If you’re looking for a way to speed up your computer and you suspect that your slow computer performance could be related to the amount of memory you have installed, you may be able to take advantage of an inexpensive workaround. You’ll need to have Windows Vista loaded on the computer in question, and you’ll also need a USB flash drive.

Inexpensive Flash v. Expensive RAM

You can find an inexpensive USB flash drive just about anywhere these days. The larger retailers like Target will have these on sale as a back-to-school item. (If you don’t remember ever seeing flash drives on your school supply list, let me just say that times have changed and we’ll leave it at that.) The size of the flash drive doesn’t matter too much, so you can get away with using the smaller capacity drives –these will typically set you back less than $10.

Plug your USB flash drive into an available port and open the Removable Disk (F:) Properties panel by right-clicking on the Removable Disk icon. Activate the ReadyBoost tab and choose Use this device. Set the slider to reserve a certain amount of the space available on the flash drive for system use. The rest of the flash drive will be available for file storage, but the reserved amount will be used by the system as temporary memory.

Using ReadyBoost will effectively “upgrade” your computer’s installed memory, and make it easier to run multiple programs and process large files. It can also be helpful at boot-up and shut-down, when the computer is performing many additional operations that require a lot of memory.

The ReadyBoost option isn’t a perfect substitute for upgrading your computer’s RAM, however it does provide a less-expensive alternative to buying additional memory. This is the ideal solution for computers that may only have one memory slot, like a laptop. For these computers, a memory upgrade means taking your old memory chip out and replacing it. Unless you can sell the original memory chip or find another use for it, you could end up turning perfectly good memory into a wasted investment.

ReadyBoost is a new introduction to Windows Vista, so this option isn’t available for older versions of Windows. In my book, ReadyBoost is yet another reason to consider an upgrade to Vista if you haven’t already done so. You can also make a flash drive bootable with Vista and turn your flash drive into a low-cost, low-hassle way to create a dual-boot system.

Photo Credit: Ambuj Saxena, via Flickr

If you’re anxiously awaiting the release of Windows 7, you might wonder, with all the grief a Windows registry can cause, whether Microsoft has decided to retire the registry concept. The answer, in a single word, is “no.” The Windows 7 registry is alive and well and is likely to be a part of future Windows releases.

Why The Windows Registry Won’t Go Away

The registry is a database of information that the OS uses to interact with applications and vice versa. You’re likely to see a Windows registry in future versions if for no other reason than there’s nothing in the Windows design to replace the registry.

For users of Microsoft Vista, I don’t believe the switch to Windows 7 will be as dramatic as one might imagine. Microsoft isn’t going for flash on Windows 7. Instead, it’s aiming to improve stability, reliability and usability. Windows 7 is more likely to be what Vista should have been, and the registry will operate similarly.

There are a lot of nice things about Vista that will be retained in Windows 7. The adoption rate of Windows 7 remains to be seen, but users aren’t likely to run into the same issues that they did with Windows 7. Given that the registry is still part of the mix, one could hope that Microsoft (and the application writers) will do a better job of cleaning the registry when a program is uninstalled.

Right now, users have a few choices when it comes to cleaning up what misbehaving uninstallers leave behind. Most users “leave well enough alone” and trust that the computer will understand that a program that is no longer installed doesn’t need the registry entries that got left behind. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. The computer doesn’t have the intelligence to know what’s needed and what’s not needed, so it follows all of the instructions it finds in the registry, even to its own detriment.

A second option is to edit the registry manually. This works only if you know what you’re looking for and know where to find it. It also helps to be a very accurate typist. With the registry, there is no opportunity to take back what you’ve done, and there’s no automatic mechanism to revert to the last good state. Changes take effect instantly, and you get what you typed in whether you like it or not!

Lastly, users can use a registry cleaner like RegCure, which offers a sane alternative to doing nothing or manually editing the registry. RegCure is designed to seek out the leftovers, orphans and zombies that clog up the registry and slow down your computer.

Photo Credit: Pillowhead Designs, via Flickr

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One of the big complaints I hear about Windows Vista is that it takes a long time to boot. Some users mistakenly believe that because the desktop has appeared that Vista is ready to go. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Speeding up Windows Vista startup is more complicated, since Windows Vista is doing a lot of background work to ready the operating system for …well… operating. Meanwhile, you can do a few tasks, but Windows Vista is unresponsive until it finishes its housekeeping.

Getting Windows Vista To Boot Faster

So how do you get Windows Vista to boot up faster? There are some things you can do to cut the amount of lag time between the appearance of the desktop and true system readiness. Windows Vista is designed to figure out those applications and services that you use most and load those first. Being highly consistent in the way you used Windows Vista could potentially lead to some efficiency, but if you’re like me, sometimes you don’t stick to the script when you start up your computer.

Fortunately, there are other things you can do to speed up Windows Vista at startup. When you load applications, be wary of the ones that put an icon in the system tray for you. These apps have a good potential to slow your system to a crawl. Go into the properties panel for each application and determine whether it’s loading at startup. Do this for your utilities, too. You can still keep the system tray icon, but if you don’t load your app at startup, you’ll start up faster! You can still manually load the program when you need it.

Windows Defende and MSCONFIG can also help you determine what’s loading at boot time. Evaluate each application or utility. Keep things like your A/V, anti-spyware/-malware programs running all the time. Most other things don’t really need to be running at startup. You can experiment with different startup configurations. If you find that you’ve shut something off and really, really miss it. You can put it back in your startup routine with the understanding that you’ll be waiting a little bit longer after you pres the power button to start up.

Another trick to finding out what’s running is to use the Task Manager immediately after the computer boots and before you open any applications. The Task Manager can tell you what’s running and can help you identify any offenders that may be slowing your computer’s boot time.

Photo Credit: Mariano Ortuño, via Flickr

If you’re looking for ways to speed up your computer, performing a little routine maintenance can go a long way. Routine maintenance includes trimming the list of programs that start or load automatically when you boot the computer, cleaning the registry with RegCure, and defragmenting the hard drive on a reasonably regular basis. You could also add scanning your computer for worms, viruses and other malware that can seriously impact the performance of your computer.

Defragmenting Can Speed Up Your Computer

Defragmenting your hard drive is probably the easiest thing to do, since the defragmenting tool comes as part of the operating system. Defragmenting the hard drive periodically – at least twice a year if you don’t use your computer a lot, once per quarter if you use it frequently and about once per month if you’re a “power user” – can really cut down on the work your computer needs to do to write and retrieve files. The defragmenting tool is in the System Tools folder. If you’re not sure where you fall, the Defragmenter has an “analyze” function that will tell you how much your disk is fragmented. A good rule of thumb is 10%. If the analysis shows your disk is more than 10% fragmented, run the Defragmenter at your earliest convenience.

One word of warning about the Defragmenting tool: if you haven’t defragmented your computer lately, the defragmenting process could take hours. (Yes!) It’s one of those jobs that’s best saved for an overnight task or one that you start before you leave the house in the morning. It’s definitely not something to do when you’ll need the computer for something important.

Before you defragment your computer, you could also benefit by running Disk Cleanup and Disk Error checking (called Check Disk on older versions of the Operating System). These utilities, all found under System Tools, will check your disk for errors and clean up the little messes they find. Another tip: once you’re done with the Defragmenting, back up your hard disk using the Backup Tool, also found under the System Tools menu. Like disk defragmenting, the first backup can take a long time, but subsequent backups – especially if you schedule them – should go much more quickly.

You should be running an anti-virus program at all times on your computer. One big mistake people make is to assume that their anti-virus definitions are up-to-date. You need to download new definitions periodically to help keep your A/V protection current. If you haven’t downloaded your definitions in awhile, download the latest ones and scan your hard disk immediately!

Photo Credit: Soumit Nandi, via Flickr