As we all know, people are having issues with Windows Vista. While personally I know that these issues truly aren’t the fault of Windows itself, the world seems to want to think of it that way. Here are some tips to keeping Vista running smoothly:

• Don’t buy your computer cheap. Now, I know this doesn’t help people who already own a computer with Vista, but for anyone looking to get a new machine in the near future, my advice is to not go cheap. Ultimately, you’ll be getting bad or unstable hardware which will cause you a plethora of problems with Vista in the future. If you’re buying a desktop, I’d recommend spending at least $700 for the tower itself, not including the monitor and peripherals. This way you know you’re most likely getting higher quality hardware.
• Keep your computer clean. Don’t be installing tons of software you’re only going to use once. I personally go through my Remove Programs list once a week and uninstall anything I don’t need again. Don’t let programs launch when Windows starts up. Only open programs when you need them. If you don’t know how to turn off a program from starting up when Windows starts, there’s a great way to stop it from happening.
  1) Hit Windows + R and type “msconfig”. Hit Enter. If Windows asks you to allow, hit Allow or Continue.
  2) Go to the Startup tab and uncheck any programs you don’t need running when Windows starts up. This includes things like Adobe, MSN, AOL, Quicktime, Java, or iTunes. Be sure not to disable any Microsoft items or Antivirus/Antispyware!
• Have a computer with a dual core or quad core processor? Use it! For some strange reason, Windows will not use multiple cores when booting up the computer. Once you’re in Windows it will use them, but not during the boot process. This significantly slows things down. Here’s how you can turn on the other cores:
  1) Hit Windows + R and type “msconfig”. Hit Entier. If Windows asks you to allow, hit Allow or Continue.
  2) Go to the Boot tab and click Advanced Options. Check the “Number of Processors” box and from the drop down, select 2 or 4 or however many processors your computer has. Note that if you only have 2 cores, only 2 will be listed. If you have 4, only 4 will be listed and so forth, so chose the maximum number in this list.
• Use a good Antivirus and Antispyware program. By “good,” I mean a few things. Firstly, the detection rate needs to be high. Secondly, is it a “lightweight” program. What I mean by this is how much resources does it use on your computer? The number 1 cause of slowness on computers is not the hardware but the Antivirus program that is running in the background. Absolute no-go programs are Norton, McAfee, or AOL protection. These programs will bring your computer to an absolute crawl regardless of how powerful it is. The #1 program that I recommend is Kaspersky Internet Security. Kaspersky is a full internet protection suite protecting you against both viruses and spyware. It is extremely lightweight and runs in the background without you even knowing it’s there. Another recommendation would be Trend Micro Internet Security. I personally don’t like this as much as Kaspersky, but it is a very decent solution.
• Keep your desktop clean. Surprisingly, the number of icons you have on your desktop can affect the performance of your computer. While this isn’t as much of an issue with higher-end machines with good graphics cards, you’ll notice performance hits on lower end machines since the computer needs to re-render all of these icons every time you go back to your desktop. Folders are a Godsend. Use them.
• Useless programs, while sometimes fun, can actually hurt your computer. This includes stuff like Weather programs which keep you updated (use the Sidebar in Vista!), programs that change your mouse cursor, or toolbars for your browser. More often than not, these programs also contain high amounts of viruses and spyware. Stay away from them.
• Leave your computer on all the time. In the pre-Windows XP days, leaving your computer on 24/7 was a sin. The reason for this was that the hardware in your computer wasn’t meant to be kept running for that long. These days, the same exact hardware that’s going into enterprise-level servers is pretty much what you’ve got sitting in your computer. It can more than withstand staying on all the time. The advantage to this is huge: Windows Vista will automatically perform maintenance on the computer while its not in use, such as defragmenting the hard drive. Also, constantly shutting down/booting up your computer will effect performance of things like Superfetch as it has to not only load Windows, but commonly used applications when booting up.

So there you go. That’s my list of tips for running Windows Vista smoothly. I hope they can be of help to you.