Windows Vista Performance and Tuning
a) Check Power Settings on Mobile Computers:
Click Start/Control Panel/System and Maintenance/Power Options and Select the desired power plan.
If you want to create your own power plan, with the Power Options window open click Create a Power Plan/Select the built-in power plan that most closely
matches what you want to create. Type a name for the plan, and then click Next. Configure custom settings for your plan, including when to turn off the display, when to put the computer to sleep, and display brightness depending
b) To disable visual effects
1. Click Start/Control Panel/System and Maintenance/Click System.
2. In the Tasks pane, click Advanced System Settings Enter your administrator credentials and click Continue if you are prompted by User Account Control.
3. On the Advanced tab, click Settings in the Performance section and Use the Performance Options dialog box to enable or disable visual effects
c) Adjust Search Settings:
For users who run Windows Vista SP1, installation of Windows Search 4.0 offers the most efficient and comprehensive way of improving performance of search and reducing the impact of indexing on the system. Both search queries and data indexing are faster with Windows Search 4.0, and indexing
process is better at releasing system resources when they are required by the user or other processes on the PC. Another method for optimization of search functionality, also available to users without Windows Search 4.0 installed, is to adjust indexing settings.
To access the indexing options : Start/Control Panel/System and Maintenance/Indexing Options.
Modifying options in the following ways can help improve a computer’s performance:
Add or remove folders by clicking Modify. By default, personal folders (e.g., My Music, My Documents, My Pictures) are indexed.
Please note that searching over locations not included in the index is significantly slower than searching over indexed locations.
d) Speed up Your Computer with Windows ReadyBoost and Consider Windows ReadyDrive:
Using ReadyBoost is simple. Just plug a ReadyBoost compliant USB 2.0 drive into the computer. To determine if a USB 2.0 is ReadyBoost compliant, right click the USB drive in Computer and choose Properties. When you go into the Properties dialog box, ReadyBoost will perform a performance test to see if the device is fast enough. A drive should support 2.5MB/s for 4KB random reads and 1.75MB/s for 1MB random writes. Vista determines whether the drive is fast enough or has enough space to use as a ReadyBoost drive. If the drive is fast enough, Windows displays the Speed up my system option in the AutoPlay window.
e) Put Your Computer to Sleep: Sleep is a feature in Vista, supplanting the Standby feature of previous Windows OS versions.
f) Disable Unwanted Startup Programs and Remove Unused Programs
To remove a program: Start/Control Panel/under Programs/click Uninstall A Program. Click the program you want to uninstall and then click Uninstall/Change.
If you are prompted by User Account Control, enter your administrator credentials and then click Continue. Follow the directions provided by the uninstall program.
To use System Configuration:
1. Click Start/In the Start Search window type msconfig. (You can also press WINKEY+R to open the Run dialog and then type msconfig.exe). Under the 
    search results, click msconfig.exe.
2. Enter your administrator credentials and click Continue if you are prompted by User Account Control.
3. In the System Configuration window/Startup tab/shows all the programs that are scheduled to start with Windows. Resize the columns so that you have a
    good view of the name and manufacturer. clearing the check box for programs you don’t want to start with Windows.
4. Click OK, and then restart the computer.
To use Windows Defender to disable startup programs: Start/type Windows Defender/When the Windows Defender dialog box appears, click ools/Software Explorer/and disable the programs you don’t want to startup.
g) Clean Things up with Disk Cleanup:
Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup. You can also type Disk Cleanup in the Search box on the Start menu.
To schedule Disk Cleanup to run automatically:
1. Click Start/In the Search box, type Task Scheduler/Click Task Scheduler.
2. In the Actions pane/select Create Basic Task/Type a name for the task, and then click Next.
3. Select how often the task should run. For Disk Cleanup, Weekly is a good choice. Click Next.
4. Set the time and day the task should run, and then click Next.
5. Select Start A Program in the Action list. Click Next.
6. Click Browse, navigate to the System32 folder (the default), and then select cleanmgr.
    Click Open. Click Next, and then click Finish.
h) Defragment Your Disk:
To run Disk Defragmenter: Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter. You can also type Disk Defragmenter in the Search box on the Start menu. Enter your administrator credentials and click Continue if you are prompted by User Account Control. Disk Defragmenter allows you to set up a schedule for defragmenting the disk automatically or to defragment the disk now

Monitor Performance In addition to configuring Windows Vista for optimum performance, you can also use built-in tools to monitor performance. Check the Windows Vista Experience Index. The scale of the Windows Experience Index ranges from 1.0 to 5.9. A higher base score generally means that the computer will perform better and faster than a computer with a lower base score. A score of 3 is considered average and adequate for performing most tasks. A score of 4 or 5 is considered adequate for performing advanced functions.
Check Performance with Task Manager: Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE and select Start Task Manager.
The Performance tab is divided into the following sections:
1 CPU Usage indicates the percentage of processor cycles that are not idle at the moment. If this graph displays a high percentage continuously (and not when there is an obvious reason, like such as a big application), your processor may be overloaded. If your computer has two processors, two graphs are shown.
2 CPU Usage History indicates how busy the processor has been recently, although the graph only shows values since Task Manager was opened.
3 Memory indicates the percentage of the physical memory that is currently being used. Physical Memory Usage History indicates how full the physical memory has been over time, although it also only shows values since Task Manager was opened.
Physical Memory (MB) indicates the total and available physical memory, as well as the amount of memory in the system cache.
Kernel Memory (MB) indicates the memory used by the operating system. Paged kernel memory is available only to system processes. Non-paged kernel memory can be used by applications when necessary.
4 System provides totals for the number of handles, threads, and processes currently running. A process is.
Using Resource Monitor: On the Performance tab of Task Manager, you will also notice a button named Resource Monitor. Click this button to open Resource Monitor