The Source Code Locker

I’ve decided to create a list of my favourite optimisations for Windows Vista to help my brother and readers to boost the performance of a newly installed machine.

Prepare the Machine

Most factory built machines will come pre installed with a host of useless software, whether you asked for it or not. Some things you should do:

• Uninstall any security software unless you “really” need it. If you don’t understand why you wouldn’t need it, don’t take it off.
• Uninstall any software you will never use, a lot of machines come with trials and full versions of random photo editing tools, backup software, etc. As a general rule, if you don’t know what it is and is doesn’t look system related - get rid of it!
• If you’ve got a Dell you might want to have a go at using the PC Decrapifier (I haven’t used it personally but I’ve heard lots of Good things about it).

Remove Unnecessary Start Up Programs

Your PC will no doubt have a stupidly rediculous number of programs and services starting when it boots. These processes will steal your precious memory so should be switched off.

Vista comes with a really useful tool that lets you do just this with ease. To access it enter the control panel, then under programs look at “Change start up programs”.  This will load a special section of the new tool Windows Defender, you can actually control what is getting loaded up on your computer.

Anything that you don’t want to start automatically should be disabled here, look out for things by companies like Adobe, QuickStart and RealPlayer - trust me you don’t need them.

Turn off User Account Control (UAC)

Do you ever get fed up with Windows constantly asking you if you’re “sure” you really want to do this and do you give permissions to yourself to do this?? The trick is to disable UAC, it will make you a lot happier and speed up your general usage:

To turn it off, the easiest way is to go into the Control Panel and type in ‘UAC‘ into the search bar. It will bring up a search result of “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off”. Just follow the prompts from there.

Disable Aero

Aero is the new Windows UI theme, I’m not a fan of Windows eating up my RAM and CPU so I personally think it’s best to disable it. I’ve heard that during usage of general applications it can use as much as 15% of the CPU - ouch! To disable it:

Right-click an empty spot on your desktop and click Personalize. Click on the Window Color and Appearance link. This time the Appearance Settings window will not appear as before, but instead you’ll see a larger Windows Color and Appearance window. Click on the “Open classic appearance properties for more color options” link.

Next, select any of the available themes, such as the Windows Classic theme.

Turn Off Indexing Service

The new Indexing service hogs resources and is in my opinion rarely needed.

Go to my computer, right click on C: drive, go to the General tab, and uncheck Index this drive for faster searching.

Get Rid of the Sidebar

The Sidebar is a waste of desktop space and uses unneccesary amounts of resources. Be honest, do you really want a clock and calendar on your desktop? To remove it, right click the side bar icon in the task bar and go to exit. You’ll be asked if you want to make this permanent, say yes.

Turn Off Unnecessary Services

Services are background processes that run silently without you ever knowing about them. Vista has a range of unnecessary services running in the background by default.

To get rid of them go to Start -> Run, type services.msc and hit Return. Double-click on the service you want to get rid of and change the startup type to Disable.

Some examples of services you may not need; Secondary Logon, Remote Registry, KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator, Tablet PC Input Service and Distributed Link Tracking Client. There are dozens more. Sift through them and do a few google searches to see if you really need all of them.

Use caution with this stage however, before you make any changes to services, you should read online to  ensure you will actually get a performance gain by disabling them.

There’s a good list of the services disabled by a user with a Networked Gaming machine.

Upgrade your Drivers

Certain driver updates – particularly those for graphics cards and chipsets – can lead to better performance. Check your PC, motherboard or graphics card manufacturer to see if a newer driver exists.

Install Essential Programs

As this isn’t a Programming Specific article I’m not going to list the programs I would install on a typical coders machine, however you’ll need a decent browser seeming as Microsoft is so bad at the job:

• Google Chome - The fastest web browser around at the moment.
• Mozilla Firefox - You just can’t live without this one!

Further Reading

One of my favorite resources I often refer to is Speeding Up Vista is by ExtremeTech, have a read through it for bits I haven’t mentioned above.