Fix Windows Vista Errors

For those of you that haven’t yet heard of the Mojave Experiment - it’s a pretty cool little marketing trick that Microsoft put in action a few weeks back. What Microsoft did was get a bunch of users from all different platforms, and gave them a demo of their new operating system “Mojave”.  The trick was that they were actually just demonstrating Windows Vista.

There was very positive feedback from the experiment with over 90% of the users finding it very impressive. Even though these users had heard bad things about Vista, they were impressed when they finally saw it in action.

While I also believe Windows Vista is a decent operating system, the only drawback I am still having issues with is the speed. After rolling out three new PCs last week, all with state of the art hardware, all users came back with complaints on the  performance.  I guess we will have to wait and see what lies ahead, but I personally am getting tired of doing Vista to XP rollbacks.

We just posted some great tips on how you can speed up Windows Vista yesterday, but lets look even further at some more optimization techniques for Vista.

Unfortunately most users have not been too satisfied with the performance of Vista, and we have certainly seen some lacklustre performance even on high quality hardware. It seems kind of a shame to have to turn off all the new features in Vista just to be able to use it without some serious slowness.

Anyway, these tips are straight from Microsoft, so hopefully they will help you out in getting more from Vista. We ran these on our test machine and the performance was pretty good. The estimated gain was around 15-20%.

Windows Vista Optimization Tips

• Limit startup programs. Edit the startup config and don’t run anything you don’t need. This one can be a big timesaver
• Delete software/programs you never use. This one is pretty obvious, but most users don’t do this. So do it now.
• Defragment your hard drive. This helps speed up drive access and program access.
• Clean up your hard disk. Another pretty obvious one, just make sure you do it.
• Run less programs at the same time. In the age of multi-tasking this one can limit productivity, but try it if your performance is poor.
• Turn off visuals. We have discussed this before - turn off Aero and other fancy stuff.
• Add more RAM. Another one discussed previously. Try it after you have tried all of the other tweaks.
• Disable unnecessary services. Just turn off any service that you don’t need. You would be surprised by how many silly services are running in the background hogging your valuable resources.
• Check for spyware and adware. Spyware, adware or malware can seriously affect performance. Run a spyware scan now.
• Install updates. Install Windows updates and driver updates for your software and hardware.

You can find the full source of the article here. We hope this helps you get some extra performance out of Windows Vista.

Many people since upgrading from XP to Windows Vista have complained that their computer seems sluggish and they actually preferred XP. This isn’t due to any major fault in Vista, it is just that you need to alter and tweak your PC so that it can handle Vista.

This can take only 10 minutes of work but when it is done your computer will run much faster, and you will get to appreciate some of the great features that come with Windows Vista. Just follow these points and you will boost your Vistas speed;

Run a Vista Registry Clean

Like in Windows XP your Windows Vista registry can become so full and chocked up so quickly that it will dramatically slow down the performance of your computer, so run this scan and improve your Vista’s speed - run a free vista registry scan.

ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is a new but innovative feature on Vista, essentially you can use any data stick to increase your RAM. To run ReadyBoost just insert a flash drive and select ReadyBoost.

Turn off Your Aero Desktop

Aero Glass is a great feature on Windows Vista but it also can slow down your PC if you are not running a massive amount of RAM and using a great video card, so basically I recommend that you just turn off Aero. To turn off Aero just;

• Right click your desktop
• Click personalize
• Click windows color and appearance
• If the appearance setting box shows up you are probably not running Aero (but you can check this from the list)
• If you see the windows color and appearance box then click the open classic appearance link
• In the color scheme drop down click windows vista basic
• Click apply (could take a few seconds)
• Now click OK and you are done

Increase Your RAM

Basically if you are running Windows than I have just one word for you - RAM. On XP you could get away with running 512mb of RAM on your PC but if you have ungraded to Vista then you need at least 2GB of RAM to get any decent performance out of your computer.

Upgrade Your Windows Vista Drivers

If you upgraded your computer from XP to Vista then you will need to also update all your drivers. Just run this scan and it can update all your Vista drivers for you - Update Your Drivers

Run an Adware/Spyware Scan

As we all know one of the biggest problems with any PC’s performance can come from the dark arts of the internet world, that is spyware and adware. If you think you PC is running slow then you should run a scan to see if you are hosting any adware/spyware and to remove any trace of it. Your Windows Vista will run much faster if you clean your machine totally of these dangers.

Run a free adware/spyware scan for Windows Vista

More Information on Windows Vista

If you want more information on how to improve your Windows Vista performance read this - speed up Windows Vista

Did you ever want to change your desktop icons in Vista but haven’t been able to work out how to do it, well here is an easy way you can do it;

• Right click on your desktop
• Select personalize
• Click change desktop icons
• Select the icon you want to change
• Click change icon
• Now select the new icon you want
• Click OK and you are done