How to Make Windows Run Faster

This updated guide examines How to Make Windows Run Faster and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

Boot faster by unchecking applications needed in the Logon tab of Autoruns

Reduce Shadow Copies waste Problem: Vista is saving my data but does not allow me to recover it . Solution : Vista's Business, Enterprise and Ultimate versions have Shadow Copies (or Previous Versions), which allows you to restore an older version of a file. Vista Home Basic and Home Premium lack this feature but anyway, storing data in some way is still wasting CPU resources and disk space. To reduce this waste, put all your documents and folders on a drive or partition other than your Windows drive. Then click Start , type SystemPropertiesProtection , and press Enter. In the list of drives, uncheck a drive with personal data. Click ' Turn System Protection Off ' when prompted and click OK to close System Properties. Note that saving data on a separate partition also speeds up backups because it allows you to copy only files instead of programs, because frequent changes don't happen too much. but it reduces the work for backups.

Optimize Vista Home Basic and Premium by turning off System Protection on non-system drives

Use accelerators for Windows Problem: My computer is relatively new but it doesn't really run fast enough Workaround : Use Windows built-in performance tools to maximize memory, disk space and other resources. Reduces the ability of applications on your system Problem: I don't want the Trojan horse or any other malware to be infected with my computer, but logging in as a standard user is indeed too limited . Solution : Even if you are logged in as an administrator, you can launch applications with limited privileges. Start by downloading Microsoft's free PsTools utility. Unzip them into a folder and move that folder to where you want to save the application. The PsExec tool is also intended for launching remote applications, but you can use it to launch programs with low-level privileges.

Limit application privileges in Windows XP with the free utility PsExec

To create a shortcut to open Internet Explorer 7 or any other application with restrictions, drag its shortcut to a new location (you may want to use the version with the high or medium permissions of the shortcut, So please leave the original unchanged). Select Copy Here . Right-click on the copied shortcut and select Properties . On the Shortcut tab, click on the top of the Target box and type in the path to PsExec before the command line that exists in it. Then type a space, followed by a space -l -d (hyphen, I character, space, hyphen and d). Finally, type another space. The '-I' command will reduce program privileges, while '-d' causes the command prompt window to close immediately after the application is launched. When done, the text in the Target box shows "C: Program FilesPsTools psexec.exe" -l -d "C: Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe" (your links may be different). Click on the Change button , OK . Specify the path to the original file (here iexplore.exe ) and click OK until all dialog boxes are closed. To avoid restrictions on actions such as installing a browser plug-in, you need to run the browser in its high or medium privilege mode. Repeat the above steps for each shortcut that you want to run with lower privileges. Diagnose your Internet connection Problem : I have to pay for monthly Internet service but if my router is suitable, I may not get the speed I get from the ISP. Solution : The Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool - Microsoft's Internet connection assessment tool can tell if your router has technology support for faster connections. (The tool will not give exact results if your connection is behind a company's firewall.) Testing may interrupt connections that are running, so try it when you're not using the Internet. If the results show that your system does not support many of the listed technologies, you might consider buying a new router or (if you use XP) to upgrade to Vista. Microsoft's website will provide links to routers appropriate for Windows Vista.

Microsoft's free service tells you if the router has a slow connection to the Net

Bring Internet Explorer to the previous state Problem: Internet Explorer cannot be used for Web browsing at all Workaround : If you have tried to fix some steps and are ready to take a more powerful step, restart all Internet Explorer options to its original state. The list of Favorites, toolbar configurations and other custom changes will not be affected and your browser add-ons will be disabled but not deleted. However, temporary files of Internet Explorer, cookies, history and saved passwords, sites added to trusted areas and many more settings will be erased or returned to default values.. If you are not interested in that, open Internet Explorer and select Tools , Internet Options . Select the Advanced tab, and click the Reset button. Click Reset again to confirm your decision, then click Close , OK twice. Finally, you restart this refreshed Internet Explorer.

Part 2: Quickly handle Windows problems Part 3: Speed up using computers