Top 10 Windows Vista Speed Tweaks (Part II)

6. Turn off Windows Hibernation Windows hibernation background services can use a large amount of system resources. If you don’t use the Hibernate feature on a regular basis you may want to disable it to give Vista a performance boost. To disable Hibernation: Select the Control Panel then Power Options Click Change Plan Settings Click on Change Advanced Power Settings Expand the Sleep selection Expand the Hibernate After selection Crank the selector down to zero Click Apply

7. Turn off System Restore Analysis and restore point creation by Windows Vista can eat a fair amount of system resources. Disabling this service will obviously mean the system restore feature in Vista will not be available in the event of a system crash. Change this at your own risk. To disable this service: Control Panel > System Click System Protection on the left panel Uncheck the main system drive Agree to the confirmation

8. Disable User Access Control (UAC) This much-loathed new Vista feature attempts to protect your system from malware infection by making you manually confirm a whole host of everyday user operations. While it doesn’t directly impact performance, it can be annoying and might be more hassle than good. To disable User Access Control: Click Start then Control Panel Select User Accounts Select Turn User Account Control on or off Uncheck User Account Control Box Restart as recommended

9. Disable excess Windows Services that Auto-Launch at Startup Just like Windows XP, Vista ships with all kinds of services enabled that load at startup and may never be used by most users. To see what loads at startup and disable the ones you likely won’t be needing (they can always be started manually later): Click Start then Control Panel Select Administrative Tools Choose System Configuration Click the Services Tab You can safely deselect: Offline Files (unless you’re using Offline File Sync) Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC) Terminal Services Windows Search (If you have already disabled indexing) Fax (unless you’re using a fax modem)

10. Disable Excess Windows Features Windows ships with other features that are listed separately in the Vista operating system from the startup services. You can view and disable these features by: Clicking Start then Control Panel Select Program Features On the left panel, select Turn Windows Features on or off You can safely deselect: Indexing Service Remote Differential Compression Tablet PC Optional Components Windows DFS Replication Service Windows Fax & Scan (unless you use a modem for faxing) Windows Meeting Space (unless you use the Live Meeting Service)