As a technician in ComputerSquad (Geek Squad’s Competitor), one of the most common questions I encountered is “Why my computer is so slow?” Things tend to save and install into our computers from time to time, either we aware of it or not. These things (i.e. spyware) accumulate and eventually the computer performace deteriorates.

Windows Vista (Standard OS)

Windows Vista is a rather heavy operating system (OS) with many neat features, but unfortunately they all come at a price. Right out of the box it requires a pretty hefty system to run (arguably). 2GB of RAM is the minimum although some laptops equipped with only 512MB because to lower the price! Therefore, before you run out and buy a new computer just so you can run your base operating system, check out these 5 Simple Ways To Speedup Windows Vista tips to lighten the load. I have 10 Tricks but I will save some until next time, just absorb this 5 Tips first

1. Turn off UAC, or at least make it less annoying

Now, there’s ton to talk about the new user account control policy in Vista, and all I can say is: it annoys the hell out of me and slows down my normal computer usage. Do you realize it flash your video card to a black screen, take 5 seconds and really just make itself a royal pain in the arse? (I know this is all about security = BS)

1. To turn it off, the easiest way is to go into the Control Panel and type in ‘UAC’ into the search bar. It’ll bring up a search result of ‘Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off’. Just follow the prompts from there.
2. To keep UAC, let’s just turn off the crazy annoying blacking out screen bit. To do this:

• Open group policy (start | run | gpedit.msc)
• then navigate to Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options
• Find the policy named ‘User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation’. Set this to disabled.

2. Disable Aero

I personally do not do this just because this is one unique feature that’s distinct from XP, but I realize fancy feature comes with a price. It does tend to eat up both RAM and CPU usage - laptops battery seems to drain faster

I found a small tool (Vista Battery Saver) that toggles on and off Aero depending if you use battery or DC outlet.

If you do like it, at least turn it down a couple of notches. Some performance increases have nothing to do with strain on hardware, or amount of processing. Sometimes, things are designed to take longer than they should, though only maybe a fraction of a second, but the end result to the user is a faster machine. Minimizing and maximizing does an animation. Watch closely. Pretty quick eh? Still, it does slow you down, and, really, what does it add to your experience? I am all about vanity and aesthetics, but this feature has got to go.

4. Tweak Indexing Service

I personally don’t mind the new search too much. It still hogs a lot of resources though. To turn it off completely:

Go to my computer, right click on C: drive, go to the General tab, and uncheck Index this drive for faster searching, select Include subfolders and files.

5. Can’t search a word or phrase in a file? (But it’s there!)

It is often that I do searches for text in files or look for a keyword within folders which it’s hassle to open each document and search for the keyword. Here’s a solution:

• Open Control panel and type in ‘indexing’ into the search box (or you can do this from your start menu, but many people turn it off)
• Select ‘Indexing Options’
• Select Advanced Button
• Select ‘File Types’ Tab
• In this list you will see a list of extensions. When you click on most of them, the bottom radio button will change from ‘index properties only’ or ‘index properties and file contents’
• Uncheck a box to have it removed from search.
• Change the radio button to ‘index properties and file contents’ to have these file types included in your searches (should be set for word docs, etc and any other text-based files you search for)

Wow… this is the longest article so far. I promise to cut it shorter next time

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