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!

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.

Disable Disk Indexing

In theory, Disk Indexing is a very useful feature, because it indexes and updates lists of all the files that are on your computer to let you search for files and folders faster. But the downside of it is that it makes your computer slow and loud. To disable indexing:

1. Navigate to Control Panel
2. Under Programs choose Uninstall a Program
3. Click on Turn Windows features on or off
4. Disable the Indexing Service

Don’t worry, Vista search will still work perfectly fine with indexing turned off.

Modify Disk Defragmentation Settings

Windows Vista automatically configures Disk Defragmenter to run once a week. That may be another reason why your hard drive starts thrashing. If you don’t constantly download new files and install software, it would be a good idea to schedule disk defragmentation to run once a month.

1. Type defrag in the search box and hit Enter. This will open Disk Defragmenter.
2. Click on Modify schedule and choose whichever option feels best (I recommend once a month)

But, to be honest, the built-in Windows defrag utility is not particularly good. So I would disable scheduled defragmentation (just uncheck the Run on schedule checkbox) and use Auslogics Disk Defrag instead.  It’s a lot faster and won’t make your hard disk spin endlessly. You can schedule defragmentation to run weekly – just open Auslogics Disk Defrag, go to Settings – Task Scheduler and set the time when you want to defrag.

Turn off System Restore

System restore points are a great idea – they let you roll back your system to a previously known state. But I’ve found that Vista is obsessed with them and creates them any time you touch your computer, basically. Of course, that makes life hard for your hard disk. And anyway, you don’t need every restore point Vista creates! I’d recommend turning off System Restore alltogether and using the upgraded Vista backup utility instead.

To turn off Systerm Restore:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click System and Maintenance, then System
3. Under Tasks, click System protection
4. Click Continue when prompted by UAC
5. Under Available Disks, uncheck the check box next to your main drive

Keep in mind that you have disabled System Restore and backup whenever you make serious changes to your system.

Change Windows Defender and Your Antivirus Settings

Windows Defender performs daily scans by default. Come to this of it, your antivirus program might do the same. Both are totally unnecessary.  I’d recommend changing your Windows Defender Settings (once a week is enough) and disabling background scans your antivirus migt perform altogether. Most antiviruses give you real-time protection and you can always run a manual scan on a regular basis, say, once a month.

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.

Clearly, User Account Control is a very useful feature, but if you are sure you don’t need it and it annoys you way too much, here is how you can disable it:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click on Add or remove user account under User Account and Family settings
3. Click on any user account
4. Under the user account click on Go to the main User Account page
5. Then click Change security settings under Make changes to your user account
6. Deselect Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer and click OK. You will have to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

If you change your mind and decide to switch UAC back on, just select the above checkbox and reboot.

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.

If you have Windows XP:

1. Right-click My Computer and go to Properties. Alternatively press the Windows key + the Pause/Break key on your keyboard. That will take you straight to the System Properties dialog box.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab
3. 
4. Click the Turn off System Restore check box (or the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box).
5. Click OK and then confirm that you want to turn System Restore off.

If you are a Vista user:

1. Go to Start and select Control Panel
2. Select System and Maintenance and then go to Backup and Restore Center
3. Select Create a restore point or change settings
4. If UAC is active, click Continue
5. Select the System Protection tab
6. Uncheck your hard drives under Automatic restore points
7. Click Turn System Restore Off and then click OK

Remember that if you disable System Restore, all your previous restore points will be deleted. If you don’t want that to happen, leave this service enabled.

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.

Creating a Disk Image

The best way to backup your operating system is to create a disk image. A disk image is an exact copy of a hard drive or partition. It can be stored on a removable hard drive or another computer.  I find that this backup method is the most reliable.

To create a disk image you can use Vista’s Complete Backup and Restore. Unfortunately this tool is not available in Windows Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium. But if you have either Vista Ultimate, Business, or Enterprise, you can use this feature. Here’s how:

1. Go to Start - Settings - Control Panel
2. In the standard view click System and Maintenance and then Backup and Restore Center. In the classic view just choose Backup and Restore Center.
3. 
4. Click Back up computer
5. Choose where you want to backup. Keep in mind that the backups are quite large and will not fit onto a standard DVD.
6. Click Next. After that it’s pretty straight-forward.

Backing Up Files

If you are a Vista Home user, you could backup your data using Vista’s Backup and Restore Center:

1. Go to Control Panel - Backup and Restore Center
2. Click on the Backup files button
3. Now choose where you want to save your backup
4. Then choose which disks or partitions you want to backup
5. Specify the type of files you are going to backup. Note that the following files are not included in the backup: files that have been encrypted using Encrypting File System (EFS), program files, system files, files that are using FAT file system, web-based email that is not stored on your hard drive, files that are in the Recycle Bin, user profile settings, temporary files.
6. Set a schedule and then click Save settings and start backup.

That’s it. Now your data is safe. I would advise to check your backups from time to time, because nothing lasts forever – hard drives can die and DVDs and CDs can become unreadable over time.

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.

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.