THE WIKI COMMUNITY

Saturday, 7 August 2010

How To Tune Your Windows Vista Operating System For Performance

By Leo Sanders

If you have switched over from XP to Vista you surly will have known by now that Vista is much slower. This lack of speed has to do with Vista dedicating a lot of its resources to trying to "look pretty". Making the operating system look nice is great and all but when it comes time to actually get some work done it can be a huge problem. In this article I am going to show you two quick ways to make your Vista perform a it faster but you are going to have to be willing to sacrifice some of Vistas looks in order to get more function. Keep in mind that there really is no point in having your computer look really nice since you are the only person that is really going to be seeing it.

If you are using Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise or Ultimate, chances are that you have the Aero effect turned on. The Aero effect is designed to make your computer's windows have more of a glass like effect to them, which no one really needs at all. It also enables Windows Flip 3D which is something that no one really needs (if you don't know what Windows Flip 3D is, open a few windows, hold the Windows Button down and press the Tab button. You should be able to cycle through all of your currently opened windows in a fancy format). These features are really just pointless things that Windows has added to make your computer look really cool. Here's how to get rid of the Aero effect:

What your going to want to do now is to click Start, click on the Control Panel and then on the left hand side make sure that the Control Panel Home is selected. Now click on Appearance and Personalize, click on the Personalize link, click on the Windows Color and Appearance and at the bottom of the window select "Open classic appearance properties for more color options". A new window should appear and in this window where it has the Color Scheme drop down box just select Windows Vista Basic. Now click Apply and then OK and this should turn off the Aero effect.

One of the biggest features that Vista has that is pretty much useless is the sidebar. Unless you are actually using the Windows gadgets on the sidebar regularly then its probably best that you get rid of it. It literally serves no purpose to the average user except to make your computers desktop look nice. Here's the process:Right click on the windows sidebar icon in the System Tray and select the properties option from the drop down menu ( if your not sure what the system tray is, its that little group of icons in the bottom right hand corner). Now, in the Windows Sidebar Properties dialog box uncheck the box that says "Start Sidebar when Windows Starts" and select Apply and then OK. Now just right click on the Windows Sidebar Icon in the system tray again and select Exit.

By doing both of these things you have now freed up your computer of some resources which will allow you to get more work done faster.

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