Various Vista Speed Tweaks

DisablePagingExecutive: this tweak is intended to load the OS kernel onto the RAM; it is intended for systems w/512MB of RAM or greater. I'd recommend 2GB - 4GB for Vista systems.

Open Registery Editor; run/regedit.

-- navigate to: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

-- right click on DisablePagingExecutive and select modify. Enter a new DWORD Value of 1 instead of 0. Save. Reboot.

Unneeded Windows Services: the following services can be safely disabled for gaming rigs.

-- To disable services, open services.msc by pressing the Windows key + r (open a run box) and typing services.msc in it. Right click on each service you want to disable and select Properties. First, stop the services if it is running and then by set it to disabled.

1. Certificate Propagation -- creates certificates from smart cards.

2. Offline Files -- the Offline Files service performs maintenance activities on the Offline Files cache, responds to user logon and logoff events, implements the internals of the public API, and dispatches interesting events to those interested in Offline Files activities and changes in cache state.

3. Remote Registry -- enables remote users to modify registry settings on this computer. If this service is stopped, the registry can be modified only by users on this computer. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

- THIS IS A SECURITY RISK AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND DISABLING IT.

4. Smart Card and Smart Card Removal Policy -- disable this if you don't use smart cards.

5. Windows Defender -- Windows Defender sucks balls.

6. Windows Firewall -- Windows Firewall sucks balls. Use a firewall like NetLimiter 2 Pro, ZoneAlarm, Comodo, etc.

7. Diagnostic Policy Service -- I don't need Windows telling me something is wrong and pointing me in the wrong direction for a fix. I'll diagnose the problem myself. Thanks, MS.

Dual/Quad-core boot

-- run msconfig- navigate to the Boot tab, then select Advanced Options and check the Number of Processors option and select the number of cores that your CPU has. Save. Reboot.

Pagefile - Virtual Memory

-- If you have another hard drive besides your boot drive, you can use this tweak. This tweak was more relevant for computers running less than 1GB of RAM back in the day, but, nonetheless, it's a tweak and can help.

-- Right click on the Computer icon on your desktop (classic mode) and select properties, then go to Advanced System Settings. Next, hit the setting button in the Performance section and navigate to the Advanced tab. now, hit the Change button in the Virtual Memory section. deselect "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" and select "no paging file" for the c: drive (boot drive for Windows). Next, hightlight another drive (d:, e:, f:, etc.) and select "custom size" for the page file. A general rule of thumb is that the page file should be 2 1/2 the size of the amount of system RAM but it doesn't really matter. I usually select 2048MB w/a 4GB memory system, doesn't really matter. You may want to go higher if you have a big hard drive which it's being placed on. 6144MB is a good value for rigs w/4GB of memory.

-- I've also paritioned hard drives before to have ~10GB saved for a page file move. I don't do this any more but it's something to think about. I don't like partitioning, it just makes more clutter. I'd rather buy new hard drives rather worrying about partitioning.

Remote Differential Compression

-- Remote Differential Compression (RDC) synchronizes data with a remote source to minimize the amount of data sent across your network. Many pre-Windows Vista computers and devices are not compatible, this makes transferring files across a network slower w/RDC enabled.

-- Enter the Control Panel (while not in classic view mode) and hit the Programs link; click on "Turn Windows features on or off" and look over the list. deselect the features that are unneeded. hit okay. restart.