Vista Too Slow? Try this

Now, all new PCs come with Windows Vista. They no longer come with XP. As many people know, Vista is a RAM hog, especially Vista Ultimate. All that means is just that it is really, really slow. Most computer people will tell you that in order to enjoy the speed of Vista, you need 2-3Gb of RAM. My XP computer was very fast with just 512Mb of RAM. This instructable is going to talk about how to "tweak" Vista to make it faster. Everything in this instructable is risk free so you dont have to worry about getting the BSOD

Step 1: Disable Transparency

Right click your desktop
Select Personalize
Choose Windows Color And Appearance
Uncheck Enable Transparency
Click OK

Comments

[Takelababy]

Thank you so much for this info. Youtube is much faster with the odd hesitation instead of numerous long waits.

[johnwalter629]

Thank you for the effort of sharing this helpful information to us. Many of us are actually having problems with our MS Vista PC and we need this. Ahm, I would just like to highlight that one way of speeding up your Vista PC is to clean Windows registry. Here are the steps for this based on a helpful resource: regcurelicensekeycode.com

1) Before manually cleaning a computer registry, create a backup file in case you accidentally delete necessary files.

2) You should establish a system restore point within the computer before running registry cleanup software or manually editing registry files.

3) Due to the sensitive nature of the computer registry, PC users should use a software application to clean the registry. Software programs, such as Regcure, TweakNow Regclean or Max Registry Cleaner, scan the registry to detect errors, fix system errors and help improve computer performance. However, you can also find some free registry cleaners on the internet.

[nbagf]

YAY IM THE 100th COMMENT WOOHOO

[dude111115]

Hey guys, i know a better way to make vista faster, and it works with xp too. make a system paging file, sso the computer can use it instead of some of the RAM ( i made it 60gb paging file and now my computer NEVER lags or slows down, i dont even have a dual core )

[junits15]

60 GB?! seriously?! You have to understand that even 64 bit windows can only have a max of 24GB ram. sou yo are wasting valuable disk space!  Also hard drives have I/O speeds much slower than RAM, so unless you have an SSD you wont see that much of a difference. Also by default windows automatically manages the page file, so you don't have to change anything.

[umer riaz]

how can we set paging file tell me plz

[a_asgari2007]

Hi,
can you please tell me how i can make my hp laptop ( vista home premium on it ) work faster.
i made a new instalation and now my internet explorer and other programs run so slow. How can i make the file you said?

[twocvbloke]

A paging file works even faster is you set it up on a second hard drive, one used solely for storage, that way windows (be it 95 or Vista) won't need to bounce the hard drive heads about on a single drive to load everything aswell as read and write to the PF... :) Believe me, it works!!! :D (and I'm a computer engineer, so do have experience of this)

[danger boy]

would this work if I set up a virtual drive on my real one and used that?

[munchman]

But, with a computer always accessing a paging file, you will eventually wear out the HDD and also fragment the drive. Besides, windows only resorts to a paging file once most of the memory is full.

[dude111115]

Yes, but heres how you avoid seriously fragmenting. you use prifiform defraggler ( the fastest defragmenter ) and defragment the drive, THEN you do the paging file. it doesnt wear out the drive, i've had a paging file of 60gb for 1 year, and sstill just as good. and with a SET paging file, windows wont need to resort to it, either way your computer will go faster, even when your not using all your RAM to have to need it.

[munchman]

Touché

[dude111115]

Haha, im only 12, but im a comptuer GENIOUS! lol, if you have anymore questions feel free to ask. ill respond when im done tormenting my computer by messing with it.

[jkawano]

I teach high school japanese (7th through seniors) but don't have any computer hot shots. my vista computer has slowed down, word perfect files open annoyingly slow and i think it's something that's happened over 2 years with windows. i'm not good enough to reformat and reload all my programs. i use mainly wordperfect and internet 500g hard drive with 350 free 3 g ram. do you have any suggestions? thanks, jon

[Gryphen]

Well if you need to be a genius to change a vista page file then I guess you need Einstein to use a command prompt or shell.

[Arbitror]

You must be a GENIUS!
_{^{P.S.
Genius is spelled G-E-N-I-U-S, not G-E-N-I-O-U-S!}}

[munchman]

_{Um... not meaning to be rude, but this is a pretty old thread for corrections now}

[Arbitror]

It's only a couple months old...

[munchman]

Oh I do not doubt your abilities, I am obviously not as experienced as you in the field of paging files. _{BTW, I have messed with my PC in the past. They tend to get angry.}

[dude111115]

thats funny. if you need help whe nyour gonna mess with your pc pm me, i can help you if u mess it up ( ive taken apart and put my computer back together several times already )

[Bluedove2897]

I've taken apart computers now I'm building one! and I'm only 12 aswell

[dude111115]

Ya, well i got Windows 3.1 and 95 on an ipod touch! so, i think this game is won. lol. i build PC's all the time with the money i make doing other things. hahaha my best friends payin my 10 dollars to put windows on his ipod too......

[machomanrandysavage]

you will always be a virgin

[Bluedove2897]

Who me or dude111115

[junits15]

 haha soo true!

[greenbean]

Ya, well I built a computer from scratch. I soldered the motherboard together on a generic circuit board. The thing is huge cause of the full sized transistors...there are 6000 of them. To processor was the toughest to make. For the hard drive I just used an SD card though....I didn't make that part... So anyways I'm a kid too so shut up and learn some manners. (And spelling) PS: I think me just putting windows ME on a router beats the ipod touch thing. That's a piece of cake! It's already a computer! All apple computers are windows compatible! A challenge would be to reverse it.... Make a pc run on mac.

[munchman]

Please, can everyone just stay calm! Great you are all capable, you all have experience. There is no 'war', you just all need to cool off and stop trying to better people. Sure, blow your own trumpet - but the way to show your skills isn't attempting to belittle people! So, can everyone please just calm down and agree that everyone here is experienced, no matter the age. PS, greenbean - google 'hackintosh'

[greenbean]

No way! Mac stole Intel! Hahaha thanks for updating my news reel. But why would anyone want to Mac-ify a perfectly good Windows system?

[munchman]

Thanks for the offer, however I do like to think myself capable.

[thefoodman]

 If you make your computer look like the classic windows it goes way faster.
 

[umer riaz]

tip 2 makes vista look like xp

[robot797]

does this keep the vista look?

[Fashim]

Im using Avast! AVG seems pretty good but i really want to know what the best Virus Scanner Program

[mychippy]

You might also want to try these tips:

http://windowsfixup.com/2009/03/five-real-ways-to-boost-windows-vista-performance/

[baneat]

The smartass answer to the question would be use XP, and I stand by it.

[IW5 Industries]

i agree

[maruseru]

second that.... (i'm a smartass :P)

[Tauro]

Good tips on vista performance. would like to come back again.

[ArisenProdigy]

Yeah... I've done all these. My 8 year old XP with less RAM and a Pentium 4 seems to do laps around my Vista Duo Core.

[techwalker]

I'm dual booting a Dell Inspiron 1420 its got a decent processor 2.2 ghz Core 2 Duo 4 GBs of ram, a 7200RPM hard drive, and a discreet Video card. It came with Vista Home Premium installed, I Loaded it up with programs and I have to say it runs very well. Just for grins I installed XP on a separate partition. XP runs quicker, but mainly because of the fact that it's pretty clean compared to the Vista partition. Getting rid of the crapware that comes with new PC's and updating your drivers will make Vista run pretty well. I remember putting XP on a Windows 98 machine, I hated it, it was slow I had to max out the ram to 256 MB which at the time cost a lot more than buying 4Gb's did for this computer ($59.99 after rebate). No, the more things change the more they stay the same. Vista is safer, than XP has a nicer GUI and has a lot of features I really enjoy. The one I'd miss the most is the start search which works great. I'd say 2GBs of ram and a dual core processor are needed for a decent experience with Vista the idea that it needs more resources than a 7 year old OS shouldn't be too surprising. The driver issues that plagued Vista for the first few months have been worked out, I'd say Vista is fine for any new machine, maybe not for an upgrade.