Category: Windows Vista

The Superfetch feature in Windows Vista pre-loads the most used programs, so that they start faster. But this can hog a lot of system resources trying to load most used programs every time you start Windows. You can customize the Superfetch service to load applications, boot files or all files.

Microsoft Windows updates the local time by synchronizing with the time servers on the Internet. Windows connects with the time servers for synchronizing every seven days by default. If you want, you can change this synchronization interval to shorter or longer time interval as you please.

If you have a computer in home or work which is used by many users, then you should create a separate account for each user. This way everyone can have their own separate settings like web browser bookmarks, desktop background etc. You can create a new user account easily in Windows Vista. For creating a new user account, you must have computer administrator level privileges.

As time passes, your hard disk accumulates all kinds of junk data – game data, temporary files, Internet browser cache, cookies and other left over files from many programs. You not only lose your valuable hard disk space, but your overall computer performance may also decrease. You should regularly free space on your hard drive to keep your computer running well. If you start getting warnings that your hard drive space is running low, follow these steps.

Data Execution Prevention (or DEP in short) is a security feature included in Microsoft Windows Vista and 7 that is intended to prevent a program from executing code from a non-executable memory region. While this feature is good, some programs may refuse to run with DEP on. You can configure DEP exception for such a program so that you can run it without DEP.

Windows Vista can put your computer into Sleep instead of turning it off. Sleep is a power-saving state. Sleep saves all open documents and programs, and allows the computer to quickly resume full-power operation when you want to start working again. Windows allows some devices other than the power button to wake up the computer from sleep. But you can disable the wake up option for a device if you want.

Although you can turn off the monitor by pressing the power switch on your monitor but you may prefer to have a keyboard hotkey or shortcut to turn off the monitor. You can create a hotkey in Windows Vista to automatically turn off or turn on the monitor.

The System Restore feature in Windows Vista is very useful. But over some time, System Restore points start taking up too much of your hard disk space. There is a very scarce possibility that you would use the System Restore point created six months ago, so why not delete it and free up some hard disk space?

Windows Vista automatically downloads updates from their servers whenever the updates are available and keeps your Windows up to date by regularly installing these hotfixes. But these update install files are stored on your computer even after they are installed. You can free up some hard disk space by deleting these update files (hotfix installers).

Optical disk burning feature embedded inside the Windows Explorer in Windows Vista allows you to burn files to a disk right from the Windows Explorer. It is a very useful tool but does not offer as many features as some commercial software like Nero CD/DVD Burner. If you use a third party optical drive burning software, then you may want to disable the CD/DVD burn feature.