Windows Vista is a rather sleek operating system.  But like many Windows products Vista’s main downfall is the huge number of generic programs and options that are scattered within its Control Panel.  Most of the se Vista Options Can be Changed to Speed up your computer for free!

First Things First.

In Windows there a fair number of programs that sit in the background and for most people will do absolutely nothing.  This includes things like Fax tools, Tablet PC Compatibility, UNIX Application Compatibility and the like.

These can easily be disabled by going to your control panel and clicking ‘Uninstall or Change a Program’.  In the Tasks Pane on the left you will see a text link called ‘Turn Windows Features On or Off’

This will bring up a list of basic windows programs that are automatically loaded with windows.  Disabling these can speed up both your Windows Vista Startup Time and Vista overall performance.

Once you have done this you can take a more in depth look at the programs starting with windows.  To do this click the start button and type services.msc

Here you will see a list of more detailed services on your computer, these can be harder to decipher, but most have good descriptions.  If you see something that you are not too sure of then you can usually find an answer by having a quick search on google for its program name.  In nearly all cases though you can disable things such as Windows Error Reporting, tablet PC Input, Remote Registry and Distributed Link Tracking Client.

Be careful what you disable however as there are some integral services that are required for Vista to run on these lists.  It is a good idea to keep track of what you disable so you can re-enable it if required!

Another good place to check for erroneous startup items is in MSConfig.  Again, you find this by clicking start and typing msconfig.  A box will come up (The same as in Windows XP)

To speed up your windows boot time here you can click on startup and remove any programs that you do not want loading automatically with windows.

Disabling these will not disable the program, it just means it will load when it is needed, not on Vista Startup.  This will greatly increase your loading speed.

Readyboost is the next feature you MUST look at to experience a much faster boot times for Vista.  Readyboost is a unique Vista feature that turns any USB flash device into ‘extra memory’.  While it will not be as fast or as effective as internal memory it will help speed up your computer at a relatively cheap price!

This will not only increase the speed windows loads but it will also increase the overall performance of your PC!