Optimising Vista?

[weEvil]

disable all of the entries. if they're needed then enable them one by one. i'm pretty sure the alps device is just a toobar notifier, the device driver would be elsewhere on the system and can only be disabled by device manager.

are you using the google mail notifier? on the toobar.

that's the only one i would keep.

also, do you have the vista sidebar disabled? check your toolbar tray for this. its got a little logo of a gear, and it has that black gradient on the right side of the desktop.

[dbu]

You can disable some features like System Restore, Indexing, Windows Defender, and others.

Defrag all disks (if more than one), install CCleaner and remove all the crap inside

If you want more, disable Desktop Composition (Aero) and choose Classic theme.

As you know, these tweaks only help a little bit, maybe the main problem is the RAM on your computer. 4GB is pretty cheap already!

[minotaur]

Hi, thanks for all the replies.

I have tried defragmenting and it's currently set to do it every Wednesday.

Here are the specs:

Vista SP1

Home Premium

1.83GHz Core 2 Duo

2GB RAM

120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s

Mobile Intel 965

Now, I've turned on Aero basic so it's not taxing the GPU so much but what else can I do?

Those are decent specs to run Vista. When I had Vista 32 bit HP, I used to run it on a similar system, but with recent upgrades to 3 GB RAM and 500GB drive.

The extra 1 GB of RAM was very beneficial.

The larger drive was also very helpful since it was faster. But 120GB should be more than okay.

As for the rest of the stuff, some simple system maintenance may help.

-Disable unwanted background startup applications and processes that use a lot of CPU/RAM as suggested by the posters above.

-Run a full virus scan with latest definitions files. Same for spyware/trojans. I used to use AVG 8 and Spybot S&D on Vista, both worked great.

-Run a disk cleanup using the built-in utility. This won't help performance wise, but may clear up some disk space which is always good.

-Run a full disk defrag including defragging the MFT and page file if they are fragmented. Use a good defragmenter like Diskeeper. The free trial versions for the 2009 editions can now be downloaded from their site. Use it and defrag the drive....Diskeeper will do it really well.

Good luck.

[wajed]

I bet you have a worm/virus on ur machine..

"The HD will also definately be a bottle neck for you, 5400 rpm's are very slow, if possible look for a 7200 RPM drive replacement (or Solid state disk if you are feeling lucky )"

I`ve got a 5400 rpm HDD.. I`m 100% satisfied with it.. (I have vista)

[Andromeda43]

But sir,,,,,the question is not what YOU are satisfied with.....the question is what can the original poster do to speed up his VERY SLOW PC.

Vista by its very nature is a huge resource hog. It puts demands on CPU, RAM and HD like we've never seen before in any OS.

Two gigs of ram is the sweet spot for a system running XP, but Vista needs more. (three gigs at least)

Also, Vista comes out of the box with a HUGE number of services running in the background.

Check the "Black Viper" website for services that you can either shut down completely or put into Manual

mode, to lessen the load on the cpu and ram.

From that list, I've written a batch file to shut down almost 40 redundant services in Vista (and about 20 in XP).

Then that 5400 rpm (SATA1) HD is definitely a bottleneck to performance.....it's doubtful you're going to change it, so you need to limit how many times the OS has to access it.

Getting the Kernel loaded into ram during the boot up process helps a LOT!

There's a simple registry tweak to do this.

Finally, the glitzy Vista theme "Areo" is a resource hog too. I set all menu's and windows to Classic.

My customers upgrading from a '98 or XP machine, appreciate this very much.

It makes Vista look much more familiar to them and it also appears to improve performance.

All in all, I can make Vista run every bit as good as XP, even on the same PC.

I run both on my own PC so I can compare the two. I have three gigs of DDR2 ram.

XP experienced a big jump in performance when I went from one gig of ram to two gigs.

Going to three gigs made NO difference to XP , but it sure did for Vista.

I'm running Vista Ultimate, 32bit.

Vista creates a lot of 'bloat' on the HD. So, keeping the HD clean and defragmented is

very important for best performance.

For years, I've put a Cleanup batch file in my Startup folder for some free HD maintenance

every time I boot up my PC. That absolutely precludes the buildup of junk files on my HD.

Then once a week, I do a more extensive cleanup, including Windows own "Disk Cleanup" and

Defrag.

You can run Disk Cleanup in a much more inclusive mode, by using this shortcut to run it.

%SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:35 & Cleanmgr /sagerun:35

Copy and paste that shortcut into a new desktop shortcut, for a much better HD clean up, without having to install any additional software on your PC.

The first time you run the "Extended" Disk Cleanup, you will need to put a check mark in the boxes next to all the things you want it to remove. I just check everything, except, "Setup Log files".

Remove those and you won't be able to UN-Install any programs. So leave that box UN-Checked!

After setting up a Vista or XP PC for my customers, I never get that "It's running so slow" comment.

There is NO replacement for good system maintenance.

Happy Holidays Mates!

Andromeda43 B)

[knowitall_wannabe]

With the suggestions of getting a 7200RPM drive, I agree with that completely. Not only is the RPM faster but the transferring rate is twice as much as a 5400. Popping in a WD Black Scorpio 320GB 7200RPM blew some major sunshine up Vista's a**.