How I speed up Windows Vista
I was just reading How to speed up Windows Vista on tech.msn.com, written by Scott Dunn of PC World, and it got me thinking about what I do to get a more responsive system (anything to shorten those build+test cycles!)
1. I have a USB drive for Windows ReadyBoost. This one really makes a difference - when I need to repurpose the drive for something, I usually want to get it back as soon as possible.
2. Rather than disabling the Windows Sidebar, I've actually written a bunch of small gadgets that make me more productive. I have a little count-down thing that uses the speech automation API to remind when I need to interrupt myself for something; a very dense mini-app-launcher; and one that keeps track of the next bus I should take to get home (better for the environment than driving, you see). And a couple of others that haven't done so well (I also have a local HTML page with lots of scripting as my homepage, for Internet-related stuff). Sure, it's one extra process, but it more than makes up for it in productivity.
3. The defrag options are fine for me, but I guess your mileage may vary. I never found it to be a problem.
4. I carefully tweak the settings for Instant Search. There are parts of my disk that I never want to index - like large source trees that get updated all the time. And yet there are others that I desperately want to have available - I have daily OneNote work notes that have saved me many many times and are super-helpful.
5. Other things I've played with are visual settings (themes, 'extras' like pointer shadows or window resizing and so forth). To be honest, I keep going back and forth from one end to the spectrum to another, depending on how I'm feeling - sometimes I want every CPU cycle, sometimes I really feel I should be treating myself to the gorgeous UI Windows Vista has.
Well, those are the ones that come to mind. Tweak, personalize & enjoy!
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Comments
Anonymous
April 16, 2008
Another great option for speeding up your Windows Vista machine is reverting it back to Windows XP!Anonymous
April 17, 2008
Wow, I was expecting a lot more by the title of the post. This was completely useless.Anonymous
April 18, 2008
Care to share your "dense mini-app-launcher" gadget? Thanks, Eric