If you are running XP and considering making the switch to Vista, my first recommendation would be to wait.  The next version (Windows 7) is likely to make Vista obsolete anyway, and XP is as stable and secure as it’s going to get.  If you just want to try something new, I recommend Ubuntu as it is feature rich and fully mature and you can do everything you might need to do running Ubuntu anyway.

That being said, if you are still dead-set on getting Vista up and running this guide is for you.  You’ll likely benefit greatly from my recommendations.  If you don’t, I’ll be very sad.  For a couple of seconds.  Then I’ll think about the previous paragraph and shake my head.

Note:

1. I recommend running all of these installers as an administrator by right-clicking the installer file once you’ve downloaded it and choosing Run as administrator from the context menu which appears.
2. Also, I would download all of these installation files to your Desktop or a single folder on your Desktop as this will make going through all of this a lot simpler.
3. If an installer requests a reboot you may do so immediately or wait until all of these are complete; it shouldn’t matter either way.
4. Finally, this first section is more for Windows in general, but I’m including it because with Vista it’s even more critical.  If you are just looking for the Vista specific stuff you can skip down to where it reads Vista Specific Suck Lessing below.  You may want to at least peruse this first section though as you may still benefit from some of the advice.

Your Machine Gets Beefy

You want to buy a Vista machine or upgrade some old machine to run Vista?  Here is my take on what you want hardware-wise.  I would not run a Vista machine with less than 2GB of RAM.  That’s just asking for trouble.

I chose to run the 64 bit (Ultimate) version rather than the 32 bit version (with 4GB of RAM).  Unless you have a specific reason to run the 32 bit version I would strongly consider the 64 bit version.  It includes pretty good support for 32 bit software, so you should be able to run most any 32 bit Windows software on it.

I’m not a gamer so I can’t give you any specific gaming advice, but the 32 bit Vista will limit your RAM to about 3.5GB.  The 64 bit operating systems are, in theory, capable of addressing and supporting multiple terabytes of RAM.  Vista carries imposed limitations (for no apparent reason).  Vista Basic is limited to 8GB while Ultimate (or Business or Enterprise) is limited to 128GB.  One more reason to get Ultimate.  You can read more about this RAM issue here.

Digital Protection and Disease Control

Ok, let’s get started making Vista less crappy.

Say this out load, shaking your finger at your monitor: “Vista!  You will suck less!”  Feel better?

First, let’s get you protected.  I use a triangulation method of protection on Windows: good anti-viral protection, good malware protection, and a real browser.

Browser

Let’s get the browser first as this will make all of your downloading easier.  I use the fastest browser on Earth, Opera.  (You may prefer Firefox, but Opera is faster out of the box and you won’t have to add a host of extensions to make it slick and world-worthy.  Uncertain?  Install both; prefer Opera.)

What are you waiting for?  Go get it, install it, and come back.

I’ll wait.

It’s hugely customizable, so if you don’t care for the way it looks change it.

Malware Defense

Ok, now let’s get some protection from the nasties.  I like Spybot for malware protection.  I also recommend running Spybot’s included Teatimer application which watches your Windows Registry for certain changes and alerts you should any such change be taking place.  To get Spybot head over here and select a download mirror (server) from which to download your copy.

(The Spybot installer must be run as an administrator or it will fail.)

Go ahead and run Spybot, have it seek out and download its updates, and make certain that Teatimer is running (you will find its icon in the system tray).  (You will have to run Spybot itself as an administrator or it won’t be able to immunize your system.)

Next get yourself some virus protection.  I am currently using AVG-Free (available here) Avast! Home Edition (available here).  I would steer away from Trend Micro, Norton, or McAfee as they are very heavy and don’t really do much for you (except cause problems, being heavy and getting in the way).  I have heard good things about Aviva but I have not tested it myself.  All three of these (AVG, Aviva, and Avast!) tend to score well in anti-virus tests I have seen on the Web.

Whichever you choose, ensure that it is set up to update itself regularly (daily is probably sufficient).  I do not run a scheduled scan.  You will want to decide for yourself whether or not that is something you want to schedule.

Mal-Malware Defense

Windows Defender isn’t exactly a piece of junk, but it’s not that great either.  It likes to spend a lot of time scanning things, eating up CPU cycles and RAM in the process.  Now that you have Spybot and Teatimer protecting you, you can go ahead and disable Defender.

• Open Windows Defender: Start —> Programs (or All Programs)  —> Windows Defender
• Click on the Tools link at the top and then Options below
• Scroll to the bottom and locate the “Administrative options” section
• Uncheck Use Windows Defender
• Open the Services Management Console: Right-click on Computer and choose Manage
• Click on Services and Applications —> Services in the left-hand pane
• Locate the Windows Defender service in the middle pane
• Right-click the Windows Defender service and choose Properties
• Change the “Startup type:” drop-down to Disabled

The Fragmentation Issue

Microsoft’s disk defragmentation utility has been bad for as long as they’ve been writing it.  I believe that with Vista it is now set to run a scheduled defrag at regular intervals, but since it still does such a lousy job of defragmentation we can happily turn that off.

• Open your control panel: Start —> Control Panel (or Start —> Settings —> Control Panel )
• Select Performance Information and Tools
• Select Advanced tools from the left-hand pane
• Click on the Open Disk Defragmenter link
• Uncheck the “Run on a schedule” box (this will grey out the schedule information section)

Since it is such a piece of crap and since Windows enjoys fragmenting files (and thereby reducing performance), I use and recommend Diskeeper.  It installs as a complete replacement for the Windows defrag tool and it can work, only using unallocated processor time in the background, to ensure fragmentation does not happen.  It also has a number of additional defragmentation skills which make it even more valuable.  It’s a real performance booster and it’s pretty inexpensive.  It’s the only paid thing you’ll find on this guide, so pay attention when I say it’s worth it.  You can find it here.  (They offer a 30 day trial version.)

What are you doing here?

C++?

Are you a C++ developer?  Neither am I.  At some point Microsoft began installing a couple of updates which I can’t even guess why they think everyone would need.  You can safely remove both of these (I have done this on many systems without issues).

• Visual C++ 8.0 Runtime Setup Package
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable

They will both be found, if you have them, in your Programs and Features Control Panel.  While you are in there, remove programs you have added which you are not using.  Less is better, especially on a Vista system.

Vista Specific Suck Lessing

That’s the basic stuff.  I would do all this on an XP machine so it’s not too amazing that I’m telling you to do it on a Vista machine.  What follows is more directly related to Vista performance.

This is the section you’ve all been waiting for, eh?

Who’s Got the Biggest Balls for Dogs to Retrieve?

Superfetch is one of those things that sounds great when you first mention it, but if you give it any close scrutiny it quickly dissolves away.  The idea is that Windows keeps an eye on what you do and when you do it.  Then it tries to guess what you are about to do and load into RAM applications and libraries which you are about to need.  It’s the Carnac of the Windows world.  The problem is that it uses up vastly more resources scanning your work and loading useless guff into RAM than you ever would loading a host of applications yourself—that and it ain’t even funny.

I came upon this knowledge while working on my Ubuntu machine while having one lone application open on my neighboring Vista machine (an idle browser).  My Vista harddrive was grinding and grinding and grinding.  I thought maybe a defragmentation job or a virus scan might be running, so I took a look.  I could find nothing running at all.  I closed the browser.  Still it ground away.  My system specifications (processor and RAM) seemed well in line with a machine that was really doing nothing at all.  Why the hell was my drive grinding away?

Enter Superfetch.  It was either scanning my work (which was non-existent since not even a screen saver was running) or it was loading items into RAM in anticipation of what I was about to do next.  So instead I did something it surely found surprising: I disabled Superfetch.

• Open the Services Management Console: Right-click on Computer and choose Manage
• Click on Services and Applications —> Services in the left-hand pane
• Locate the Superfetch service in the middle pane
• Right-click the Superfetch service and choose Properties
• Change the “Startup type:” drop-down to Disabled

I can’t imagine any situation in which Superfetch might actually be preferred, but you’ll decide for yourself.

Laptop Batteries

Are you running a laptop?  Then take heed.  That fancy-looking Aero (the so-called glass) uses a boat load of electrons.  If you are plugged in, you probably don’t need to concern yourself too much with this (though this eye candy does cost some performance points); however, if you are unplugged you will want to weigh your battery life against the value of that eye-candy.

To break the glass…

• Right-click on Computer and choose Properties
• Select the “Advanced system settings” link from the left-hand pane (this will bring up the System Properties dialog)
• On the Advanced tab under Performance, choose the “Settings…” button (this will bring up the Performance Options dialog)
• On the Visual Effects tab you can either just choose “Adjust for best performance” (or deselect/uncheck anything you deem superfluous)

It’s easy enough to toggle this on and off, so that’s a small concession.

UnTurbo Charged

ReadyBoost can help short RAM positions, but continual writing operations will kill your flash drive, eventually.  And it’s slower than actual ram anyway.  No sense in keeping it running unless you are desperate for RAM (and if you’ve been paying attention that should not be the case).

• Open the Services Management Console: Right-click on Computer and choose Manage
• Click on Services and Applications —> Services in the left-hand pane
• Locate the ReadyBoost service in the middle pane
• Right-click the ReadyBoost service and choose Properties
• Change the “Startup type:” drop-down to Disabled

Bye-bye ReadyBoost.

Virtual Memories

This is optional but I do this a lot.  It’s easy to do and it seems to help.  Virtual memory, called a Page File on Windows, is where your operating system stores information it doesn’t need currently in RAM.  It’s essential, but Windows doesn’t necessarily manage things that well.  If you have a second internal harddrive installed, I would put your main Page File on it (and just something minor on the OS partition).

• Right-click on Computer and choose Properties
• Select the “Advanced system settings” link from the left-hand pane (this will bring up the System Properties dialog)
• On the Advanced tab under Performance, choose the “Settings…” button (this will bring up the Performance Options dialog)
• On the Advanced tab under Virtual Memory click the “Change…” button
• Ensure that your RAM allocation is at least 1.5 times (I recommend 2-2.5 times) your installed RAM

For example, using a “Custom size:” setting, I am running a 256/512 (Initial/Max) page file on my OS partition.  My secondary drive has a page file set at 1024/8192 (2x my RAM position).

Go slowly while making these changes and be mindful.  It’s optional so don’t feel obligated.

Clean House

Now for the final bit of Vista cleanery.  Let’s run Disk Cleanup.

• Open Explorer—either click on Start —> Computer or use the shortcut Windows-E (the windows key has the squiggly four-square thing on it)
• Right-click on the drive you wish to clean up (presumably your C drive) and choose Properties
• On the General tab click the “Disk Cleanup” button
• On the More Options tab under Programs and Features click the “Clean up…” button (see the What are you doing here? section above)

(Be careful with this next step.  You are limiting your ability to roll back file changes.  Make sure you have saved all of your work and closed all of your applications.)

• Also on More Options but under System Restore and Shadow Copies click the “Clean up…” button
• On the Disk Cleanup tab check all the radio buttons for that maxi-clean feeling
• Also on the Disk Cleanup tab click the “OK” button
• On the dialog which comes up, click the “Delete Files” button
• Repeat as necessary

(I gained better than 8gb by doing this house cleaning.)

Reboot

Reboot your machine.

Rejoice.