Vista Tutorial - Setting Up Vista for Speed Guide

STEP 1

Install Vista by following one of the guides below:

Clean install from an Upgrade Disk
Clean install with a full version of Vista

Then download and install Vista Service Pack 1

Vista 32 bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone
Vista 64 bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems

Then download and install Vista Service Pack 2

32bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Five Language Standalone
64bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems

Once Vista and both service packs are installed and you are at the desktop, install only your Security software (eg Anti Virus, Firewall etc) and update them.



Now that Vista and your Security software are installed perform the following 4 steps to reduce compatibility issues and improve Vista performance.

STEP 2

Update all your drivers in the following sequence. If you are unsure of what drivers you need and where to get them then open a new help topic in the Drivers Forum.

Mainboard drivers.
Video card drivers.
ACPI drivers and hotfixes (if applicable).
Sound card drivers.
LAN, WLAN, Bluetooth, etc., all the rest.

STEP 3

Update the components that are already a part of Vista. Run "Windows Update" and install all "Important" and Recommended" updates then reboot. Then install the updates listed below and reboot before running "Windows Update" again and installing all "Important" and "Recommended" updates.

Windows Installer
DirectX (You need this whether you running DirectX 9, 10 or 10.1)
.NET Framework
C ++ for Vista 32 bit
C ++ for Vista 64 bit

STEP 4

This step involves cleaning up some rubbish files in Vista left over by installers etc. and defragging the hard drive for better performance. Download and run this Utilities.zip which contains three shortcuts.

Run one at a time and when each shortcut is running be patient and don't use your pc as the DISKCLEANUP shortcut is removing unneeded files from your pc and the DEFRAG shortcuts are doing a more thorough defrag than the standard vista defrag so it may take a few hours depending on your hard drive size. Once the last shortcut has finished, reboot your pc

STEP 5

This step is to check your RAM and Hard drive to make sure they are working properly. First you should check you RAM for errors by clicking the vista start orb and typing in the search bar MdSched then hit enter then click on restart now.

You can now check your hard drive for errors by clicking on the vista start orb and then clicking on Computer. You then right click on your hard drive and click Properties. Next go to the Tools tab and under Error Checking click on Check Now and tick both the boxes. Then click Start and reboot your pc.




STEP 6

OK you've done the steps above which have reduced compatability errors, improved security and given a small boost to performance. The next step is to install everything you want. Install all your programmes, games, pictures, movies, music etc that you want making sure you dont install any of the following on your pc:

1. anything by google eg google desktop, google chrome etc
2. any browser toolbars eg google toolbar, yahoo toolbar etc
3. cCleaner, RegCure etc as they are junk.
4. visual themes like WindowBlinds etc as these overwrite key system files and can cause damage and will effect system performance

STEP 7

With the above steps all completed you can now begin using your pc or you can continue with this guide and tweak Vista for some improvements in speed.

This tweak reduces shutdown speed from 20 seconds to 2 seconds. Download and install the .reg file from here :Shutdown then reboot your pc.

Next download TuneUp America - Download and then run it and on the very first page of Tune Up Utilities it gives you recommendations, ignore these for just now. Click on the Increase Performance tab and then the Startup Manager. You want to delete every entry until you have around 5 or less entries. If you are unsure of an entry then set it to disabled and restart your pc and see if you can live with out it. When you are sure, delete the entries. Now click on the vista start orb and type in the search bar prefetch and delete every single entry and close that window.

Go back into Tune Up Utilities and click the Free Up Disk Space and delete as much as you can. Then click on the Clean Up Windows tab and click on the registry cleaner and do a full scan and delete everything it comes up with (dont worry about this as it creates a backup and in two years of using it iv never seen an entry appear that shouldnt) Once you've done that reboot your pc then open Tune Up Utilities again and click the Increase Performance tab and click the Registry Defrag.

Once thats run open Tune Up Utilities again and go to the Clean Up Windows tab and click on 1-click Maintenance and allow it to run then reboot Vista once its finished and corrected the problems.

Next open Tune Up Utilities again and click on the Customize Windows tab and click on System Control. Navigate through the options here changing each one to how you would like Vista to operate then click Apply and then OK and reboot. Open Tune Up Utilities again and hide any of its recommendations you dont want to use, especially ones relating to shutdown. For instance i have 2 recommendations hidden under speed and 4 under health as i dont want to use there recommendation for them. Close Tune Up Utilities as you are now finished with that.

STEP 8

Change the amount of virtual memory you use to a fixed size.

1. Open Control Panel then System and Maintenance then System.
2. In the left Tasks click on Advanced System Settings.
3. You should come to Advanced tab. In Performance section, click on Settings button.
4. Click on Advanced tab.
5. In the Virtual Memory section, click on Change button.
6. By default, “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” setting is selected so that Windows Vista system can manage the paging file without user’s interruption so uncheck the check box of Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.
7. Select and highlight the appropriate drive that you want to change the paging file settings under the box of “Drive [Volume Label]“.
8. To fix a permanent size for the paging file, click on Custom size button, and set the values of Initial Size (MB) and Maximum Size (MB). Both values can be of same size to make the size of pagefile.sys static. I suggest going for a size of over 8 gigs. So if you have 2 gigs of ram installed set the Initial size and Maximum size to 6144. If you have 4 gigs of ram then use 4096 and so on but no matter the amount of ram you have installed you should never go beneath 2048.Then click on the Set button.

STEP 9

By default Vista does not enable write caching for SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives or advanced performance for SATA or ATA drives. To improve your data retrieval speed you must enable the write caching and advanced performance by doing the following:

1. Click the vista start orb and then click on Computer
2. Right click on your hard drive and select Properties
3. Click the Hardware tab then select your Hard drive and click Properties
4. Click on the Policies tab.
5. Check the Enable write caching on the disk box and check the Enable Advanced performance box then click OK.

STEP 10

Vista search index constantly reviews files on your PC to make their contents available for quick searching. This is a feature i dont need as it impacts on system performance by causing the hard drive to run more often which generates heat, wastes energy, creates noise and reduces hard drive performance. Disable it by doing the following:

1. Click on the vista start orb then click on Computer
2. Right click on the hard drive and click on Properties.
3. Uncheck the Index this drive for faster searching box then click on Apply.
4. Next select Apply changes to drive, subfolders, and files and click on OK
5. Click on the Ignore All button for the Error Applying Attributes window
6. This will take a while but when its finished click on OK

STEP 11

Using the link below, disable only the services you will not be using. If you are unsure of an item set it to manaul. On my pc i have 38 services set to automatic with not a single one set to Automatic (Delayed Start). Only 20 services are disabled with all the rest set to manaul. This is probably the biggest boost to pc performance there is, so try and get the least amount you need set to Automatic.
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Service Configurations by Black Viper

STEP 12

Set your pc to High Performance. This will allow your CPU to operate up to it's full 100% instead of the default 50% in the other Plans.

1. Click the vista start orb and then type in the search bar Power Options and hit enter
2. Select High Performance then click on the Change plan settings link under the power plan.
3. Click on Change advanced power settings.
4. Tweak it to what you want then click Apply then OK
5. In the window thats still open click Save changes then reboot

STEP 13

This tweak enhances the stability of Vista by opening every folder in a separate part of memory.

Click the Starb Orb and then click on Computer. Click on the Organize button and then choose Folder and Search Options.When the Folder Options multi-tabbed dialog box appears, click the View tab then check Launch folder windows in a separate process. Click OK to close the dialog box.

STEP 14

Speed up the boot time by lowering the default amount of time it displays the operating system selection during boot up.

1. Click the Start Orb and type in the search bar msconfig and hit enter
2. Click on the Boot tab.
3. In the Timeout field, enter the number 3
4. Check the Make all boot settings permanent box and click Yes to confirm.
5. Click on the Restart button.

STEP 15

The final step is to ensure your pc will run better. Type prefetch into the vista start orb search bar and delete all the files again.. Run the disk cleanup from the Utilities.zip and delete all the files. Run the boot defrag again followed by the defrag all files shortcut.

Finally right click on your desktop and select New then Shortcut. In the location box type: C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks and then click on Next. Then click on Finish. You have just created a shortcut that when you run it will tell vista to complete all its tasks now.

Double left click on it and dont touch your pc for at least 30 minutes to ensure its finished running. Once thats done reboot your pc and enjoy using Vista for fun stuff again.

Thank you Stew for the guide, will try it in next clean install. Good job.

Cheers...

Cheers Martee

What's up with the "prefetch" folder in STEP 7? I'd just like to know what's in it, what it's for, and why I'm deleting it. o.O

Can I make a zip file (copy) of it just incase or is their nothing to worry about?

Thers nothing to worry about. Just select all the files in the folder then delete them ( you can back them up if you really want), vista will then start adding in new files to that folder.

Basically each time you turn on your computer vista keeps track of the way your computer starts and which programs you open. Windows saves this information as a number of small files in the prefetch folder. The next time you turn on your computer, vista refers to these files to help speed up the start process and applications.

When you are installing programmes etc the installers gets added to the prefetch folder, programmes you've uninstalled are still in the prefetch folder etc. When installing the OS or if its never been done on an existing OS i recommend you clean the prefetch folder so that it starts of clean and only adds into the prefetch what is currently on your pc.

Thanks. May I ask what college, if any, you went to to learn these things? I plan on AT&T or Devry. I'm going to be a Junior when school starts again... yay.

Im self taught over the years. My dad owns a business and had problems with his pc's when i was growing up so i set about learning how to fix, maintain and build them.

Im actually in the construction industry now and deal with audio problems when constructing a building, which is probably why im so overly pernickety when it comes to do something.

wil my system crash if i follow the above settings. I own a laptop and would like to keep its original settings

hi lagriek, if your not confident then you can just do steps 1 to 6. Those are the steps that set up vista and your programmes, update the components and check for ram and hard drive errors.

Step 7 onwards are performance tweaks and if you are unsure of applying them then just google what iv written so you can find out more about each tweak and if you want to apply it. For example step 10 is disabling the search index so just google disable vista search index

I apply every tweak as they do improve performance but its up to you.

You do not reccommend CCLEANER?..Why?