Optimizing Windows Vista Performance

I agree I made the mistake of taking off a perfectly good XP for this eye candy , sluggish buggy OS. Heard that if you try to re-install xp that vista still stays in the system ?If only I had gotten a MAC

Chris. For some time now Ive listened to your arguments about Apple vs. Windows Vista, and on many…if not all your statements are true.
Apple is better out of the box than any Vista PC on the market.
Just from what Ive seen first hand of the Apple market in the past that doesnt always guarentee a good supported end product in the future. Apple has products that work now. Vista has applications that ‘work’ but sometimes not or not fully effective. With a proprietary system, It is great for the layman user but if they decide to come out with a bigger or better model will current support still be there? Will Vista’s support still be there as well? I think thats something important in the current market and that is customer support. Will Microsoft continue to advance and support users needs and will Apple do the same?
Simply a microsoft user in the past, feels more comfortable with what they are using. It requires a mental leap inorder to go from Windows to Apple or Windows to Linux for that matter. Right now OSX is a far better and fully functional operating system than Windows Vista. But that doesnt mean that Im fully ready to make that leap to Apple when I feel comfortable in my environment. Can OSX/Apple guarentee that they are going to support my system a year later…two years later? Thats important to me and it should be important to any user of an OS>

Normally enjoy your posts.
The title of your article is totally misleading however. Guess you were going for hits.

Try this tweak for your memory, I am sure it will do the trick for you and any other user of Vista. The only area of the tweaked guide I needed to use started on page 3.

http://www.techspot.com/guides/72-windows-vista-memory-tweaking/

I surprised you didn’t just tell everyone to get.. the new Mac OS… because it came “straight from the loins of god… “

Chris,

I’m really beginning to tire of all of this **** you keep spouting about Vista. You have to be doing something wrong to have so many problems. I agree it wasn’t rock steady before the main consumer launch, but now it’s more than ready for a production/work environment. I’ve seen a massive boost in speed of programs on my machine over XP. Photoshop now loads in less than two seconds, and that’s with hundreds of extra fonts. Show me that on XP or OSX.

I wonder some of your readers don’t pop a live Linux CD in there and try that. Ubuntu is, of course, the distro of choice for most people now. In my experience it’s very stable, and usually fast even on oldish equipment. Off a live CD it’s not so fast, of course. But you do get to see if it’ll recognize your hardware, and if you like the environment, before installing.

I’m not saying that because I have some kind of a zealotry thing about Linux. I use Windows when it suits my purposes, too. And I’m actually more of a Mac than a Linux user, so I’m well aware that while Ubuntu is not a bad desktop, it’s no OS X! So I’m not making an open-source hard-sell. I just think, provided someone’s hard drive is big enough, there’s nothing to lose, since you can dual boot Windows and Linux. That way you’ve got a Windows partition for stuff that either doesn’t run, or doesn’t run out of the box, on Linux (iTunes, for example, or your DVD player) but the other partition for anything that does - Firefox, Evolution, Open Office, etc.

Totally agree with you, Vista in its current form is a dog.
I challenge any disagreers to try this. Copy the folders of a VCD to your hard drive & take a note of how long it takes. Then try it again in XP, you will be shocked to see how much longer it takes in Vista. For me, the difference was 5 whole minutes. 3.5 minutes for XP & 8.5 minutes for Vista.

It’s Mac (not MAC) & OS X (not OSX). Go look at Apple’s web pages if you don’t believe me. And no it’s not X as in X, it’s X as in ten. Steve thanks you.

Is the desktop search releated to indexing? I know it was a problem for some folks in XP, and as I was mucking around Vista I noticed a checkbox to disable indexing. Most likely that’s what the dude’s hard drive is doing in its spare time. Of course, the downside is searches may take longer, or maybe not. There are performance monitors in Vista that ought to show you what programs are doing what’s thrashing your disk and hogging CPU cycles, etc. Check the help menus in Vista for hints on where to find it.

Truth be told, Vista needs a service pack or two, and bad. Oh, I’ve heard that turning off the UAC stuff tends to speed things up too.

I remeber when I came to your site to get tips and tricks for issues. Now it is just a MAC ad.

Don’t get on chris he is responding to my email after all.

Doing something wrong?! I have been using Windows since Windows 3.0! I am in college for Computer Information Systems. I simply wondered if he knew of some tweaks. TURNS OUT I solved my performance issues before chris even wrote this blog. The culprit was exactly what he guessed. Windows Search. While it works great on my desktop back at home with a 500GB SATA HD it was a horrible performance decrease on my 160gb 5400RPM Laptop hard drive. I DID NOT install Vista just for the eye candy I like every portion of the operating system. I do think its a step forward for microsoft with a few bugs that need to be worked out. I have been running it on my laptop for a few weeks now after leaving XP. Do I regret it?

Yes and No. XP was (after disabling Windows Search) a little bit faster then Vista is. However that is to be expected since I bought a ‘lower end’ laptop for college since the chances of it getting broke, stolen, etc is a lot higher here on campus compared to a professional career or just home use. I have a desktop for back at home. I don’t miss XP really. I love how vista handles the users files compared to Windows XP. No more MY documents and MY computer and instead of all my folders (Downloads, Music, Video, Pictures, ETC) thrown into a huge mess in one folder it is now laid out nicely in one folder.. TheDub. I also like Vista’s start menu over Windows XP’s no more menus that pop out. So much easier to use on a touchpad compared to the expanding menus. I also love Aero. Yes this is eye candy not important but it looks professional and nice in my opinion and it makes Windows XP look … well boring. Downfall of Aero? Performance while on battery which scales down my cpu and gpu is horrible Power Management does not automatically accommodate for usage. If it was on High Performance when I unplugged it I have to manually change the power scheme or all my hardware stays on full blast sucking down battery.

I am NOT having Vista issues anymore. I am confused why my system was stamped with Windows Vista though… Its only a low level AMD Turion 64 x2 at 1.6ghz. Not super fast and until I tweaked it a little it had some performance issues. Look at what companies put vista on. Intel Celerons at 1.4ghz with 4200RPM HD’s, extremely low level graphics, and only 512mb RAM!?!?! Its no wonder so many people on the internet complain endlessly about vista being unbearably slow. If my system with 2gb of ram and a 5400rpm drive lagged with Windows Search enabled imagine those systems.

I don’t think it is as much the operating systems fault as originally thought. Windows XP needs to be licensed in the years to come for those 300 dollar laptops you see at best buy. I have removed windows vista on many dorm mates computers because they bought the SUPER CHEAP computer that should never have seen vista. PERIOD Home Basic is NOT a Low End System Operating System. Windows XP is PERIOD. Vista and XP almost can’t compare there they are just aimed at two different markets. Vista is the future and uses more resources while XP is the perfectly acceptable Operating System that should be used for the super low end 300 dollar budget laptops.

Seriously… what are the companies thinking… Vista on 512mb RAM!? Windows XP sometimes slows down if you’re a power user and do a lot of things at once… Something in this area seriously has to be done…

TheDub

In response to Nick. I have tried Linux. It just simply isn’t for me. There are a lot of things that I don’t understand and don’t want to understand. Especially on my laptop. Laptop computer for college. I want to take it to class. Open it up. and work! That’s it. When in my free time I don’t want to have to figure out my sound card, or this, or that, or this , or that. Linux isn’t a viable option for me. I do think that MAYBE someday it will be consumer level ready. …maybe.

My wife has a Laptop that came with Vista. She has had no unusual problems with it, but then she is not a power user. She uses the computer primarily to read email, and surf the WEB. She also stores family photos on it. The system is configured much as it was when she got it. Vista seems to work well pre-installed on a system used by a non-techie. Since I do system maintenance here, I am also happy with her experience.

I use Mandriva Linux as my production OS. When I work with her computer, the one thing I find most disappointing is Vista’s security implementation. UAC (User Account Control) is stupid. It does not remember if a program should be allowed. From my limited experience with Vista, it looks more like a third party add on or an afterthought kludged together rather than an integrated component of the OS. In my opinion, the only time a user should see such a ‘feature’ should be the first time an application is run, if one application is launched by another, or if the user did not select to remember the answer for this application (like Zone Alarm). I think I read somewhere that Vista is a ‘complete Windows rewrite’, but it feels more like just another cobble job to me.

Admittedly, I am a bit biased, so make your own decisions about my observations. I have used Linux since about 1998, and it has been my primary production OS for the past couple of years. I started with Windows and Linux in a dual boot configuration until a few years ago when I realized that I seldom used Windows except when I booted to it to do updates on the first of each month. At that point, I removed Windows from my hard drive and installed it in a Virtual Machine under Linux where it resides to this day. I run it to do updates each month, but the only other times I run it are when friends or associates using Windows call in need of help.

If you experience with Vista is similar to that of my wife, congratulations! If not, you have my sympathy,

Chris.

I cant agree on what you say about Vista. If everyone see that new operating system for the old one prospective it’s clear that Vista loose. But I use it from the CTP and despite some shortcoming in compatiblity and performance the usability advance are a quantum leap. No one mention the new performance reporting tool: you can know what piece of software is taking down perfomance even drivers. Or can someone take the time advantage that you get everytime you search something in you enormous HD, even the Control Panel applets are faster than ever to find. Yes this cost something. You must buy a new machine that score from 4 to 5 in the performance index score of Vista. Can you use google desktop, play a DVD, and record a Live TV Show with Xp? The aswer is no, no way. Can you simply Cancel the opening of a folder when this is big? (I/O cancellation) Vista is just the beginning and we must learn new way to do our task. Same discussion have occurred at the lauch of XP. It’s only a matter of time.

Chris do yourself a favor and read the following article
“The Worst Things about the Macs”…..

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2193639,00.asp

I am sorry to say chris because i have watched you since Sceensaver days , and must say you are becoming exactly like what the article describes. Think about some of your most recent articles and being easily “wowed” by certain features of Apples new OS. I am not sure you even used those features before being wowed.

Vista has many features, but you have ignored them. If You find any problems (Many vista users dont have) you magnify them and seem to want to jump on the oh so popular, bash windows bandwagon. Many windows haters have never even used or spent any real time using vista. I like the people that have said “after 30 minutes i knew vista sucked, and so i went to buy mac or went back to XP” ….

Vista has a awesome search, reporting tools, installation was a breeze and media center is also a great, ..the UAC is good for security . even though some people find it intrusive. Apple has something like vistas UAC but on apple its called a “Feature”.
pcmag columnist has a article entitled “I found Vistas wow”
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2193575,00.asp
since it was a positive article on a HD def media maker , he was verbally abused by many apple/linux users .

I find Vista is very snappy on my 2 gig system. yes chris i am a power user well maybe not like you but still i dont have any of your issues. I have 4 networked computers in my house 2 are Vista and 2 are XP machine , great for lan parties .

Also my Vista machines have never crashed yet like xp (BSOD). Old hardware and software running great . some games needed to be run under xp compatibility mode. Some new users dont use that mode and just figure that product wont work. I know none of this wont change yours or anybodys thinking but i wanted you and your readers to know there are plenty of Vista users that are very satisfied with their O/S … But seriously you seem to have become more of a spokesperson for apple more than anything else…. Take Care

I posted earlier but I guess nobody has verified it yet. Anyway, I think that Windows Vista has the potential to be as good as Mac OS X, it has lots of great features. I have personally felt that Leopard is simply a glorified way of doing normal things, and, to be honest, I am not sure that many people are going to use all the extra features that it offers. Vista is, in my eyes, and possibly many peoples eyes, has just one major flaw, which is the stability (that is non-existent). All I hope is that this doesn’t turn into a Mac vs PC debate, as there will be no winner, they are both good for certain things.

Chris, I use both Mac and Vista, and I find Vista to be quite fast. I have a dual core middle of the road intel laptop and Vista is just as fast as any version of XP I have tried. The sleep settings work fine and I find it ironic how guys like you and Leo trash Vista, while all the time plicking away on your Macs, biased as can be. Its a Mac ad site just like Leos. The facts are 95% of people at home choose PCs, its time experts realized thats the market

To TheDub

If you are a long time windows user, you should know that computer makers will stick anything on the boxes to say its XP ready or Vista ready, even if its a low end laptop. Its up to the buyer to know that you need a half decent computer, the manufacturers will stick anything on a box for a sale, it was done with 3.0, and everything including Vista. Most of the people who have problems with Vista simply dont take the time to get a decent system that can Vista properly

It’s interesting how with each new version of OS X your Mac runs just about as fast and efficiently as before. With Windows each new version just seems bloated and demanding of more and more of your PC’s resources. For my wife’s laptop we’re sticking with XP even though she got a free “upgrade” to Vista from Dell. Me, I’m very happy with my MacBook and only run Windows in Parallels for those Windows apps I just can’t do without.

Hey Chris, I found this article awhile back over at CNET, http://speed-up-vista.classes.cnet.com/ , and it has improved my few year old computer running Vista Ultimate, maybe not a huge amount, but it did help improve performance.

And for the person who talked about the hard drive going crazy ALL the time he is not alone mine did too, well until I turned off some indexing, now I just index start menu shortcuts mainly because that is all I search for most of the time, but I did leave restore points and shadow copy mainly because sometimes I accidentally delete something or my computer crashes, cough NVidia’s latest driver corrupted all my other drives so nothing worked cough.

But I really do hope SP1 will fix some of the problems, isn’t that what they are for? And if it doesn’t I may find myself switching to the new Mac OS X Leopard even though I have been a huge Windows user for a long time.

I posted an emailrecently from TheDub, I received a lot of negative feedback. My answer remains: if your laptop doesn’t run well after upgrading to Vista, you can always go back to XP. TheDub also sent me a new email, telling me about a free tool to help with Vista

I have been using Vista for about 3 months now and believe it or not I still haven’t had any problems with it! I’m starting to get tired of all these Microsoft bashing articles! I’m not saying that no one is having a problem with Vista but I really think that most of the problems out there are due to hardware manufacturers and their poor drivers.

And yeah this website is nothing but a Mac add.

I am a very happy user of Windows XP Pro. Where my factory is located, my PCSs are wired through LAN with a network hub and I share a dialup CDMA connection from one PC to the others. I also connect my Windows XP laptop to this network. Files and Printers and Internet share without problem with TCP/IP and NetBIOS (just in case the comp having internet is turned off). My broblem started when I got this Lenovo Y500 776147Q Laptop with Vista Home Basic. I am not able to set a home network and there is virtually no option to connect on LAN. When I attach the cable it acquires the IP from the PC having internet but no other PCS are visible or even the shared printers. In XP we used to search the computer by its name by Start > Run > \\computername and we used to get the list of all the Files and shared printers on that PC. In Windows Vista Home Basic this feature is missing. With cmd we can ping the ip addresses albeit with 50% loss. I am also having difficulty running the CDMA PCMCIA Data Card even with drivers the ISP says is for Vista. The software accompanying the drivers do not run and I have to use the dial up of vista which functions erratically. Are there any known fixes for this.

[...] Optimizing Windows Vista Performance October 24, 2007 - 4:00am My problem with recommending Windows Vista is that many of its features are considered bugs by a good portion of the community. Doesn’t that say it all? (…)   [...]