by Don Burnett

A lot of friends of mine don't understand why I like Windows Vista x64 so much? Could it be performance? Could it be the graphics? Could I be crazy?

Well I won't tell you which of these reasons are more likely to my friends.. But I had one friend ask me why my Vista installation seemed to be faster than what he's running on his laptop which has a faster core 2 duo processor than mine.. No, it's not over clocking folks.. So I showed him..

Friend: Your file copies are faster than mine, how is that possible..

Me: Not that much it's all in your mind! My perception of Vista is that it it's a tad slower with Vista SP1 installed but not all of that much..

Friend: No really what did you do?

Me: Okay I heard a rumor that the new copy routines are based on something called differential compression a new "windows" feature.. But one you can turn off..

Friend: wait, oh I see you turned off the remote differential compression option, well wait what other software uses this? what will I be loosing..

Me: I am not sure but I have had it turned off for a while and I notice the speed is still what it used to be with XP on the same box..

Friend: How did you do that again?

Me: just go here and uncheck the checkbox labeled "remote differential compression"

Since this is about network copies which is the thing everyone complains about I simply turned it off and things are running better..

Friend: Hmm, Okay.. So that's the answer huh? I'll give it a try. But I bet that won't stop my drive from running all the time..

Me: It's not really running all of the time it's probably the indexing service indexing everything though. You know there is an easy way to pause or turn that off. You can simply turn off the Windows Search service (in the SERVICES control panel located in the Microsoft Management console) or pause it with this cool sidebar gadget that I have found.. The gadget probably is the best way, because it gives you control of whether it runs or not..

The gadget looks like this below..

You can download it at BrandonTools.com

http://brandontools.com/files/folders/sidebar_gadgets/entry511.aspx

Friend: wow this might actually help me out, so what else can I do? This really doesn't address half the performance complaints I have..

Me: Well come closer my friend let me show you this web site... http://www.totalidea.com and their new software called "Tweak VI" which is the Vista tweaking program that's the follow-up to their popular Tweak XP.

Friend: how much is this going to cost me?

Me: The basic version is FREE if you buy a subscription you can add more tweaks to it, but the good news is the free version really speeds things up.. Let me show you..

The system information screen is very cool, you can find out your CD KEY if you have lost it..

Me: The first thing I set  up to be optimized was my Windows PreFetch Settings using the PreFetch Tweak, which sets what Windows pre-loads to make applications open faster.. This seriously sped my machine up because it was set to load up the wrong things...

Friend: Wow I didn't know this existed it's really cool. What else is there??

Me: how about the CPU Tweaker.. It lets you optimize for your specific CPU and cache. It also turns on the Core System Perfromance tweak that optimized what parts of the Vista System are kept in memory.. Enabling core performance after setting up the right CPU info really made the difference with my machine's snappy performance

Friend: Ahh this is starting to look really SUPER COOL! More??

Me: How about DVD Speed Tweaks?

Friend: well on my old XP box I used to boot up other OSes and have them partitioned and runnable on the same hard drive. Is there any option for this under Vista? When it installed it really just took over my drive..

Me: That's another thing that Tweak VI solves for you.. It includes a utility called EasyBCD that lets you pre-install and boot other operating systems alongside Vista.. Take a look here: isn't this cool?

Friend: Wait there's Linux, Windows, and Mac ? How's that possible?

Me: I don't know!  You can investigate that one on your own, I'd just remind you not to violate the DMCA as a courtesy.. The configuration tool is a great way to set up a multi-boot multi-OS system either way..

There are many other tweaks too!

Friend Including things to keep my kids from changing my computer's settings?

Me: well you know how your kids are but no guarantee.. Look here.. Here are some of the tweaks available

You can also set the time and many other settings, even add your Picture and Ownership information to Windows..

There are also many web browser speed-ups and tweaks no matter which one you use..

Friend: Well I better get home and download this, you sure you haven't had any problems with it??

Me: It sped up my system just configuring the basics, but be careful anything you do with this effects your system, so be knowledgable about what you are doing before you try it. The software should guide you through this pretty well..

Friend: Okay so may you aren't crazy.. I didn't know this existed...  I am going home and downloading right away..

Me: Cool..