Keep Vista Running Fast

I received a question via Skribit “How do you keep Vista running smooth?” – well there are a number of ways to do that. Disk cleanup, Defrag, uninstall unused/unneeded applications, keep your system tray and desktop clean, and make sure you have good system specs.

Run disk cleanup occasionally – at least once a month or more. This will clean out unneeded temporary files which will speed up your system. Disk cleanup is built into Windows and be found via the Start menu under accessories -> system tools.

Defragment your hard drive often. Windows Vista is set to defrag your hard drive every night believe it or not. It will run silently in the background and you may not even know it. This will help keep fragmentation low therefore improving your systems performance.

Keep plenty of hard drive available at all times and uninstall applications you don’t ever use. No point in keeping programs installed if you do not use them. Also, try and keep screen savers, fonts, etc. to a minimum. Those types of things are notorious for slowing down computers.

Do your best to keep your desktop and system tray as clean as possible – this will speed up boot times tremendously.

If you’re going to run Windows Vista (I recommend either Home Premium or Ultimate) make sure you have decent system specifications. At least an Intel Core 2 Duo (E6600) or equivalent, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and a decent video card such as an nVidia 7600GT or above.

One thing I did not mention in the video which I wanted to was that I do not recommend you use this tweaking/tuneup applications and/or registry cleanup programs.