Last Updated on Monday, 28 December 2009 11:46 Friday, 04 September 2009 08:37

Q: Windows Vista/7 is so slow, what can I do to speed it up?

A: If you're one of the vast majority of people who has no choice but to live with Windows Vista or Windows 7, sometimes slow performance can be frustrating. There are a few basic things from past versions of Windows that still improve performance in both Windows Vista and 7 (in order of importance):

• more memory
• more disk space
• faster processor and video card

First, for business use Vista Business is, not surprisingly, the best choice. Don't be tempted to save money by getting a computer with Vista Home because you'll pay for it later with the limitations. In the opposite direction, there's no need to go overboard by getting Vista Ultimate since it includes a lot of resource hogging features and candy that just aren't needed in a business environment.

As far as memory, no matter what any sales guy tells you, any 32-bit Vista Business computer will seriously underperform with less than 3 gigabytes of memory. 2 gigabytes of memory will work if you use only one or maybe two application in Windows at a time, but for most business users that doesn't apply. For 32-bit Vista, around 3 gigabytes of memory is the maximum it can use. Although you can install 4 gigabytes, for technical reasons it will only see from 2.5 to 3.5 gigabytes. Any 64-bit Vista computer used for business should have at least 4 gigabytes of memory, because its main advantage over 32-bit Vista is that it can address up to 128 gigabytes of memory. Anything more than 3 to 4 gigabytes will work and will only make it faster.

On disk space, of course you should get as much as you can, especially with laptops since they are more difficult to upgrade. The more disk space you have, the more room Vista has to work with.

On the processor and video card speed, it's generally not as important as the other two when it comes to business uses, but you should try to get as fast as possible, taking the cost into consideration. Of course, for certain users and applications, those speeds can be much more important, like for engineering, graphic-intensive, or accounting/number-crunching applications. For those more specialized users you have to invest in the hardware that will give the most performance for your money.

Other than those basics, Vista does include one interesting new technology that has been tested to significantly improve performance: ReadyBoost. Basically, adding flash storage to your Vista computer, like the cards used in digital cameras, can speed up disk operations, especially in Vista computers with less memory. Suitable memory cards can be had for as little as $20.

Lastly, the following are more technical and specific fixes for one of the most common performance complaints about Vista: copying and deleting files and folders on your local disks or to and from a file server takes forever compared to Windows XP. After doing the following, reboot your computer, and copying or deleting files will, at a minimum, be several times faster than before:

1. In Windows Vista go to the Control Panel, open Programs and Features, on the left side of the window click the link "Turn Windows features on or off", then in the listing uncheck Remote Differential Compression, and click OK.
2. In a Windows Vista command prompt, type each of the following commands (and press the Enter key after each command) to turn off Windows Vista TCP/IP auto-tuning:
   • netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled
   • netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Both are Vista "features" designed to make file copy operations with servers faster, but for some reason they also affect local file copy and delete operations. Testing has shown these changes increase file copy and delete speeeds by 4 to 60 times or more. If however, for some reason, you want to enable the features again, simply reverse #1 by checking the checkbox, and reverse #2 by typing each command again with "enabled" instead of "disabled".

Both of these tips are confirmed as working in Windows 7, also, because the problems still exist.

If you have any other complaints or problems with Vista not covered here, we'd be happy to hear from you.