How to make your computer boot faster vista

Take a look at the Notification area of your Taskbar, which is on the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop next to the clock, to see if there are a lot of icons there. Most of these icons are for programs that run in background, and with all of them starting up when you turn on your computer, it will definitely slow it down.

Many of these programs can be safely prevented from starting up automatically, so you only load them as and when you need to. Most of the time you can right-click the icon and either open the program or go straight to the program's options or preferences, and from there clear a box that says something like 'Run this program when Windows starts'.

If there are any programs that you don't need any more at all, go ahead and uninstall them to get an extra speed boost. Result: After deleting four shortcuts from the Startup folder and cutting down the Notification icons from a massive 19 down to seven, we saw a huge improvement in the computer's start-up speed. Not all programs give the option to prevent them from automatically starting up. To disable more stubborn programs, we went in to the powerful Msconfig utility.

Before using this you should create a Restore point so you can revert your PC back to its former settings should anything go wrong.

Click Start and type msconfig. Click the Startup tab and you'll see a list of programs, the name of the manufacturer of each program, and the program's path where it's kept on your hard drive. Using all this information you can tell whether these programs are essential to making your PC run properly. As a general rule, don't disable any programs from Microsoft because these are usually vital for Windows Vista.

Any drivers or programs related to your graphics card and other hardware should be left alone as well. Once you've disabled the programs you want, exit Msconfig and restart your PC. If there are any problems or error messages, make a note and go back into Msconfig and check the boxes of the problem programs. You can also stop some services running on startup.

Only stop them if you're sure that you don't need them. Again, no Microsoft services should be turned off. If there are any services you want to stop, it's a good idea to search for the service on the internet to make sure it's okay to do so.

Once again, if there are any problems, open Msconfig again and restart the services. Result: We found a number of programs that didn't need to load on startup, so we unchecked them. We also found a couple of services that ran on startup that were used by old programs we had long ago uninstalled, so we safely stopped them. If you have more than one operating system installed on your PC — for example, you may have both Windows Vista and Windows 7 beta installed — your computer displays a menu asking you which operating system you want to load.

If you don't select an operating system within 30 seconds, it automatically loads your default operating system. The problem is, if there are too many programs in there, it will slow down your computer's startup as your computer loads them all. Deleting the shortcuts from this folder don't worry, it won't delete the actual programs will certainly help speed things up. Not all programs that load themselves when your computer starts appear in the Startup folder, however.

Take a look at the Notification area of your Taskbar, which is on the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop next to the clock, to see if there are a lot of icons there. Most of these icons are for programs that run in background, and with all of them starting up when you turn on your computer, it will definitely slow it down. Many of these programs can be safely prevented from starting up automatically, so you only load them as and when you need to.

Most of the time you can right-click the icon and either open the program or go straight to the program's options or preferences, and from there clear a box that says something like 'Run this program when Windows starts'.

If there are any programs that you don't need any more at all, go ahead and uninstall them to get an extra speed boost. Result: After deleting four shortcuts from the Startup folder and cutting down the Notification icons from a massive 19 down to seven, we saw a huge improvement in the computer's start-up speed.

Not all programs give the option to prevent them from automatically starting up. To disable more stubborn programs, we went in to the powerful Msconfig utility.

Before using this you should create a Restore point so you can revert your PC back to its former settings should anything go wrong. Click Start and type msconfig. Click the Startup tab and you'll see a list of programs, the name of the manufacturer of each program, and the program's path where it's kept on your hard drive.

Using all this information you can tell whether these programs are essential to making your PC run properly. As a general rule, don't disable any programs from Microsoft because these are usually vital for Windows Vista. Any drivers or programs related to your graphics card and other hardware should be left alone as well. Once you've disabled the programs you want, exit Msconfig and restart your PC. If there are any problems or error messages, make a note and go back into Msconfig and check the boxes of the problem programs.

You can also stop some services running on startup. Only stop them if you're sure that you don't need them. Again, no Microsoft services should be turned off. If there are any services you want to stop, it's a good idea to search for the service on the internet to make sure it's okay to do so. Once again, if there are any problems, open Msconfig again and restart the services.

Result: We found a number of programs that didn't need to load on startup, so we unchecked them. We also found a couple of services that ran on startup that were used by old programs we had long ago uninstalled, so we safely stopped them.

If you have more than one operating system installed on your PC — for example, you may have both Windows Vista and Windows 7 beta installed — your computer displays a menu asking you which operating system you want to load.