Vista Adventures Season 4: Speeding up Vista
How to speed up the performance of Vista? Simple…
1. Turn off Aero
Yes, you bought the upgrade for the pretty but it seriously lags your computer. I finally turned it off after yanking out wads of hair in frustration. Save your hair, especially if you’re a little short, and turn off Aero. Download some pretty themes instead.
Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> System and click that link at the very bottom called Performance. Choose Adjust visual effects and select Adjust for best performance.
2. Turn off Sidebar
Another pretty thing that sucks the speed from your computer. Turn it off. You lived 10 years without it, you’ll survive another 10 without it.
Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> Windows Sidebar Properties and unclick the Start Sidebar when Windows starts.
3. Use SeaMonkey
For some reason, Vista hates Firefox. It hangs, crashes, does everything bad it never did before. Or maybe not so surprising, considering Firefox is becoming the most popular browser around.
Solution: Use SeaMonkey instead. Download it here.
4. Cull your Startup programs
Remove stuff like Google Desktop et all, which you never used before Vista.
Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> System and click that link at the very bottom called Performance. Then select Startup Programs and sift through carefully.
Let me know if these help. After completing steps 1-4, mine certainly did. Only thing is now I have to move all my dang bookmarks to Seamonkey (which really should have rebranded itself since it still looks like Netscape… but that’s for another post).
Christina Sng worked as a web developer, information architect, account executive, producer, technical writer, and usability consultant in the 10 years (that's 30 years in Internet time!) she brought bread home. She has since retired to raise her children but still spends most of her waking hours on the net, no thanks to Apple. Here are some of her adventures.
