Continuing on the earlier post “Speed up Vista part 1“, here are a few more tips for you to try out speeding up Vista.

Turn off Windows Search Indexing

Windows Vista search indexing is reviewing files on your system to make their contents available for quick searching. Even though this is a nice feature, it can sometimes make your system come to a complete stand-still.

To disable constant indexing.

1. Click Start then Computer.
2. Right Click the C: Drive / Boot Drive On General Tab.
3. Uncheck Index this drive for faster searching On the subsequent dialogue box.
4. Select Include sub folders and files.
5. Reboot.

Disable User Access Control (UAC)

This new Vista feature attempts to protect your system from malware infection by making you manually confirm a lot of the daily user operations. It doesn’t slow your system down as such, but is more like an annoying “nag screen”. So if you are just a little familliar with computers, you might want to try this out.
To disable User Access Control.

1. Click Start then Control Panel
2. Select User Accounts
3. Select Turn User Account Control on or off
4. Uncheck User Account Control Box
5. Restart as recommended.

Add more Memory (RAM) to your Vista PC. 

With the very low memory prices these days, and the Dollar hitting rock bottom, you can gain a significant boost to your system by upgrading to 4 GB of total memory.

Add a USB Flash drive to take advantage of Windows Ready Boost (Additional Memory Cache)

Ready Boost is Microsoft’s name for using a USB thumb/flash drive to provide some quick access memory the operating system can use as extra RAM. The Ready Boost system can significantly improve system performance.  

1. Insert a USB Flash Drive  
2. Click Start then Computer
3. Right Click the USB Drive in My Computer
4. Select the Ready Boost Tab
5. Choose Use this device
6. Select as much space as you can free up for RAM usage vs. Storage.

I hear a lot of people complain that they find Vista to be slower then the “almighty” XP

So, here are a few steps you can take to speed up your Vista:

Turn off Windows Hibernation

Windows hibernation background services can use a large amount of system resources. If you don’t use the Hibernate feature on a regular basis, you may want to disable it to give Vista a performance boost.

To disable Hibernation:

1. Select the Control Panel then Power Options
2. Click Change Plan Settings
3. Click on Change Advanced Power Settings
4. Expand the Sleep selection
5. Expand the Hibernate After selection
6. Move the slider down to zero
7. Click Apply.

Turn off Remote Differential Compression

Remote Differential Compression measures the changes in files over a network to transfer them with minimal bandwidth rather than transferring an entire file that has previously been moved. By constantly checking for file changes, this service can hinder system performance, to disable this service:

1. Open Control Panel
2. Switch to Classic View
3. Select Program Features
4. Choose Turn Windows features on and off
5. Scroll down and uncheck Remote Differential Compression.

Turn off Automatic Disk Defragmentation

Windows Vista and its always-on defragment feature isn’t really that necessary and can cause system slow down. Just remember to run a defrag once in a while on your own. 

1. Click Start then Computer  
2. Right Click the C: Drive
3. Click on Properties
4. Select the Tools Tab Click on Defragment
5. Now Uncheck Run on a schedule
6. Reboot.