Question:

Hi.. I’m just wondering if its possible to disable some services to make vista run like xp or make it like xp. Im having problems playing games. The game runs in slow motion. It runs way faster in XP.

Answer:

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Question:

Can you comment on if the new system of using CF cards as a memory boost really increases Windows Vista performance.  I think they call it ready boost.  I have tried it on a new Dell Quad Core system with an internal card reader and there does not seem to be any benifet at all.  The card I am using is an 8 gb 120x speed Transcend CF card.  Was this just a marketing scam on Microsoft’s part ?   I also have the 4 gb memory frustration that everybody else seems to have.  My system shows 3 gb installed.

Thanks,

Ed

Answer:

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Your computer is bogged down, so you open Task Manager and check the processes tab. There’s the culprit: Svchost.exe. Svchost.exe represents many different services, however, so it doesn’t really tell you what’s causing the problem.

In Windows Vista, you can easily determ determine which specific service is using resources. Just follow these steps:

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Follow-up–I answer some reader questions about this topic here. Read this article first, though.

Question:

Hi, I found your website today during a search on Vista. My question is will 32 bit Vista Ultimate support more RAM? IE 4 or 3?

Answer:

I thought this was a slam-dunk, but it turns out to be a damn good question! The short answer is, the practical upper limit is usually about 3GB of RAM.

The long answer takes some explanation… Here’s the official answer from Microsoft:

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If you’re a subscriber, check out the Vista: Not Slow article in the News & Trends section of the latest issue of PC World.

In summary, the article concludes:

• Overall, Vista is 5-25% slower. It’s especially bad with integrated graphics, so get yourself a separate graphics card.
• Having a dual-core processor helps Vista catch up or even pass Windows XP for multitasked programs, because Vista is optimized for multitasking.
• Aero doesn’t slow things down. Yey.
• You should have at least 1GB of RAM. True, though Vista does fine with less memory, in my experience. Upgrading to 2GB improved Photoshop performance 5-20% but didn’t help with most tasks. In my experience, for desktop use when running many applications (like I do), 2GB is a MUST.
• Everything is slower on 64-bit Vista than 32-bit Vista. Their tests showed 64-bit as 0-25% slower, probably averaging around 10% slower. Should I say I told you so?
• ReadyBoost slightly hurt performance. They admit that the test scenarios might not be well suited to it. My tests showed ReadyBoost can help A LOT, or not at all, depending on your hardware.

My summary:

• If you have a single-core processor with integrated graphics and less than 1GB of RAM, Vista will be a little more sluggish than Windows XP, at least with current drivers.
• If you have a dual-core processor and a separate graphics card, you probably won’t notice any performance difference.
• Wait six months and test Vista performance again. I bet Vista will win once driver developers optimize their code a little better.

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Microsoft funded a study by Principled Technologies to compare the performance of the Windows XP user interface to the Windows Vista Aero interface. Here’s my summary:

• Comparisons were done with a variety of different computers, some more powerful than others. Naturally, the Aero tests required computers capable of running Aero. So, these results don’t necessarily apply to your old XP computer.
• With or without Aero, Vista performs about the same on business tasks (like opening Office documents). Some things are faster, some are slower, but it’s a wash overall.
• Vista with Aero performs about the same as Vista without Aero. So, don’t feel like you need to disable Aero for performance.
• Though all my computers are capable, I can’t run Aero because screenshots look awful. I’m fine with either interface. I’m just saying, even if Aero did cause a performance impact and you wanted to turn it off, the other Vista improvements more than make up for it.

Windows Vista constantly examines performance problems. If your curious about the busiest processes and the slowest drivers on your computer, check out the performance diagnostics log. First, open the Computer Management console by following these steps:

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The idea behind ReadyBoost is that you can plug in a USB flash drive and make your computer a little faster. You really shouldn’t obsess on it. After all, any performance gains you realize will quickly be lost if you spend hours analyzing whether it’s working or not.

But if you’re obsessive like me, you can find detailed information about ReadyBoost performance in Event Viewer (which you can find in the Computer Management console), at the following location:

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If you have a slow hard disk, ReadyBoost (see instructions for setting up ReadyBoost) offers a significant performance boost. In my tests, adding a standard USB flash drive to a computer with a WEI disk rating of 3.7 reduced startup time about 30%. Adding ReadyBoost to computers with a WEI disk rating of 5.0 or higher did not improve startup time, but might slightly improve performance after startup. Future “Enhanded for ReadyBoost” flash drives will probably make more of a difference.

Conclusion:  If you have an unused flash drive, plug it in and set it up for ReadyBoost. It won’t hurt. If you have a computer with a WEI disk rating of less than 4.0, adding a ReadyBoost flash drive offers good bang-for-the-buck. If you have a computer with a WEI disk rating of more than 5.0, ReadyBoost still won’t hurt, but it probably won’t give you a noticable improvement.

Read on for the technical details.

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Indera writes (in response to my original ReadyBoost article):

“i found the article very interesting.
what i can’t figure out how many gb the usb hard drive needs to be in order to utilize this feature.
the largest usb drive that i have right now is a 512 mb. is that sufficient or do i need a larger one.

you also mention using an sd card, what size should it be and what speed.
would i have to keep the sd card in the build it sd slot on my laptop
i have a 2gb 150x sd card. if i use this will it make a difference or do i need an sd card with more space.

i understand that this will only improve i/o performance, but that would help me because i open a lot of 3-10 gb word processing documents and sometimes they take longer then i would like waiting for them to open and/or save.

any help would be greatly appreciated.
i also think it would be helpful if this info was added to your web site, as i suspect, that i’m not the only one that wants to know what the minimum drive size is needed to use this feature.

thank you
indera”

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ReadyBoost (a feature new to Windows Vista) uses a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card to cache data that would otherwise need to be read from the much slower hard disk. Windows Vista uses SuperFetch technology to automatically determine which data to cache. Instructions after the jump, or read my ReadyBoost performance test results.

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User Account Control (UAC) prompts you before an application makes an important change to your computer that requires administrative privileges. By default, the UAC prompt appears on the “secure desktop”, which freezes and darkens your screen. By freezing your screen, secure desktop makes it more difficult for another application to impersonate Windows and trick you into typing your administrator password into a fake UAC prompt.

The flashing screen is distracting, and slows things down a bit. To turn off the flashing without completely disabling UAC, follow these steps (after the jump):

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It seems like every program I install wants to start automatically with Windows. For example, Apple Quicktime puts an icon in the system tray. Adobe Acrobat starts automatically, just so it can more quickly open a PDF file. Each of these startup applications wastes memory and slows down how long it takes Windows Vista to start (though Windows Vista is smart about this, and lets you access the desktop before it starts all these applications).

To configure or disable startup applications in Windows Vista, follow these steps (after the jump):

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When you buy software, there’s always a list of computer requirements on the side. It looks something like this (taken from World of Warcraft):

• 800 MHz or higher CPU.
• 256 MB or more of RAM.
• 32 MB 3D graphics card with hardware Transform and Lighting, such as GeForce 2 or better.
• 4 GB or more of available hard drive space.
• DirectX® 9.0c or above.
• A 56k or higher modem with an Internet connection.

That’s pretty hard to understand if you’re not a computer guy. Windows Experience Index (WEI) gives you a single number, and a set of numbers, that summarize your computer’s capabilities. So, if I want to buy a game for my Dell Latitude D820 with a WEI of 3.1, I just have to make sure that the game’s minimum WEI is 3.1 or lower. Software can also be more specific, and list a Graphics or Gaming Graphics requirement. As you can see from my score, my graphics are the weak link in my computer. (info on interpreting and improving WEI after the jump)

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