Overview Series: Windows Vista Performance and TuningImprove Performance Quickly and EasilyThe
The Windows Vista® operating system and the recent Service Pack 1 (SP1) provide major advancements in usability, reliability, connectivity, and security. These improvements are helping businesses and consumers become more productive than ever. While performance is often thought of simply in terms of speed, it is better to think of performance as a combination of speed and responsiveness.
Overview Series: Windows Vista® Performance and Tuning
Improve Performance Quickly and Easily
The Windows Vista® operating system and the recent Service improvements on a single computer, this guide also takes a
Pack 1 (SP1) provide major advancements in usability, look at some of the tools used in enterprise environments to
reliability, connectivity, and security. These improvements help make performance tuning manageable on a much larger
are helping businesses and consumers become more scale.
productive than ever.
Optimizing Hardware Specifications to Your
While performance is often thought of simply in terms of Organizational Needs
speed, it is better to think of performance as a combination
of speed and responsiveness. For example, one approach to Although the minimum requirements for the Windows Vista
optimizing performance when copying large numbers of files operating system are highlighted in the Windows Vista
would be to copy those files as fast as physically possible. TechCenter, you should validate hardware performance with
Unfortunately, this approach would leave the system your intended applications and user expectations before
unresponsive during the operation. determining your organization’s standard hardware
specifications.
Windows Vista and SP1 focus on delivering greater
performance and overall system responsiveness. By striking a For example, when deploying Windows Vista many
balance between speed and responsiveness, Windows Vista organizations have found that the following configuration
and SP1 deliver a level of performance that has the greatest yields good results, especially for higher knowledge worker
positive impact on the system’s usability. scenarios:
Improving the performance of a computer follows the At least 2 GB of RAM.
principle of diminishing returns. There are a few actions you At least a 2 GHz processor.
can take with any computer that should improve A compatible graphics adapter that provides improved
performance dramatically. Additional actions provide smaller performance.
performance improvements.
If you are deploying Windows Vista with the Windows® Basic
This guide looks at the following areas of performance theme settings, you can reduce these recommendations
improvement: considerably. Customize the hardware specifications and
operating system configurations based on the user roles and
Making configuration changes that help a computer operational needs in your organization.
feel more responsive when you use it.
Using hardware to boost the actual physical speed of a For more information about customizing the hardware
computer. specifications and operating system configuration, see:
Making configuration changes that help a computer to
start faster. Windows Vista Enterprise Hardware Planning Guidance
Making the computer more reliable may help increase http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
performance. us/windowsvista/aa905075.aspx
Monitoring performance occasionally so that you can
stop problems before they get too big. Make Your Computer Feel More Responsive
While the bulk of this guide focuses on performance Another way to improve perceived performance on a
computer is to make it feel faster. Or more accurately, you
can remove things that make the computer feel slower. You
do this by making sure that various configuration settings are
optimized.
Check Power Settings on Mobile Computers
When a computer is operating on a battery, you must strike a
balance between battery life and performance. Better
performance almost always drains battery life more quickly.
Windows Vista provides three built-in power plans, as shown
in Table 1. You can modify the settings for the three built-in Figure 1. Select the most appropriate plan
plans to suit your needs, or even create your own power To create a power plan:
plans. You can change a built-in plan's settings or create your
own plan by using the Power Options settings in Control 1. If you want to create your own power plan, with the
Panel. Power Options window open, click Create a Power
Plan (refer to Figure 1).
Power Plan Description 2. Select the built-in power plan that most closely
matches what you want to create.
Balances energy consumption and 3. Type a name for the plan, and then click Next, as
performance by adapting the computer's shown in Figure 2.
resources to a specific activity. By balancing
Balanced
the power used, when more power is
needed, more becomes available; when
less is needed, less is available.
Saves power by reducing system
Power Saver performance. The primary objective of this
plan is to maximize battery life.
Offers the highest performance possible by
High maximizing available resources for best
Performance performance. There will be a trade off for
the high performance with battery life.
Table 1. You can choose from three power plan options
To choose a preferred plan:
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel window, click System and
Maintenance, and then click Power Options.
3. Select the desired power plan, as shown in Figure 1.
Note that depending on the manufacturer of the
computer, you may see additional power-management Figure 2. Create your new power plan
options.
4. Configure custom settings for your plan, including
when to turn off the display, when to put the
computer to sleep, and display brightness depending
on whether the mobile computer is plugged in or with—particularly on slower computers. By default, Windows
running on battery power (Figure 3). Vista enables visual features based on the capabilities of the
5. Click Create. computer, but you can enable or disable specific visual effects
to help strike a balance between performance and
appearance.
Windows Vista provides quick access for enabling and
disabling these effects.
To disable visual effects
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel window, click System and
Figure 3. Create your own power plan Maintenance.
3. Click System.
Click the Battery Meter icon in the notification area to open 4. In the Tasks pane, click Advanced System Settings.
the menu shown in Figure 4, which lets you change to a 5. Enter your administrator credentials and click
different power plan and also offers more visual cues about Continue if you are prompted by User Account
battery life. For example, when the battery life reaches 25 Control.
percent, a yellow triangle with an exclamation point appears 6. On the Advanced tab, click Settings in the
over the battery icon. When the charge reaches critically low Performance section.
battery levels, a red circle with a white X appears. 7. Use the Performance Options dialog box to enable or
disable visual effects, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 4. Use the Battery Meter to change power plans
quickly
Disable Visual Effects
Many of the visual effects in Windows Vista, such as the
Aero® desktop experience, are beautiful and are designed to
enhance user productivity. They add not only a certain flair to
the computing experience but also subtle visual clues about
what’s happening in Windows, which may help user
productivity.
That said, these visual effects can slow down the perceived
performance of a computer, by making windows, dialog
boxes, and menus take just a bit longer to open and work
Figure 5. Disable visual effects to enhance efficient remote searches on them. If you don’t expect
performance slightly files on the share to be searched over, you can disable
indexing on it.).
In order to disable Aero effects, you can right click your
desktop and click Personalize. In the Personalize appearance
and sounds window, click Windows Color and Appearance
and chose a theme. Make sure the Enable transparency box is
not checked to disable Aero.
Adjust Search Settings
For users who run Windows Vista SP1, installation of
Windows Search 4.0 offers the most efficient and
comprehensive way of improving performance of search and
reducing the impact of indexing on the system. Both search
queries and data indexing are faster with Windows Search
4.0, and indexing process is better at releasing system
resources when they are required by the user or other
processes on the PC.
Another method for optimization of search functionality, also
available to users without Windows Search 4.0 installed, is to
adjust indexing settings. The index in Windows Vista stores Figure 6. Add or deleted indexed folders
information about the files on a system, including but not
limited to the file name, date modified, and author, as well as Please note that searching over locations not included in the
information allowing fast searches over textual content of the index is significantly slower than searching over indexed
indexed files for many supported file formats. Instead of locations.
looking through the entire hard disk for a file, Windows scans
the index for the information first.
Use Hardware to Boost Performance
To access the indexing options The most effective way to increase the performance of a
computer is by improving the hardware in the computer.
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel window, click System and The three main hardware issues governing performance are
Maintenance. CPU, hard disk speed, and memory capacity. This guide looks
3. Click Indexing Options. at less invasive ways to boost performance through
hardware.
Modifying options in the following ways can help improve a
computer’s performance: Speed up Your Computer with Windows ReadyBoost™
Add or remove folders by clicking Modify (Figure 6). By While adding more memory to a computer is a great way to
default, personal folders (e.g., My Music, My boost performance, it isn’t always easy to do. To install
Documents, My Pictures) are indexed. memory, you must be willing (or allowed) to open the
Rebuild a corrupt index or change the location of the computer case or pay someone else to do it. Sometimes, it
index by clicking Advanced. can be difficult to tell what type of memory you need to
Remove rarely searched folders or shared folders from install or how much you can install. And depending on the
the index, and do not include unused folders. type of computer you have, even getting to the memory slots
(Windows Search 4.0 automatically adds all shared can be tricky.
folders to the list of indexed locations, to enable
Windows Vista includes a feature named Windows
ReadyBoost (shown in Figure 7). ReadyBoost technology uses
non-volatile flash memory, such as that found on a USB Drive
or Secure Digital (SD) card, and a memory management
technology called Windows SuperFetch™ to provide a cache
for the memory paging file stored on the computer’s hard
disk. Since accessing flash memory is much faster than
accessing a hard drive, using Windows ReadyBoost can
significantly increase performance.
Figure 8. You configure how much space to allocate to
Windows ReadyBoost
Of course, there are some limitations to ReadyBoost.
Figure 7. ReadyBoost is simple to use Generally speaking, the lower the physical memory of the
computer, the bigger the existing disk cache that can be
And since the swap file itself is still stored on hard disk (only a offloaded to the ReadyBoost drive, and the greater the gain
cache for that file is stored on the USB drive), no data can be in performance. As a computer gains more physical memory,
lost if you remove the ReadyBoost drive from the computer. the performance boost is less significant.
Using ReadyBoost is simple. Just plug a ReadyBoost compliant Consider Windows ReadyDrive™
USB 2.0 drive into the computer. To determine if a USB 2.0 is Windows ReadyDrive technology is another feature
ReadyBoost compliant, right click the USB drive in Computer introduced in Windows Vista that works in tandem with two
and choose Properties. When you go into the Properties new types of disk drives:
dialog box, ReadyBoost will perform a performance test to
see if the device is fast enough. A drive should support Hybrid hard disk drives, which are traditional hard
2.5MB/s for 4KB random reads and 1.75MB/s for 1MB drives with an integrated cache of non-volatile flash
random writes. memory.
Intel TurboMemory drives, where the non-volatile
Windows Vista determines whether the drive is fast enough flash memory is actually detached from the drive.
or has enough space to use as a ReadyBoost drive. If the drive
is fast enough, Windows displays the Speed up my system ReadyDrive technology provides three benefits:
option in the AutoPlay window.
Performance-critical data is loaded into flash memory
After selecting the Speed up my system option, Windows so that it is accessed faster than if it were stored on
Vista displays the ReadyBoost tab of the disk’s Properties traditional hard disk.
dialog box, as shown in Figure 8. You can turn ReadyBoost off Startup files are loaded into flash memory, which
for the drive or if left on, designate how much space to use translates to shorter startup times for Windows Vista.
for speeding up the system. Since the traditional hard disk needs to be accessed
less often, it can spin down for longer periods,
boosting the battery life of mobile computers.
In Windows Vista Service Pack 1, ReadyDrive improves
startup speed by 27-55% compared to Windows Vista
RTM (Source: Internal Microsoft Testing).
Note: You can purchase products that are supported by
ReadyDrive from the Windows Marketplace, as well as
select retail locations.
Make Your Computer Start Faster Figure 9. Sleep is the new Off state
One of the most frustrating times for a user can be waiting
When a computer enters Sleep state, Windows Vista saves
for a computer to start. You wait for the computer to boot
the current session to memory and enters a low power state
up, wait for Windows to load, log in, and then finish waiting
where only memory is powered.
for all the background programs and services to load. It is not
usually hard to trim the startup time for a computer and
In Sleep state, the computer uses very little power—
doing so almost always makes for a more pleasant computing
extending battery life for mobile computers and conserving
experience. Removing unwanted background programs and
energy even for desktop computers while ensuring that the
services also may have the side benefit of helping to make a
computer is still ready for action quickly. In fact, on a modern
more secure, reliable system.
laptop computer, power consumption in sleep state is
typically less than one watt.
Put Your Computer to Sleep
Sleep is a feature in Windows Vista, supplanting the Standby Windows Vista also includes a new Hybrid Sleep function.
feature of previous Windows OS versions. In the past, Hybrid Sleep will function as a failsafe in case of power loss
Standby didn’t always work well and computers were slow to by saving the session to memory normally, but also writing it
come out of standby. In contrast, Sleep in Windows Vista is all to the hard drive (similarly to how hibernate works). This
reliable, fast, and useful. In fact, in Windows Vista, Sleep ensures that even when power is lost, data remains intact.
should be considered the new default “Off” state.
When you want to resume working, just press the power
If you don’t already use the Sleep function in Windows Vista, button, tap a key on the keyboard, or, on laptop computers,
you will find that you can start up a computer much faster by open the cover. Windows Vista takes only a few seconds to
not shutting it down completely in the first place. resume from sleep, though it can take a little longer to
resume from Hybrid Sleep after you restore a power source
Putting a computer to sleep is easy. You can choose Sleep to the computer.
from the Start menu (shown in Figure 9), press the power
button on your computer (in Power Settings the power Note: The success of using Sleep on any computer is
button must be configured to Sleep), press the Sleep button reliant on having good drivers for hardware peripherals.
offered on many keyboards, or just close the cover of a The best results will come from a computer designed for
laptop computer. Windows Vista.
Disable Unwanted Startup Programs
Many programs have components that start when Windows
starts and run in the background. While some of these
programs are necessary (such as antispyware programs), you
will find that others may not be necessary.
Some of these programs may have been preinstalled with a Disable Background Programs or Services
new computer and some may have been installed by the
If you don’t want to uninstall a program or service
user. It will be up to you as the IT Pro and the user to
completely, you can prevent the program or service from
determine what programs are unused.
starting with Windows.
Each program that runs in the background consumes system
Many programs offer an easy way to prevent this behavior.
resources, so removing unused programs not only may help
You should try the following:
the computer start faster, but may also improve overall
performance.
Click or right-click the program icon in the notification
area. Look for an Options, Preferences or Properties
Some programs that run in the background are represented
command. Sometimes, the program offers an option
by icons in the notification area, shown in Figure 10.
for having the program start with Windows.
Start the program and look through the program
menus for a similar option.
Figure 10. Each icon represents at least one running process Check the Startup folder on the Start menu. Often,
and sometimes many more programs place shortcuts there to load components at
startup.
There are two approaches you can take to prevent a program
from starting with Windows Vista unnecessarily: If a program does not offer a friendly way to prevent it from
running with Windows, you can move on to the more
If it is a program you don’t need at all, then you can powerful System Configuration utility (often called
uninstall the program using Add/Remove Programs in MSCONFIG, after the name of its executable file).
Control Panel
If it is a program you want to keep on your computer, To use System Configuration:
but you don’t need the program running in the
background, you need to prevent the program from 1. Click Start. In the Start Search window, type msconfig.
starting automatically with Windows. (You can also press WINKEY+R to open the Run dialog
and then type msconfig.exe)
Remove Unused Programs 2. Under the search results, click msconfig.exe.
3. Enter your administrator credentials and click
If you do not need a program at all, you can simply uninstall Continue if you are prompted by User Account
the program. Removing unused programs prevents those Control.
programs from running in the background and frees up disk 4. In the System Configuration window, the Startup tab
space on the computer. shows all the programs that are scheduled to start with
Windows, as shown in Figure 11. Resize the columns so
To remove a program: that you have a good view of the name and
manufacturer.
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. 5. Go through each item, clearing the check box for
2. In the Control Panel window under Programs, click programs you don’t want to start with Windows.
Uninstall A Program. 6. Click OK, and then restart the computer.
3. Click the program you want to uninstall and then click
Uninstall/Change.
4. If you are prompted by User Account Control, enter
your administrator credentials and then click Continue.
5. Follow the directions provided by the uninstall
program.
Figure 11. The Startup tab shows programs scheduled to start
with Windows Figure 12. Windows Defender provides useful information
about startup programs
Note: If you are not sure what a program is, research the
Disable Unwanted Services
program before disabling it. Also, while it takes longer,
you might want to disable programs one at a time, A service is a program designed to run in the background and
restarting Windows to ensure that everything is running provide particular services to the programs on a computer.
smoothly before disabling the next item. While this sounds a lot like a regular program that runs in the
background, there are a couple of important differences:
You can also use Windows Defender to disable startup
programs (Figure 12). The interface is more polished and Services can log onto the computer with specific
includes information about the programs, but works much credentials. This means that a service can run even if a
the same as the System Configuration tool. Note that if you user does not log on.
have another anti-spyware program installed, Windows Services may have dependencies. Services can be set
Defender likely will be unavailable. so that other services must load first in order for a
service to start.
To use Windows Defender to disable startup programs
These distinctions are important to understand when you set
1. Click Start and then type Windows Defender in the off to locate and disable unused services. Before you turn a
Search box. service on or off, you must understand what that service does
2. When the Windows Defender dialog box appears, click and whether other services depend on it to load.
Tools.
3. Under Tools, click Software Explorer and disable the It is not a purpose of this guide to detail every service
programs you don’t want to startup. available on a computer running Windows Vista. However, it
can give you some tips for determining if a service is a good
candidate to disable and show you how to disable a service.
Warning: If you are ever unsure of what a service does,
do not disable or stop it.
To view all services available on a computer:
1. Log onto the computer with an administrator account.
2. Click Start and then type Services in the Search box.
3. Under Programs, click Services.
Enter your administrator credentials and click
Continue if you are prompted by User Account
Control. The Services window is shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13. Adjust the columns so you can see the
service name, description, status, and startup type
4. Click any service to see a basic description of that
service. Figure 14. Disable a service if you are sure the
computer does not need it.
If you find the service description inadequate, try
searching Microsoft TechNet using the service name as 8. To prevent the service from starting with Windows,
a key word. You can often find good information about from the Startup Type drop-down list, click Manual.
what a service does. This ensures that the service is still available, but you
must start it manually if you need it. You can also
5. Double-click a service to open its Properties dialog box choose Disable to make a service unavailable.
(shown in Figure 14). 9. To prevent the service from starting during the normal
6. Use the Dependencies tab to make sure that other startup period, but have it still run later, from the
services are not dependent on the service you are Startup Type drop-down list, click Automatic (Delayed
examining. Start).
7. To stop the service, click Stop. 10. Click OK.
11. If you are asked to, restart the computer.
Improving Performance on User Account Control
While we recommend that the majority of your users run
with standard user (non-administrator) privileges, there are
times when it is necessary to deploy a subset of users with
administrative privileges. In such circumstances, the User
Account Control (UAC) Consent Prompt can slow access to
administrative operations and has led some organizations to
look at turning UAC off entirely.
A better alternative is to change the behavior of the
elevation prompt for administrators to elevate without the
prompting. This option, which can be set via Group Policy,
allows the administrator to perform an operation that
requires elevation without consent but still provides the
other benefits afforded by UAC, such as Internet Explorer
Protected Mode.
For more information read “Understanding and Configuring
User Account Control in Windows Vista” at the Windows
Vista TechCenter.
Make Your Computer More Reliable
There are several steps you can take to help make a
computer more reliable, and reliability can translate into
better performance. Keeping your computer running reliably
involves keeping your disk clean of unwanted files and
keeping your disk defragmented.
Clean Things up with Disk Cleanup
Disk Cleanup examines a computer’s drive to determine what
files can be deleted.
Disk Cleanup can find and delete the following types of files:
Downloaded program files Figure 15. Use Disk Cleanup to delete unused files
Temporary Internet files
Offline Web pages Disk Cleanup becomes even more effective if you schedule it
to happen automatically.
Recycle Bin contents
Setup log files
To schedule Disk Cleanup to run automatically:
Temporary files
Thumbnails 1. Click Start. In the Search box, type Task Scheduler.
Archived Windows Error Reporting 2. Click Task Scheduler.
3. In the Actions pane, select Create Basic Task.
To run Disk Cleanup: 4. Type a name for the task, and then click Next.
5. Select how often the task should run. For Disk Cleanup,
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, Weekly is a good choice. Click Next.
point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. 6. Set the time and day the task should run, and then
You can also type Disk Cleanup in the Search box on click Next.
the Start menu. 7. Select Start A Program in the Action list. Click Next.
2. Choose whether to clean up only the current user’s 8. Click Browse, navigate to the System32 folder (the
files or files from all users on the computer. default), and then select cleanmgr. Click Open.
3. Select the drive you want to clean up and then click 9. Click Next, and then click Finish.
OK.
4. After scanning the disk, Disk Cleanup presents the You should see your new task in the Task Scheduler window,
types of files that it found and shows how much disk as Figure 16 shows.
space deleting those files will free up, as shown in
Figure 15. Select the checkboxes of the file types you
want to delete and then click OK.
Figure 17. Defragment a disk regularly to keep it running
smoothly
Defragmenting a disk can take a fair bit of time. If you are
setting up a schedule, make sure you set it up to happen
Figure 16. Create a task to run automatically to help improve when the computer won’t be used for a couple of hours.
performance
Monitor Performance
Defragment Your Disk
Disk fragmentation happens naturally as a computer is used. In addition to configuring Windows Vista for optimum
When a file here or there is deleted, Windows marks that performance, you can also use built-in tools to monitor
space as available for new files to be written there. performance.
When a new file is written, it may be bigger than those empty Check the Windows Vista Experience Index
spaces. Part of the file may be written in one available space The Windows Experience Index is a feature built into
and part in another. Windows Vista that shows how well Windows Vista and other
software will perform on a computer.
As time goes on, fragmentation becomes worse and can
eventually slow the performance of the disk drive. A computer running Windows Vista is assigned a rating
number called a base score that is a simplified measurement
Windows Vista provides Disk Defragmenter, a tool that of a computer's hardware configuration.
defragments a hard drive. By default, Windows Vista
automatically defragments your hard drive once per week. The scale of the Windows Experience Index ranges from 1.0
But on occasion, you may want to run a manual to 5.9. A higher base score generally means that the
defragmentation. computer will perform better and faster than a computer
with a lower base score
To run Disk Defragmenter:
The base score of your computer is determined by reviewing
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, performance scores assigned to hardware components in the
point to System Tools, and then click Disk computer, as shown in Figure 18. These components include:
Defragmenter. You can also type Disk Defragmenter in
the Search box on the Start menu. RAM random access memory
2. Enter your administrator credentials and click
CPU central processing unit
Continue if you are prompted by User Account
Hard disk
Control.
General graphics performance on the desktop
3. Disk Defragmenter allows you to set up a schedule for
3D graphics capability
defragmenting the disk automatically or to defragment
the disk now, as shown in Figure 17.
A computer's base score is determined by the lowest
component score. For example, if the lowest score of any
component is 3.3, then the base score will be 3.3.
A score of 3 is considered average and adequate for
performing most tasks. A score of 4 or 5 is considered
adequate for performing advanced functions.
Figure 19. Use Task Manager to provide a real-time look at
Figure 18. The Windows Experience Index gives a rough performance
approximation of a computer’s performance
The Performance tab is divided into the following sections:
Check Performance with Task Manager
Task Manager provides information about applications and CPU Usage indicates the percentage of processor
processes that are currently running on a computer, and also cycles that are not idle at the moment. If this graph
provides real-time performance information about the displays a high percentage continuously (and not when
processor, memory, and network usage. there is an obvious reason, like such as a big
application), your processor may be overloaded. If
You can start Task Manager in the following ways: your computer has two processors, two graphs are
shown.
Right-click any open space on the Windows taskbar CPU Usage History indicates how busy the processor
and click Task Manager. has been recently, although the graph only shows
Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE and select Start Task values since Task Manager was opened.
Manager. Memory indicates the percentage of the physical
Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESCAPE. memory that is currently being used.
Physical Memory Usage History indicates how full the
The main tab in the Task Manager window that measures physical memory has been over time, although it also
performance is the Performance tab, shown in Figure 19. only shows values since Task Manager was opened.
Physical Memory (MB) indicates the total and
available physical memory, as well as the amount of
memory in the system cache.
Kernel Memory (MB) indicates the memory used by
the operating system. Paged kernel memory is
available only to system processes. Non-paged kernel
memory can be used by applications when necessary.
System provides totals for the number of handles,
threads, and processes currently running. A process is
a single executable program. A thread is an object information in Windows Help about monitoring
within a process that runs program instructions. A resources.
handle represents a specific input/output (I/O)
instance. A process may have multiple threads, each of Apply Improvements Across the Organization with
which in turn may have multiple handles. Group Policy
Using Resource Monitor In an organization with an In an organization with an Active
On the Performance tab of Task Manager, you will also notice Directory® Directory Service domain, Group Policy allows you
a button named Resource Monitor (refer to Figure 19). Click to efficiently enforce security and configuration settings for
this button (and enter your credentials when prompted by groups of computers and users by distributing the settings
UAC) to open Resource Monitor, shown in Figure 20. automatically throughout a site, domain, or organizational
unit.
You can use Group Policy to control the following types of
settings:
The programs available to a computer or user
(including the ability to deliver customized installations
of programs).
The programs that appear on a user’s desktop.
Options for how the Start menu appears.
Security options like password requirements and Guest
account status.
Whether the user can add new hardware devices or
install new programs.
Disk Quota limits.
Whether the user can change system settings.
Many settings found in various Control Panel
applications.
Additional registry-based settings for Windows
components or other applications.
Figure 20. Monitor resource use in real time
Being able to control the applications that are installed on
The Resource Monitor window is divided into several
users’ computers greatly reduces the impact of background
sections:
programs, improperly configured programs, and malware on
a computer’s performance.
Resource Overview. This section shows graphs that are
identical to those shown in the Task Manager
Being able to control users’ ability to change system settings
Performance tab.
also helps ensure that a properly-performed installation of
CPU. This section lists processes that are consuming
Windows Vista will stay reliable.
CPU cycles, much like the Processes tab in Task
Manager.
Disk. This section shows in real time what processes Note: For a deeper look at Group Policy, visit
are reading and writing to disk. http://www.microsoft.com/grouppolicy.
Network. This section shows in real time what
processes are sending and receiving on the network. Teach Your Users Well
Memory. This section shows in real time what
processes are committed to memory. Beyond traditional performance improvements, such as
Learn More. This section features links to various physically improving a computer or optimizing system
settings, you can also improve the performance of your presented. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
organization as a whole by making sure that users are well- MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.
trained.
Microsoft Corporation may have patents or pending patent applications,
trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject
For example, you can make sure that users understand that matter in this document. The furnishing of this document does not provide
installing third-party software or downloading and installing the reader any license to the patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other
software from the Internet can cause computer or network- intellectual property rights except as expressly provided in any written
wide problems. You can also block users from being able to license agreement from Microsoft Corporation.
do this in many situations.
Microsoft does not make any representation or warranty regarding
By mixing education with management techniques, you can specifications in this document or any product or item developed based on
keep your enterprise computers from being compromised by this document. Microsoft disclaims all express and implied warranties,
including but not limited to the implied warranties or merchantability, fitness
your own employees and help users work more safely and
for a particular purpose, and freedom from infringement. Without limiting
efficiently at the same time. You can also teach users how to
the generality of the foregoing, Microsoft does not make any warranty of any
improve their productivity by using the tools included with
kind that any item developed based on these specifications, or any portion of
Windows Vista. a specification, will not infringe any copyright, patent, trade secret, or other
intellectual property right of any person or entity in any country. It is your
Summary responsibility to seek licenses for such intellectual property rights where
appropriate. Microsoft shall not be liable for any damages arising out of or in
There are multiple ways to improve a computer's connection with the use of these specifications, including liability for lost
performance. You can use hardware to boost the actual profit, business interruption, or any other damages whatsoever. Some states
performance of a computer. New technologies in Windows do not allow the exclusion or limitation of liability or consequential or
Vista such as ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive can help speed up a incidental damages; the above limitation may not apply to you.
system with relatively little effort.
Microsoft, Aero, Internet Explorer, ReadyBoost, ReadyDrive, SuperFetch,
Windows, the Windows logo, the Windows Start button and Windows Vista
Making a computer start faster can also improve the are either trademarks or registered trademarks in the United States and/or
perceived performance of the computer, as well as its other countries.
reliability and security. Start by disabling unused programs
and services scheduled to start with Windows. © 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
There are also numerous configuration changes you can make
that help a computer feel faster when you use it. These
include optimizing power settings and indexing options, as
well as disabling unused visual effects.
And when you have learned how to optimize the
performance of a single computer, you can then learn ways
to apply those optimizations to multiple computers across a
network. Features of Windows, such as Group Policy, make it
easy to apply configuration changes to entire groups of
computers and users.
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The information contained in this document represents the current view of
Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication.
Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, this
document should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of
Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information
