TomsTricks.Com » Vista Performance

How To: Change The Default Location For Installing Applications In Windows Vista

Tony — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:16:13 +0000

By default, Windows Vista uses the system drive for installing any new applications. That is, if Windows Vista is installed on the C Drive, the default folder where all the applications you install would automatically show up as C:\Program Files. This make a major load off your Windows partition if you’re running very data intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop, video editing software’s, etc. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by a simple read more

How To: Improve Windows Vista Network Performance, While Running Multimedia Programs

Tony — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:15:00 +0000

Fact: Windows Vista is throttling down the network interface to 10 packets per second to prevent choppy audio playback. Reason: Users expect multimedia applications, including music and video players, to offer a seamless playback experience. However, demand for the CPU by other concurrently running applications, like antivirus, content indexing, or even the mail client, can result in unpleasant hiccups. To provide a better playback experience, Windows Vista introduces MMCSS to manage the CPU read more

How To: Prevent Use Of Offline Files In Windows 7 Or In Windows Vista

Tony — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:17:41 +0000

About Offline Files In Windows Vista/Windows 7: Offline Files is a very useful feature in Windows operating systems including Windows Vista and Windows 7.This maintains a local cache of remote files and folders on your Windows computer, so that they are available to you when you are working offline, improving the experience for mobile (laptop) users.You continue to access these files in the same way that you accessed them when you were online because the shared network resource paths and name read more

How To: Clear Print Queue In Windows Vista Or In Windows 7

Tony — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:36:43 +0000

It is a fact that Microsoft Windows won’t allow anyone to remove a hanging print job.This is because the Windows operating systems including Windows Vista and Windows 7 has to wait for the confirmation from the printer.But if the printer also hangs,the print job is stuck in the queue.A print queue is a list of all the print jobs waiting to print on a particular printer.One way to solve this annoying problem is to restart the Windows computer.But in some cases even a computer restart read more

How To: Disable The NTFS Last Access Time Stamp In Windows Vista Or In XP

Tony — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:51:40 +0000

The NTFS(New Technology File System) file system used in Microsoft’s Windows operating systems like Windows Vista, is essentially a huge database that keeps track of all the files on your hard disk.When you create a file, or edit and then re save that file, the NTFS creates an entry and records the date in the Created or Modified timestamp so you can access the Properties sheet of the file and check the Created or Modified entries later.NTFS also creates and keeps track of another read more

How To: Disable Compression Of Old Files In Windows Vista/XP Disk Cleanup Tool

Tony — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:27:02 +0000

Compress Old Files option in Windows Vista/XP disk cleanup tool doesn’t delete any files from the hard disk drive.It compresses files that Windows hasn’t accessed for a specified period of time.The files are still available, but there will be a slight increase in access times because the files will be decompressed the next time they are accessed.Note that when Compress Old Files is highlighted in Windows Vista disk cleanup tool an Options button appears,clicking it will allow you read more

How To: Delete Temp Files In Windows Vista To Recover More Hard Disk Space

Tony — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:46:05 +0000

About Windows Temporary Files: Windows Temporary files are files used to store data currently being worked on, or information to be swapped with the operating system or other programs. The temporary files left behind by the programs accumulate over time and can take up a lot of disk space. Over time, your system will become run more slowly and decrease your system performance and stability.The Windows Vista Disk Cleanup Wizard does a nice job, however it does not delete your temp files unless read more

How To: Create A Desktop Shortcut To Clear The Clipboard In Windows 7 Or In Vista

Tony — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:58:59 +0000

The Clipboard is a temporary storage area used by all Microsoft’s operating systems including Windows Vista and Windows 7.The information’s such as text, files, graphics, sound, or video can be copied to the Windows Clipboard from one program or location and pasted elsewhere. The Windows Clipboard can only hold one piece of information at a time. Whenever something is copied to the Clipboard, it replaces whatever was there before automatically.In this article i explained how to read more

How To: Disable Or Enable Windows Vista System Restore

Tony — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:11:44 +0000

System Restore is a system recovery feature of Windows that creates snapshots, or restore points, of the state of your computer at various intervals or before you perform a certain task.Whenever users install software program, drivers, updates, hotfixes and other system changing files, Windows Vista will create Restore Point by using System Restore, part of System Protection feature, where a snapshot and stored state of important system files are backed up and copied using Shadow Copy read more

How To: Configure How Many Windows The Flip3D Function Can Use In Windows Vista

Tony — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:11:33 +0000

Windows Flip 3D, which gives you a pop-up preview of all your open windows, is one of Windows Vista eye candy feature, but if your system hardware isn’t up to snuff, its operation can be jagged and sluggish. If Flip3D feature in Windows Vista is slow down your system or if you have too many windows open, you can easily limit the number of windows displayed in Flip3D with a simple registry tweak.Follow these steps to configure how many windows the Flip3D function can use in Windows read more

How To: Clear Memory Cache In Windows Vista To Speed Up Your Computer

Tony — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:26:46 +0000

Running multiple applications simultaneously in Windows Vista for long periods leads to a gradual decrease in system performance over time.Often the only option to this is a Windows Vista Reboot. Even if you close the application in the Windows Task Manager, the tasks/threads associated with the application are not released completely, depleting the system’s memory resources making the system unstable and sluggish. Follow the below steps to create shortcut for clearing memory on your read more

How To: Fix Slow File Transfer Problem In Windows Vista

Tony — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:18:27 +0000

It seems that some new users of Windows Vista are having issues with file transfers. More specifically, moving and transferring large single files or a large group of files can take as much as three times longer than it did on Windows XP. Turn Off Remote Differential Compression(RDC) in Windows Vista Remote Differential Compression (RDC) allows data to be synchronized with a remote source using compression techniques to minimize the amount of data sent across the network.However, this read more

How To: Disable or Enable the Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) in Windows Vista

Tony — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:08:59 +0000

Transient Multi-Monitor Manager or Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) is a cool Windows Vista Feature that simplifies the setup of display configurations on mobile computers.Windows Vista Transient Multimon Manager is targeted at improving the user experience of connecting and disconnecting external displays Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) can place a mobile computer display (for example, a laptop computer display) into clone view when a new monitor is detected.TMM is enabled by default in read more

How To: Disable Background Programs or Services in Windows Vista

Tony — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:55:38 +0000

A Windows service is a executable program that runs in the background of the Microsoft Windows operating systems.Windows service performs specific functions and is designed not to require any user intervention to run.Windows services usually are configured to start when Windows is started and run in the background all the time. Although they can be started manually if needed. An example of a windows service is your anti-virus program or another security program that is used for real-time read more

How To: Improve Performance of SATA Hard Disks in Windows Vista

Tony — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:59:18 +0000

In Windows Vista there is a hardware tweak which can improve performance, but there are a few criteria that must be met in order to insure functionality and stability of altering these settings. This setting in Windows Vista can alter the way your hard drive accesses information and can enhance the performance.The main requirements for this setting in Windows Vista are: Hard disk drive must be a SATA(Serial ATA) drive The computer must have a battery backup (All laptops are included in this read more

How To:Disable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in Windows Vista or in XP

Tony — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:14:09 +0000

Viruses and other security threats can control your PC by executing code from within memory. To prevent damage, the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) feature in Windows operating system monitors program applications to ensure they use protected memory in a safe manner. Any incorrect usage, by an application, of protected memory and Data Execution Prevention steps in and automatically closes the application.Simply,Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a set of hardware and software technologies read more

How To: Disable Start-Up Programs in Windows Vista

Tony — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:00:15 +0000

Installing many different programs to Windows Vista can eventually slow down your computer.You may notice that your computer is very slow at start up. This may be due to the fact that many or some of your installed programs are configured to start automatically when your Windows Vista computer starts up. And this will definitely slow the start up process as well as consume memory. Disabling startup programs in Windows Vista can greatly increase the speed of your computer and usually will not read more

How To: Improve the performance of Windows Vista by Tweaking the Power Settings

Tony — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:03:44 +0000

By default, Windows Vista sets the power options to a “Balanced” plan. This is normally ideal for a long battery life. Laptop and notebook users can greatly improve performance by altering these settings.So you need not have to worry about tweaking the power options in Windows Vista to save power.The bad part of this is that even if you have a powerful processor and other hardware, you cannot be able to use it at its best because of this power settings. So you can disable these read more

How To: Disable Superfetch Feature in Windows Vista to Save Memory

Tony — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:10:35 +0000

In theory, SuperFetch feature in Windows Vista is a seemingly good idea. Though as it pans out in real world performance, it can be responsible for a lot of unnecessary disk activity and performance degradation. (Though, you probably wouldn’t be running Windows Vista if you were the least bit concerned about performance in the first place). But more often than not, this caching of data hinders performance significantly. Windows Vista Superfetch learns your typical activities with files and read more

How To: Rebuild The Paging File To Optimize Windows Vista Performance

Tony — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:12:38 +0000

Windows Vista creates a pagefile, which essentially acts as RAM on your hard drive.By default, Windows Vista does not clear the contents of the paging file (the area of the hard disk,Windows Vista reserves to act as extra RAM memory).This page file speeds up access to commonly used programs and becomes fragmented over time. Rebuilding the Windows Vista pagefile eliminates fragmentation and thus improves the system performance. One solution is to reset Windows Vista pagefile every so often, read more