Auslogics Blog

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.

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If you have Vista, then for sure you have encountered this problem – your hard disk keeps churning and your Task Manager looks something like this:

Sometimes it would stop, then start again for no apparent reason. And what’s worse, frequent disk access interferes with your computer usage and makes life hard. Annoying, isn’t it?

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to tame the shrew and make your hard drive behave normally.

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Windows Vista has a lot of great security features. The trouble is that some very useful ones are not turned on by default.

Account auditing is one of them. Why is it good to have it turned on? Because with it disabled practically anyone with physical or remote access to your computer can attempt breaking into your user account for as long as they like. And you wouldn’t even know about it until it’s too late, because audit security policy is not configured to log any account logons, successful or failed, by default. So a hacker will be able to keep trying until he’s successful.

Turning on account auditing is very important – it will let you see who may be trying to break into your account.

To turn on auditing for failed logon events do the following:

1. Go to Start and type secpol.msc, then hit Enter
2. Navigate through Local Policies and Audit Policy
3. Right-click on Audit account logon events policy and go to Properties
4. Check the Failure box and click OK
5. Right-click on Audit logon events policy and go to Properties
6. Check the Failure box and click OK
7. Close Local Security Policy editor

From now on your computer will log all failed logon attempts. You will be able to view these logs in Event Viewer (run eventvwr.msc) under Windows Logs and Security.

If you are a Windows Vista user, then no doubt you know what User Account Control (UAC) is. Some people find this feature really annoying, forgetting that it’s there for a reason.

UAC automatically protects your system from potential security breeches by forcing users that are part of the local administrators group to behave as if they were regular users. Whenever a user who is a member of the local administrators group attempts to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, the operation gets halted and the user is prompted to acknowledge it before proceeding.

If the user is not a member of the local administrators group and tries to perform a task that requires such privileges, he is asked to enter valid administrative credentials. This means that unless this user is an administrator, he won’t be able to change anything on your computer, since in Vista standard users are prohibited from installing most programs, changing system settings and so on.

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If you’ve ever experienced random slowdowns and high CPU usage for no apparent reason, System Restore might be responsible for it. Believe it or not, System Restore can take up as much as 15% of your hard drive.

System Restore is a very useful feature that acts like a built-in time machine. The System Restore service creates snapshots of your system, so that you can always roll back if there are any unexpected problems.

But if you never use it and prefer other backup methods, like saving all your valuable data on an external hard disk or a DVD, it will be worth it to disable System Restore altogether.

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Backing up your operating system and data is very important. There are a lot of things that can harm your computer in such a way, that you will have no other option but to format your hard drive and reinstall your operating system. That could happen unexpectedly, too. And if you don’t have all your settings and data backed up, they will be lost. In this article I’m going to show you how to back up Windows Vista.

Before you backup, I’d recommend you to partition your hard drive, or even better, get a second one. It is best to keep your OS and data on separate partitions – that keeps your files safer and allows various backup methods. Also it can make your computer faster, because this way disk fragmentation is reduced. Separating your data from your OS doesn’t mean that you have to install programs on a separate partition.

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The Windows Vista search bar is very useful and efficient. It enables you to search for your files right from the start menu and you can even use it as a Run Command bar. The only problem is that it can become quite slow over time, as files start piling up. Luckily it’s easy to speed it up again by limiting your search results. Here’s how:

1. Right-click the Start button and go to Properties
2. Click Customize
3. 
4. Then limit your search results

The options are easy to understand: the Search communications option searches files in Windows Mail and Contacts. Uncheck the box if you use neither of them.

Search favorites and history searches Internet Explorer favourites and history. So if you use a different browser, uncheck it.

Search files is obvious. I have it switched to Search this user’s files, because I don’t search other accounts. I recommend using this option, since searching the entire index can take a really long time.

If you want to use the search menu bar as a Run Command bar, leave the Search Programs box checked.

Changing the settings should speed up your searches. But keep in mind that the amount of speed increased depends on your preferences.

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.

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