MASTER TUTORIAL: Make Your Windows VISTA Super Fast

Vishal Gupta

Microsoft MVP
Joined
27 Feb 2008
Messages
105
Recently I posted a tutorial for speeding up Windows XP. I have written a similar tutorial for Windows Vista users too which I would like to share here. So if you are using Windows Vista and feel that its slower than Windows XP, then you have come to the right place. :)

Following tutorial will help you in tweaking your Windows Vista to the max and you'll feel a significant improvement in your system performance. So without wasting any time lets start:

1. Following code contains a few registry modifications, which are completely safe and can increase the performance of Windows Vista. Just paste following code in Notepad, save the file with name "Vishal.reg" (including quotes) and then run it:

Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Copy To]
@="{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"
 
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Move To]
@="{C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\cmd]
"Extended"=-

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd]
"Extended"=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad]
"StatusBar"=dword:00000001
 
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad]
"fWrap"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"
"HungAppTimeout"="1000"
"MenuShowDelay"="8"
"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="2000"
"LowLevelHooksTimeout"="1000"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"=dword:00000001
"ClearRecentDocsOnExit"=dword:00000001
"LinkResolveIgnoreLinkInfo"=dword:00000001
"NoResolveSearch"=dword:00000001
"NoResolveTrack"=dword:00000001
"NoInternetOpenWith"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="2000"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer]
2. Right-click on My Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press <WIN> key + <Pause/Break> key), click on Advanced system settings link in left side pane (You can also open it by typing sysdm.cpl in RUN or start menu search box and press Enter). Now click on Settings button in Performance section:

advancedjc2.png


Now disable all unnecessary options in Visual Effects tab, you can remain following options enabled according to your requirements:
  • Enable desktop composition (If you want to use Windows Aero theme)
  • Enable transparent glass (If you want to use transparency in Windows)
  • Show preview and filters in folder (If you use Details Pane in Explorer)
  • Show thumbnails instead of icons (If you want to show thumbnails in Explorer)
  • Show window contents while dragging (If you want windows to show content while moving them)
  • Smooth edges of screen fonts (If you want to show smooth fonts)
  • Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop (If you want to show shadows under desktop icon labels)
  • Use visual styles on windows and buttons (If you want to use Windows Aero or Basic theme.)
performanceua4.png


3.
Open Folder Options and click on View tab:

folderoptionsue2.png


Now disable following options:
  • Display file size information in folder tips.
  • Display simple folder view in Navigation pane.
  • Hide extensions for known file types.
  • Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color.
  • Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items.
Other options don't affect the system performance. You can enable/disable them according to your requirements.

4. Right-click on My Computer icon on Desktop and select Manage (You can also open it by typing services.msc in RUN or start menu search box and press Enter).
Now goto Services & Applications -> Services. Here you can set a few unnecessary services to Manual, which will not start with windows and will decrease the boot time and will increase system performance.
Please follow the following tutorial to know about which services can be safely set to MANUAL:

Windows Vista Services that can be Safely set to MANUAL

5.
Type msconfig in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter. Now goto Startup tab and deselect the unnecessary entries, which you don't want to start automatically with Windows, e.g. you can disable VGA driver utility, Sound Card utility, etc to speed up the startup time and to increase system performance.
You can also disable these items using Windows Defender. Open Windows Defender and click on Tools and then click on "Software Explorer".

6.
Open Sound in Control Panel (or type mmsys.cpl in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter), goto Sounds tab and select No Sounds in Sound Scheme section. Or you can remain some of your favorite sounds but set Exit Windows, Windows Logoff, Windows Logon and Start Navigation to (None).

7
. At last I'll advise to defrag the HDD regularly, install only necessary software, use the latest drivers and keep your Windows updated.
 
Last edited:
Windows vista is fast by default. None of the above increase the OS responsiveness in anyway. Please explain why we should keep this thread compared with your others?
 
apologies for the flame, however here goes non the less.

This post serves no great purpose other than to disable the sole reason for upgrading to vista in the first place, the tips recommended here simply disable graphical and audible features that aim to enhance the user experience. Could the author not of recomended installing DOS for example.

The plain truth as is commonly upheld is with the right entry level hardware Vista is faster than XP.

sure disabling services (although setting them to manual only allows windows to start them on request thus slowing the experience at runtime as opposed to boot) will provide some percieved increase in boot time. however having tried these on numerous occasions you are lucky to shave 5 seconds off boot time with service disabling.

Adding copy to and move to right click shortcuts simply makes the mouse happy (inherently slow) users more comfortable (although arguably loading the actual menu takes a fraction longer

clearing docs on exit simply extends the shutdown time, whilst application timeouts (i.e the amound of time windows takes before forcing a dll instance to be destroyed is in some situations follhardy if not a little dangerous and has been proven to lead to corruption in data.

This post is the blite of the internet at the moment featuring on numerous sites, If we allow this blanket approach to OS tweaking to enter the community here we are only a small step away from the most hated form of adware ... yup the big flashing "Make your PC faster for $15" adverts that promise the earth and deliver adinfected bloatware.

rant rant rant ...

sorry for that .... but i now feel cleansed!

D
 
and is he a recognised MVP or is that just an ego thing ???
 
Microsoft MVP is a Microsoft recognized thing. I don't know personally if he is an MVP or not as there isn't a user list published on Microsoft's site for MVP's, just for groups/orgs and for those who wanted their information published.

re: this guide, it seems counter-intuitive for someone who is running Vista to do all that to speed up performance. The 2 things I would personally do, besides turning off SOME of the suggested items, are tweak my indexing and make sure I have 2 GB of RAM (or address the way the memory is managed more effectively).

Turning off all the other items is basically the same as going into your properties and selecting best performance, which will provide much the same scenario as this reg-edit.
 
Thanks Carpo, I looked but I couldn't find the link :D
 
I'm really surprised and a little bit sad after reading al the comments in this thread.

Why you guys are finding this thread useless? Should not we try to use our system with maximum performance? The tips I mentioned in this tutorial can really improve the performance.

Lots of ppl upgraded to Vista because its better and also have lots of new features but they might have older hardware in their system and can find Vista slow. So this tutorial can be used to make Vista a bit faster.

I don't know why you guys posted these comments? May be because of the google search done by "ray_gillespie". So whats wrong in it? I love forums and I have registered in almost each forum I know and find good. I want to share my tutorials with as many ppl as I can. Is there anything wrong which I'm doing?

I also told it in the mail which I sent to admins.

At last, ppl who have doubt on my MVP status can check my profile here:

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Vishal.Gupta
 
The problem with this post is that it does nothing to speed up vista. While the thread for XP has useful reg entries that activley prevent explorer probing the whole network and such forth, this thread is useless. As an MVP you should know this.
 
I don't want to argue with anyone but to clear the things almost all registry tweaks for XP work in Vista and I have mentioned them in this tutorial as well.

But I'm feeling something wrong here so I promise I'll not post my useless tutorials any more in this forum.

Thanks to all for the support and nice comments.
 
Look mate, some of the stuff you have come out with is great, I don't think anyone would dispute that. However, I really don't see the point in copying page after page after page of your tutorials on every forum you can possibly find. Why not just have a page introducing yourself, explaining what you do and having a link back to your website? I think that would be a much more constructive approach than spamming every forum in the world.

You clearly have a lot to add to a forum like OSNN, but OSNN is not a gateway to improving your own website. You're clearly a talented guy, so don't waste that talent by just repeating the same stuff over and over on every forum ever.

I don't mean any hard feelings towards you at all, but I wanted to point out what was on my mind.
 
^^ I can understand where are you coming from and I appreciate it. But my intention to post my tutorials in various forums was not to promote my website.

Even I'm posting my tutorials before I started the website. So you can see its not related to promoting.

The main reason behind posting tutorials was to prevent plagiarism. I have faced this situation many times when someone copied my tutorials and posted them in forums without any credits to me and actual source.

One example is "WindowsTweaker". A person with "WindowsTweaker" username posted my lots of tutorials in Neowin, Msfn, Chip, WinMatrix and many other forums. When I came to know about it, I was surprised. I contacted him and asked to give me credits and actual source.

Since that day I decided to post my tutorials in all forums I know to prevent plagiarism.

I don't need to promote my site as its well known. In fact I don't care whether its known or not. My intention was to share my knowledge with others and to tell the world that the tutorials are mine and not someone else.

I clearly don't see any wrong thing in posting the tutorials in many forums. Every forum is different and so the members. So its good to share the things everywhere.

One more thing as you suggested to add a link to website in Introduction. But I can't do this cause it'll be considered as spamming and advertising and I don't want to make my first impression bad among all forum members.
 
I don't want to argue with anyone but to clear the things almost all registry tweaks for XP work in Vista and I have mentioned them in this tutorial as well.

But I'm feeling something wrong here so I promise I'll not post my useless tutorials any more in this forum.

Thanks to all for the support and nice comments.

As with many things in life you will not get everyone liking everything you say or do (not you personally but in a general sense), and it seems childish that you have decided to stop posting your tutorials just because of a few bad comments, suck it up, learn from it and post away :)
 
One more thing as you suggested to add a link to website in Introduction. But I can't do this cause it'll be considered as spamming and advertising and I don't want to make my first impression bad among all forum members.

And what you're doing isn't considered spamming? If you want to be a constructive member of OSNN there's nothing wrong with a post about yourself and your website - not a generic "This is my website, visit it", but a genuinely informative post not copied onto 200 other forums across the web.

And so what if someone posts your tutorials in other forums? That happens with the internet, I've used other people's ideas and other people have used my ideas. You're never going to prevent people from borrowing your ideas on the internet - look at all the problems the RIAA have with piracy, and they're immensely powerful!

This is just the way it works. If anyone tried to pass off my info as theirs, all it would take is a single post to point out the original source of the info. I don't think posting on every website in the world is the way to go about it. To be honest, I'd be quite glad if people wanted to pass on my information to others, if nothing else it means I have contributed something useful.
 
OK. Lets not make this discussion long. Different ppl think different. I can't see someone stealing my tutorials and claiming them his own work. I posted my tutorials in forums and ppl liked them and it encouraged me to post them in other forums too.

If this thread is so useless which its not, then mods are free to delete it. My intention was not to promote my site.

I apologize for any inconvenience.
 
Vishal,

You're free to post tutorials as you like. Please keep links to your site limited to only your signature. If the information you have won't fit in a single post, please use multiple posts.

Threads where forum staff feel the information is of no consequence or that simply perpetuate a "windows urban myth" may be deleted at the discretion of forum staff.

Everyone else can lay off the guy or get your cookie privileges revoked!
 
I don't want to get into any of the above issues re: spamming etc.

I would like to make one (hopefully) positive contribution to this thread though if I may.
Having read through the above and the link-backs to the services configuration guides on your site VG; I feel many inexperienced users will find services.msc daunting, as indeed they should.
Editing services.msc can prevent your machine from even starting if an inexperienced user misclicks.
I would like to request you offer more warning with regard to this, and indeed, more information with regard to what the services actually do with reflection, in particular, to the consequences of altering a particular services' start-up state.

Services.msc is really a dangerous area for the average user to be dabbling in without being in full receipt of the knowledge of the consequences of their actions.

As I already stated, this isn't a flame or criticism.
I'd merely like you to consider using comprehensive guides to help anyone who reads your tutorials. Both at your site, and whilst here at OSNN

:)
 
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