Vista is slow

[Guest]

We got a laptop with Windows Vista. It is S-L-O-W !! It is slow to boot up
and slow to shut down. Web pages take too long to load, and if you click on
an application, you have to come back later and see how it is doing.

What can be done to speed up Vista? Is it selective startup, or some other
settings?

Thanks,
Wayne

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Wayne;

Open Power Options in Control Panel.
Place check by "High Performance"
Not always the best for laptops using battery.

How much RAM is installed.
For most the minimum is 1 GB - 2GB.
If you have less than 1 GB, you most probably need more, less than 2
GB, possibly more will help.

New computers are often shipped with a lot of garbage installed and
much of it running at start up.
Look in the Notification Area by the clock and identify what is
running by hovering over each item.
Anti virus and other malware protection should be left running,
Uninstall any programs you do not want or need.

For programs you need but do not want running all the time, open them.
Look for something like "Options" or "Settings".
From there usually there is an option to run as start.
Uncheck as appropriate.
You may have to look further for some programs.

 

[f/fgeorge]

We got a laptop with Windows Vista. It is S-L-O-W !! It is slow to boot up
and slow to shut down. Web pages take too long to load, and if you click on
an application, you have to come back later and see how it is doing.

What can be done to speed up Vista? Is it selective startup, or some other
settings?

Thanks,
Wayne

You don't say how much memory you have, Vista is a memory HOG!!!! 2
gig is recommended as a minimum, not by MS of course, but by regualr
users. If you only have 1 gig, and the video card is built in, the
memory for the video card is taken away from the total. Just worked on
a Toshiba that did that, 1 gig of ram reduced to 768 by 256 meg video
card, slow as grass growing!

 

[John]

Remove as much of the OEM crapware as possible. Stop unnecessary services.

 

[Guest]

Actually, I have a laptop right here that isn't slow... it has 1 gig of RAM
and on board video... it's dual-core though, with a SATA hard disk.

 

[xp-vista-xp]

I agree vista is very slow I got a new toshiba re loaded with vista, used it
for a week figuring I would get used to it with microsoft moving erevthing
around, annoying but learnable. But could not work out why this new wizz bang
computer was taking longer to start than my old "worn out" Xp machine went in
and turned off everything that I could INCLUDING anti virus etc etc and it
still took longer to load!!! finally got the s%*ts and loaded it with xp (no
easy task as XP does not account for sata drives and cannot see them) and
bingo it starts and runs at approximately not2 not 3 but 4 times quicker than
it did with vista! maybe some of you engineers out there can explain to me
why upgrading is not really down grading after all the whole point of buying
a new fast computer is so that is goes FASTER! not the reverse