Speed up your Windows Vista

Find Windows Vista to be very slow when comparing to your old Windows XP?
Then, you are reading the right thing! If not, still continue reading, you might just get a better experience with Vista.

The following tutorial will help you in tweaking your Windows Vista to the max and you'll feel a significant improvement in your system performance. So without wasting any time lets start:

1. Following is a registry file containing a few registry modifications, which are completely safe and can increase the performance of Windows Vista. Just download the attached ZIP file, extract it and then run the file:

Tweak Windows Vista

Restore Default Settings (Use this file if you want to restore default Windows settings, undoing the above registry codes)
In case, you have any doubts as per to the registry files, or what it contains, please feel free to ask, I will clear every doubt and ensure you that the given file is completely harmless.

2. Right-click on My Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press key + key), click on Advanced system settings button in left side pane (You can also open it by typing sysdm.cpl in RUN or start menu search box and press Enter). Now click on Settings button in Performance section:


Now disable all unnecessary options in Visual Effects tab, you can leave following options enabled according to your requirements:

• Enable desktop composition (If you want to use Windows Aero theme)
• Enable transparent glass (If you want to use transparency in Windows)
• Show preview and filters in folder (If you use Details Pane in Explorer)
• Show thumbnails instead of icons (If you want to show thumbnails in Explorer)
• Show window contents while dragging (If you want windows to show content while moving them)
• Smooth edges of screen fonts (If you want to show smooth fonts)
• Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop (If you want to show shadows under desktop icon labels)
• Use visual styles on windows and buttons (If you want to use Windows Aero or Basic theme.)

3. Open Folder Options and click on View tab:


Now disable following options:

• Display file size information in folder tips.
• Display simple folder view in Navigation pane.
• Hide extensions for known file types.
• Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color.
• Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items.

Other options don't affect the system performance. You can enable/disable them according to your requirements.

4. Right-click on My Computer icon on Desktop and select Manage (You can also open it by typing services.msc in RUN or start menu search box and press Enter).

Now goto Services & Applications -> Services. Here you will set a few unnecessary services to Manual, which will not start with windows and will decrease the boot time and will increase system performance.
NOTE: Always set the service to MANUAL, never disable it. So that whenever windows needs to start a service it can easily start and use it. If you set any service to DISABLED, then windows will not be able to start it and will give ERROR..

• Application Experience
• Computer Browser (If your computer is not connected to any network)
• Desktop Window Manager Session Manager (If you don't use Aero theme)
• Diagnostic Policy Service
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• Indexing service (If you don't use Windows Search feature frequently)
• Offline Files
• Portable Device Enumerator Service
• Print Spooler (If you don't have Printer)
• ReadyBoost (If you don't use ReadyBoost feature)
• Remote Registry (Always disable it for Security purposes)
• Secondary Logon
• Security Center
• Server (If your computer is not connected to any network)
• Tablet PC Input Service
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service
• Themes ( If you use Windows Classic theme)
• Windows Error Reporting Service
• Windows Media Center Service Launcher
• Windows Search (If you don't use Windows Search feature frequently)
• Windows Time (If you don't want to update system tray clock time automatically)

PS: You can see the details of each service so that you can determine whether it should be disabled or not.

5. Type msconfig in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter. Now goto Startup tab and deselect the unnecessary entries, which you don't want to start automatically with Windows, e.g. you can disable VGA driver utility, Sound Card utility, etc to speed up the startup time and to increase system performance.

You can also disable these items using Windows Defender. Open Windows Defender and click on Tools and then click on "Software Explorer".

6. Open Sound in Control Panel (or type mmsys.cpl in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter), goto Sounds tab and select No Sounds in Sound Scheme section. Or you can remain some of your favorite sounds but set Exit Windows, Windows Logoff, Windows Logon and Start Navigation to (None).

Playing Windows Sounds, requires lots of processor time and memory, instead, it is advisable to have system sounds to off.

By now, your Windows Vista system should be working much faster than before.

But if you still want more optimisations, you can reach out to Third-party softwares, like:

• WinBubble
• TweakVI
• Yamicsoft Vista manager
• TweakVista
• DTweak
• Tuneup Utilities
• Vista Start++
• VistaTweaker
• XdN Tweaker
• TweakUAC
• Windows Sidebar Styler
• EasyBCD
• VistaBootPRO
• Stardock LogonStudio
• Windows Vista Boot Logo Generator Beta
• Folder Type Fixer
• Take Control
• MagicTweak

Finally, I advise that you defrag the HDD regularly, install only necessary software, use the latest drivers and keep your Windows updated.