How To Speed Up A Slow Vista Laptop

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No matter how good you are about keeping your computer clean and up-to-date, they tend to slow down after time. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to help speed them up― without upgrading your hardware.

A slow computer can be a really annoying problem. We live in an age where we are accustomed to our electronic devices cooperating with us. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems as though they are actually working against us and if you have ever had a computer start to act up and run really slowly, you know exactly what I am talking about.

Original product version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1
Original KB number: 3064207

Note

If you are an advanced user, you can download a free tool from the Microsoft website that shows you all of the programs and processes that run when you start Windows, including the ones that Windows requires to operate successfully. Use this tool only if you are comfortable restoring Windows after an error occurs.

Open the Control Panel, find the list of installed programs, and uninstall programs you don’t use and don’t need from your PC. This can help speed your PC up, as those programs might include background processes, autostart entries, system services, context menu entries, and other things that can slow down your PC. Next, click ‘Troubleshoot computer problems’ and follow the on-screen instruction to attain a solution to your current problem. Your Turn: You made it all the way until the end. This article was all about Windows Tips & Tricks where we have shared Top 25 Tricks on How to Speed Up Your Slow Windows PC. Registry problems will result in system slowness/ freezing-up/ crashes, the improper/ failure running of applications, numerous popping-up errors messages when using the computer. All of these will greatly slow Vista speed. The best way to speed up slow running PC is to scan and fix the registry errors with a reliable registry cleaner.

Uninstall extra antivirus programs

If you use more than one antivirus or antispyware program at the same time, your device may experience decreased performance, become unstable, or restart unexpectedly. To remedy the issue, you should select one Internet security program to run on your device. You should then uninstall the other programs.

Caution

Make sure you have an Internet security program running on your device before you uninstall other security programs.

Some Internet security applications do not uninstall completely. You may need to download and run a cleanup utility for your previous security application to completely remove it.

If you use another antispyware program together with Microsoft Security Essentials, we recommend that you turn off real-time scanning in the other program. For more information, see the documentation supplied by that antispyware program.

To remove an antivirus or antispyware program, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type appwiz.cpl in the Search box.
Tap or select Appwiz.cpl on the left side of your screen.
In the list of installed programs, uninstall the Internet security programs you don't need.
Restart your device.

Close programs in the notification area running with startup

If your device takes a long time to start up, one of the causes could be having a large number of startup apps or a few apps that have a high impact on startup time.

Some of these programs add an icon to the notification area on the taskbar to show that they are running with startup.

To stop a program that has one of these icons from automatically running on startup, follow these instructions:

On the Start screen, tap or select Desktop image to see the icon tray.
Point to each icon to see the program name.
To ensure that you can see icons for all running programs, tap or select Show hidden icons.
Open a program that you do not want to run on startup. In the options for that program, find a setting similar to Run at startup. Set the option to Off or No.

Note

You must open any program that you do not want to run on startup and change the setting.

View Startup items

To see what programs run at startup and disable any, follow these instructions:

Press and hold or right-click in the blank area on Taskbar and select Task Manager.
Tap or select More details in the lower-left corner of Task Manager.
Under the Startup tab in Task Manager, you can view a list of applications that start automatically every time you turn on your device and sign in to Windows.
If you see any programs in this list that you do not want to run when Windows starts, tap or select the application and then tap or select Disable.

Note

Disabling a program from running at startup doesn't stop the program from running if you need it. If you tap or select the program after startup, it will start and run normally.

Change a program

Sometimes, by adding or removing certain program options, you can prevent a program from running at startup.

If you can't stop the program from running on startup and the program does not have the option to change the configuration, you must talk to the program manufacturer for a solution.

To change the configuration of a program, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type appwiz.cpl in the Search box.
Tap or select Apps.
Tap or select Appwiz.cpl on the left side of your screen.
Tap or select a program, and then tap or select Uninstall, Change, or Repair.

If prompted, type an administrator password or confirmation.

Clean up disk errors

Over time, your device may create errors on its hard drive. These errors can slow your device. The Check Disk program identifies and cleans any errors.

To run Check Disk, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type computer in the Search box.
Tap or select Apps.
Tap or select Computer on the left side of your screen.
Press and hold or right-click the drive you want to repair, and then tap or select Properties.
Tap or select the Tools tab.
Under Error checking, tap or select Check. Depending upon the size of your hard disk, this may take several minutes. For best results, don't use your device for any other tasks while it's checking for errors. If prompted, type an administrator password or confirmation.
You may need to restart your device after error checking is complete.

Defragment your hard disk

One of the best ways to help improve your device's performance is by optimizing the hard drive. Optimize Drives, previously known as Disk Defragmenter, is a Windows feature that helps optimize different types of drives. The feature runs automatically on a weekly schedule, but you can also run Optimize Drives manually.

To run Optimize Drives manually, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type computer in the Search box.
Tap or select Apps.
Tap or select Computer on the left side of your screen.
Press and hold or right-click the drive you want to repair, and then tap or select Properties.
Tap or select the Tools tab.
Tap or select Optimize under Optimize and defragment drive.
Under Status, tap or select the drive you want to optimize. (The Media type column tells you what type of drive you're optimizing.)
To determine if the drive needs to be optimized, tap or select Analyze. Note: If prompted, type an administrator password or confirmation.
After Windows finishes analyzing the drive, check the Current status column to see whether you need to optimize the drive. If the drive is more than 10 percent fragmented, you should optimize it.
Tap or select Optimize.

Note

Optimizing a drive can take anywhere from several minutes to several hours to finish, depending on the size of the drive and degree of optimization required. You can still use your device during the optimization process.
If the drive is being used by another program or is formatted using a file system other than NTFS, FAT, or FAT32, it can't be optimized.
Network drives can't be optimized.
If a drive doesn't appear in Optimize Drives, it might be because it contains an error. Try to repair the drive first, then return to Optimize Drives to try again.

To change the optimization schedule, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type computer in the Search box.
Tap or select Apps.
Tap or select Computer on the left side of your screen.
Press and hold or right-click the drive you want to repair, and then tap or select Properties.
Tap or select the Tools tab.
Tap or select Optimize under Optimize and defragment drive.
Tap or select Change settings. If prompted, type an administrator password or confirmation.
Select one of the following:
- To turn off scheduled optimization, clear the Run on a schedule check box.
- To change the frequency of scheduled optimization, tap or select the drop-down list next to Frequency, and then tap or select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. The default schedule for optimization is weekly and runs during Automatic Maintenance.
- To select the drives you want to include or exclude in scheduled optimization, tap or select Choose next to Drives. Select or clear the check boxes next to the drives and then tap or select OK. You can also clear the Automatically optimize new drives check box if you don't want new drives added to scheduled optimization. If Windows can't optimize a drive, it won't offer the drive as an option for Automatic Maintenance.
Tap or select OK.

Clean your hard disk

Disk Cleanup reduces the number of unnecessary files on your drives by deleting temporary files and system files, emptying the Recycle Bin, and removing a variety of other items that you may no longer need.

How To Speed Up A Slow Vista Laptop Windows 10

To clean your hard disk, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type free up disk space in the Search box.
Tap or select Settings.
Tap or select Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files on the left side of your screen.
In the Drives list, tap or select the drive that you want to clean up.
Tap or select OK.
In the message that appears, tap or select Delete files.

To clean up system files associated with your account, follow these instructions:

In the Drives list, tap or select the drive that you want to clean up and then tap or select OK.
In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, tap or select Clean up system files. Note: If prompted, type an administrator password or confirmation.
The More Options tab is available when you opt to clean up system files from your device. This tab includes two additional options for freeing up space:
- Programs and Features. This option opens Programs and Features in Control Panel, where you can uninstall programs that you no longer use. The Size column in Programs and Features shows how much space each program uses.
- System Restore and Shadow Copies. System Restore uses restore points to return your system files to an earlier point in time. If your device is running normally, you can save space by deleting earlier restore points.

Turn off visual effects

If Windows is running slowly, you can speed it up by disabling certain visual effects. You can select which visual effects to turn off one by one or you can let Windows select for you.

To turn off visual effects, follow these instructions:

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen (if using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen and move the mouse pointer down).
Tap or select Search.
Type Performance Information and Tools in the Search box.
Tap or select Settings.
Tap or select Performance Information and Tools on the left side of your screen.
Tap or select Adjust visual effects. If prompted, type an administrator password or confirmation.
Under Visual Effects tab, check on Adjust for best performance, and then tap or select OK. (For a less drastic option, select Let Windows choose what's best for my computer.

Run fewer programs at the same time

Sometimes you can improve system performance by changing your computing behavior. Running four or more programs while leaving multiple browser windows and email messages open may be more than your device can handle.

If you find your device slowing down, decide whether you really need to keep all of your programs and windows open at the same time. Also, find a way to remind yourself to reply to email messages later instead of keeping them open until you reply.

Use ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost can speed up your device by using storage space on flash memory cards and USB flash drives. If you have a storage device that will work with ReadyBoost, you'll see an option to use ReadyBoost when you plug it into your device. If you select this option, you can select how much memory to use.

Adjust indexing options

Windows uses an index to perform very fast searches of the most common files on your device. If it's taking too long to search for things on your device, you can narrow your search to focus on the files and folders that you most commonly use.

Adjust power plan

A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings (such as display, sleep, and so on) that manages how your device uses power. The power plans you can use depend on the kind of device you have.

Compared to Windows XP, Vista is a much heavier and resource-hungry operating system. It has lots of great features, like Aero, but they can slow down your computer, especially if it doesn't have enough RAM or has a weak CPU. Luckily, it's possible to speed up computer running Windows Vista by customizing its settings. So before you spend a lot of money on new hardware, follow these simple steps to improve Vista performance.

Use ReadyBoost to improve Vista performance

The good thing about Windows Vista is that it has several performance-improving. ReadyBoost is one of them. Basically, it lets you use a USB flash drive as secondary memory cache, which helps your computer to run faster. Keep in mind that it's no substitute for RAM, though.

Also not all USB devices are ReadyBoost-compatible. Here are the drive requirements:

It has to be USB 2.0
It must be at least 256MB (though it's pointless to use a device smaller than 1GB)
Minimum read speed has to be 3.5 MB/s
Minimum write speed has to be 2.5 MB/s

If you don't know whether your flash drive is ReadyBoost compatible or not, give it a try anyway. If it is, the AutoPlay box will give you an option to use ReadyBoost:

If AutoPlay is disabled, do the following:

How To Speed Up A Slow Vista Laptop Keyboard

Go to Computer, right-click on the removable storage device and select Properties.
If the drive is compatible, you will see ReadyBoost there. Click on it.
Select Use this device and set the amount of space to be used for ReadyBoost system file.
Click OK.

Disable Vista Aero Glass

Windows Vista Aero Glass looks really cool, but everything has its downsides. In case of Aero it's heavy RAM, CPU, and graphics card usage. Just to give you an example - Aero can consume as much as 15% of CPU. Also it's no good for laptops, because it greatly reduces battery life. When the Aero theme is turned off, battery life is equal or better than on XP computers.

Disabling the Aero theme is easy:

Right-click somewhere on your desktop free space and click Personalize.
Click on Window Color and Appearance.
Click Open classic appearance properties for more colour options.
Select any theme you like. The Windows Classic theme is best for performance.

Speed up external hard drives

How To Speed Up A Slow Vista Laptop Screen

Windows Vista operates internal and external hard drives in a different way. By default write caching is disabled for all USB drives. This means that you can remove them whenever you want without any risk of data loss. However, if you have a large external hard drive always connected to your computer, disabled write caching is not really necessary. Besides, re-enabling write caching will improve Vista performance.

To re-enable write caching:

Click on Start, then right-click on Computer and select Manage
Go to Device Manager
Expand Disk drives and find your external hard drive
Right-click on it and click on Properties
Open the Policies tab and click on Optimize for performance
Check Enable write caching on the disk and Enable advanced performance
Press OK and reboot your PC

How To Speed Up A Slow Vista Laptop Windows

Improve SATA disks performance

You can also speed up Vista SATA disk drives by enhancing write caching. Here's how:

Click on Start, then right-click on Computer and select Manage
Go to the Device Manager
Expand Disk Drives
Right-click on your hard drive and go to Properties
On the Policies tab check Enable advanced performance
Press OK and close the Device Manager

The only downside of enhancing write caching is potential risk of data loss in case of power cuts. So, unless you are a laptop user and your battery is there to save you, be careful and backup everything. Now you know how to speed up your computer running Vista operating system.

For more performance tweaks try out a comprehensive system utility - Auslogics BoostSpeed. With this program you will be able to tune over 280 hidden system settings to speed up your Vista's performance.