep in mind that your computer performs thousands of operations every second and there is nothing suspicious about most of them. Basically, there is no need for your antivirus to scan everything all the time. So why not disable functions that are not needed.

First of all let’s configure real-time protection so that it doesn’t scan everything. To do that:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus
2. Click on the Antivirus tab and then go to the Shield tab
3. 
4. Click on the Custom Level button. This will open the Real Time Protection Settings window.
5. 
6. Select the Scan Programs radio button. This way the antivirus will stop monitoring safe files, like text documents.
7. Now select Do not scan files greater than… Specify 10240 in the field that will appear. This way your antivirus won’t monitor files larger than 10MB. Viruses are small files, so it doesn’t make any sense to check large files, e.g movies or songs, for infections.

Some people also disable network shares and http traffic scans, but I don’t recommend it, because most infections come from the Internet and local networks.

2. Schedule Scans

Pretty much all antiviruses have an option to schedule scans. Most of the time this option is already enabled. By default scans are scheduled for midnight, which isn’t very useful, because most people’s computers are switched off. If that’s the case with your antivirus settings, then you miss out on daily antivirus scans and jeopardise your computer security.

The solution is simple – re-schedule daily scans:

1. Open the main window and go to Antivirus
2. Go to the Virus Scan tab and double-click Deep System Scan
3. 
4. Go to Scheduler and specify the time when you want to run daily system scans. I usually have a break between 3pm and 4pm, so I scheduled scans for that time slot.
5. 
6. Now go to Overview and enable the Minimize to tray option. This way the antivirus won’t annoy you while performing scans.

3. Use Game and Laptop Modes

Auslogics Antivirus has a unique feature called Game Mode. So, if you’re a gamer, enable this option. Here’s how:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus main window
2. Go to the Game/Laptop Mode tab and select Automatic Game Mode is enabled
3. 
4. Don’t forget to tick the Enter game mode when in full screen checkbox

Now Auslogics Antivirus will be gentle on system resources whenever you start playing a game or watching a movie.

If you are a laptop user and your laptop runs on battery quite often, make sure Laptop Mode is enabled. You can check that by opening the Game/Laptop Mode tab.

Now your antivirus software is configured for best performance without jeopardising PC protection. Its real-time protection only checks files that could be infected, so that it doesn’t waste system resources, and scheduled daily scans will ensure that your computer stays healthy. And anyway, now you know where all the settings are, so you can keep tweaking and optimizing your antivirus.

If you still don’t have any antivirus software installed, you can download Auslogics Antivirus here. Other good antiviruses can be found here.

Part One

This day and age it’s absolutely crucial to have good antivirus software installed on your computer to protect your operating system and your personal data. Developers offer us dozens of solutions, all of which have extensive functionality and loads of features and options. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But there are a couple of drawbacks -  most antiviruses are pretty heavy on system resources when using default settings and not very easy to configure to fit your particular needs. As a result, a lot of people get so frustrated, that they either disable or uninstall their security software. Then they catch numerous infections and have to deal with the consequences.

Luckily, there is a better solution. Most antiviruses allow you to configure them to your liking. In this post I’m going to describe the best ways to configure and optimize Auslogics Antivirus, but you can use my advice to configure pretty much any antivirus software.

1. Choose Advanced User Interface Mode

First of all you’ll need to switch the user interface to Advanced mode. That way all customization options will become available. To choose Advanced mode:

1. Find Auslogics Antivirus tray icon (red triangle) and right-click on it
2. Go to Basic Setting
3. Find and select Advanced Mode
4. 
5. Click Apply and click OK

2. Disable Unneeded Components

Like a lot of other programs, Auslogics Antivirus protects your computer from nearly all possible security threats.  It monitors all system components and all ways malware uses to get installed onto your PC. This boosts your protection levels, but also slows down your computer. The solution is to decide which antivirus components you need and disable the rest.

For example, if you only use web based email from known providers (like Gmail), you can safely disable email scans, because all attachments get scanned anyway. Most anti-viruses use a special service to scan emails, so disabling those scans will help you free up RAM.

Here’s how you can disable email scans in Auslogics Antivirus:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus
2. Go to the Shield tab and click on the Custom Level button
3. 
4. Then uncheck the relevant checkboxes
5. 
6. Click OK

If you don’t use any IM programs, then it will make sense to disable antiphishing protection for Yahoo and Live messengers. Just go to the main program window and uncheck the relevant checkboxes. You can also disable antiphishing for browsers that you’ve got installed, but never use (I almost never use IE).

However, if you use IM programs a lot, it’s best to ensure that they are well protected – it’s way too easy to get infected through such programs. And what’s worse, you will never suspect a thing. You might get infected through a file sent to you by a friend or a relative, if their computer is already infected.

To ensure that your IMs are protected:

1. Open Auslogics Antivirus and click on the Shield tab
2. Click on the Custom Level button
3. Check the Scan Files sent/received over IM checkbox

If you are really concerned about your chat privacy, you might want to enable encryption. To do that, click on the Encryption tab on the left hand side and make sure encryption is enabled.

Anyway, back to optimizing your antivirus.

3. Exclude Safe Folders

I’m sure that you have folders with photos, music, and movies saved on your hard drive. Most of them will have either a lot of files, or pretty large files (or both).  If your antivirus software scans these folders every time it performs a routine scan, it must be taking ages to complete.

Well, let me tell you that it’s highly unlikely to get a virus into one of those folders. And even if you do, you are bound to notice it immediately. So why not add them to the exclusions list and speed up scans? Just be sensible and don’t exclude too many folders.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Open the program and click on the Antivirus tab on the left hand side
   
2. Then click on the Exclusions tab
3. Make sure that exclusions are enabled
4. Click on the “+” sign
5. 
6. Select Do not scan files or folders and click Next
7. Select files and folders you don’t want to be scanned and click Next
   
8. 
9. Now select when not to scan those files and folders – on the right hand side select On-demand, On-access, or Both
10. Click Next

I have more tips to share with you, but I think that’s enough for one post. Look out for Part 2.

TBC

If you use Windows Vista, you know that it can be really slow on startup and take a lot of time to become responsive after the desktop loads. I’ve always found it really annoying, to put it mildly. Fortunately, it’s possible to speed up Vista startup.

The reason why Vista takes so long to load is that it does a lot in the background – it loads up processes, services, and applications, which is pretty time- and resource-consuming. The more there is to load, the longer it takes.

Of course, your Windows might take too long to load because of viruses or spyware, or because you need to upgrade your hardware, but that’s another story.

Here is how you can speed up Vista startup in two easy steps.

Tame Your Software

The first thing we start doing after getting a new computer is installing software. Some of the programs are essential, others are there just because we wanted to check them out and forgot to remove them. And a lot of those programs load on startup too, which causes significant system slow-downs.

So, the first thing you should do to improve Vista boot time is remove software you never use and stop applications you don’t always use loading on startup.

To remove programs you don’t need:

1. Click on the Start button, then go to Control Panel
2. Double-click on Programs and Features
3. There you can view all programs you have installed and remove the ones you don’t need

To manage your startup list, use Windows Defender:

1. Click on the Start button, type in defender and hit Enter
2. In Windows Defender, click Tools and then Software Explorer
3. You will get a list of your startup items. Don’t overdo it and disable your antivirus or other vital programs!

Control Windows Services

Apart from applications, Windows loads various services. Some of them are vital, others you never use. So why let them hog your computer?

To customize services, do the following:

1. Click on the Start button, type in services, and hit Enter
2. You’ll get a window with all the services and their short description
3. Be careful what you disable, because you might make your PC unbootable by mistake

If you’d like to be able to remove software, manage your startup items and services in just two clicks, try Auslogics BoostSpeed. Not only does it make removing programs and startup items fast and easy, it also gives you tailor-made advice on which services are safe to disable.

Hope these tips were helpful and your Vista now loads faster!

Compared to Windows XP, Vista is a much heavier operating system. It has lots of great features, but they can slow down your computer a lot, especially if it hasn’t got a powerful CPU or enough RAM.

Before your patience snaps and you spend a lot of money on new hardware, follow these simple tips to make Vista lighter and faster.

1) Disable Windows Vista Aero

Great looks come at a cost. In case of Aero it’s heavy CPU, RAM, and video card usage. Aero can use as much as 15% of your CPU. And if you are using a laptop, keep in mind that it affects your battery life. With the Aero theme turned off battery life is equal to or even better than if you’re using Windows XP. So it would be a good idea to disable Aero if you want your battery to last longer.

Turning off the Aero theme is easy:

1. Right-click your desktop and click Personalize
2. Click on Window Color and Appearance. It will look different from what you are used to.
3. Click Open classic appearance properties for more color options
4. Now select any theme you like, for example the Windows Classic theme

2) Use ReadyBoost to Increase Performance

Windows Vista has a lot of features to help older and less powerful computers run it. ReadyBoost is one of them. It lets you use a USB drive as a secondary memory cache, before hard drive caching. Of course, it is no substitution for RAM, but it does make your computer faster.

There are certain requirements your USB drive has to meet:

• It has to be USB 2.0
• It must be at least 256MB (though there is no point in using a device smaller than 1GB)
• It has to be able to read at 3.5MB/s
• It has to be able to write at 2.5MB/s

If you don’t know whether your USB drive is ReadyBoost compatible, plug it in and give it a try anyway. If it is, an AutoPlay box should appear with a dialog stating that you can use it for ReadyBoost. If you have AutoPlay disabled, do the following:

1. Go to Computer, right-click the removable storage device and select Properties
2. If the drive is compatible, you will see a ReadyBoost tab. Click on it.
3. Then select Use this device and set the amount of space that you want to be used for ReadyBoost system file
4. Click OK and you’re done

3) Speed Up External Hard Drives

Windows Vista operates internal and external USB hard drives differently. The great feature for USB thumb drives is that write caching is disabled. That means you can safely remove them without any risk of losing data. However, if a large external hard drive is always connected to your computer, disabled write caching can decrease performance.

To turn write caching back on to improve your external hard drive performance:

1. Go to Start, right-click Computer and select Manage
2. Then go to Device Manager on the side menu
3. Expand Disk drives and find your external hard drive
4. Right-click it and select Properties
5. Open the Policies tab and select Optimize for performance
6. Check Enable write caching on the disk and Enable advanced performance
7. 
8. Press OK and reboot

4) Boost SATA Disk Performance

It is also possible to speed up SATA disk drives by enhancing write caching. Here’s how:

1. Click Start, then right-click Computer and select Manage
2. Go to Device Manager
3. Expand Disk Drives
4. Right-click your hard drive and go to Properties
5. On the Policies tab check Enable advanced performance
6. Press OK and close the Device Manager

The downside of enhancing write caching is that if you experience a power cut, the risk of data loss and corruption increases. So be careful if you don’t have a battery backup. If you are a laptop user, the danger of losing data is less, since your laptop battery is always there to save you.