seven Ways to Speed Up Windows Vista Operating System

There are many ways to speed up Microsoft Windows Vista. Some methods are straighter forward than the other and some will help you see enormous improvements to the performance of Windows while others offer fewer noticeable results. Here we will look at 7 most effective ways to speed up Windows Vista from my personal experience.

Turn off unnecessary Windows features.
By default, Vista comes with tons of features that are enabled based on assumptions which may or may not apply to you. Hence you get a system that is running lots of background processes, most of which you do not need at all. So 0ne of the great ways to speed up Microsoft Windows Vista is to disable them. To see the list of Windows features and turn them on or off, go to Control Panel, change to "Classic View", click on "Program Features" and then select "Turn Windows Features On And Off". Some examples of features you may want to disable are:

- Remote Differential Compression
- Windows Meeting Space
- Tablet PC optional components
- And so on.

Graphical features.
One of the better ways to speed up Windows Vista is to turn off fantastic graphical features if you are not too much into aesthetics. One example is the Aero feature. Open your start menu, go to run, and type in 'system properties performance'. At the Visual Effects tab, uncheck 'Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing'. This will do the job. There are many graphical features that you can take out from here. This can give you more immediate results as compared to other ways to speed up Windows Vista.

Turn off Windows Indexing.
The Windows Indexing service was initially designed to be one of the ways to speed up Windows Vista by shortening the search time for files. However, as the volume of hard disk increases exponentially, the service has proven to be a resource intensive program causing massive slowdowns when Windows start to index the millions of files in the system. Select Start then choose Computer, right click on your C Drive and select properties. Under the General Tab, uncheck "Index this drive for faster searching". On the next dialog box, choose "Include subfolders and files". Do the same for the other Drives.

Remove Spyware and Trojans and protect your system against future attacks.
Out of the many ways to speed up Windows Vista, this has to be one of the most crucial things you need to do. This is because not only your system performance is at stake, the security and confidentiality of your data is too. Use free tools such as Avast for anti-virus protection, Spybot for spyware removal and protection as well as Zonealarm for firewall protection. There are other good tools around but make sure they are not spywares themselves!

Remove unnecessary start up programs.
When Vista boots up, many programs run at the start up either in the background or as pop up Windows. Many of these you do not need. You need to take control and eliminate these memory suckers that are lurking in the background. Open your start menu, go to run, and type in 'msconfig', choose the Startup tab and uncheck any items that you do not want to auto-load and click OK.

Defrag your hard disk.
This may not be new to you but if you are thinking of using the Windows Defragmentation Tool in Vista, you can forget about it. Instead, use a free 3rd party tool known as Defraggler (Google it for the download link). It is still quite effective in comparison to other ways to speed up Windows Vista.

Clean your registry.
One of the often neglected portions of Windows is the registry itself. Many do not realized that one of the finest ways to speed up Windows Vista is to make sure the registry is clear of invalid entries that causes Windows to perform unnecessary tasks. Cleaning the registry has other benefits too. In certain cases you can remove Windows errors that pop up during boot up.

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Microsoft Windows Vista Repair

The intention of this article is to teach you how to make vista repairs if you are having startup issues or you can't seem to use the vista system restore option. There are two ways to use these options and they depend on if you have a Windows Vista install disk or if Vista was pre-installed on your OS you will have a ghost image on your hard drive.
If you have the windows vista repair disk: (This should be your backup copy of Vista if you made one)

PLEASE NOTE: This Vista install CD can be run from within Vista. Just insert the CD 0nce Vista has loaded up and go to install, go > Install Now > Upgrade.

1. Boot up with the Vista install disc
2. You should see a screen that says "Windows is loading files"
3. After a few minutes you will get a language option. Select your language and hit next.
4. On the install screen select "Repair your computer"
5. Windows will find your copy of Vista on the machine
6. Select your copy of Vista and click next
7. You will now see the following options.
* Startup repair - This automatically fixes problems that are preventing Windows from starting

* System Restore - This will Restore Windows to an earlier point in time

* Windows Complete PC Restore - This will completely restore your entire PC - programs, system settings and files - from a back up that you have previously created (Available in Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions 0nly)

* Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool - This checks your computer's memory hardware for errors

* Command Prompt
8. Assuming you are using this option because you were unable to boot to Windows Vista select the system Restore option and then select the date you would like to go back to. If your OS is fine you can always use the startup repair option.
Pre-Installed and OEM versions: (please check with your manufacturer fist. They may have replaced these tools with their own.

1. Turn your computer on and start pressing the F8 key. If you see the Windows Vista Logo you have gone too far and need to reboot and try again

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Latest :Run Windows on a Mac

When the big news came down in mid 2006 that Apple would offer a simple method of running Microsoft Windows on some of its Intel-based Macs, it created a buzz heard ‘round the computer community.

The topic has cooled down, but it continues to maneuver and attract a sizable contingent of Apple customers, so Kissdll and TidBlTS Publishing have just issued the third edition of “Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac,” which documents how much has changed since Boot Camp.
What’s most obvious in 2009, Kissel said from his base in Paris, is that “it’s clear that there’s not a whole lot of interest in Boot Camp anymore. It was cool when it came out, but it’s been eclipsed.”

Now, Kissell finds, the most productive way to use Windows XP or Vista on an Intel-equipped Macintosh running the Leopard OS, version 10.5 or later — which is every current model — is to install third-party so-called “virtualization” software, like Parallels Desktop 4.0 Software ($80) and VMware Fusion 2.0 ($80, free trial available).

“Boot Camp is great if you need to get to all your hardware capabilities in the computer, like making full use of memory, the CPU. It works for gamers. For everyone else, Windows runs plenty fast in virtualization, and you don’t have to switch back and forth between Windows and the Mac operating systems,” he said. In all cases, users have to supply their own copy of Windows XP or Vista to install on the Mac.

Why even bother with Windows if Mac works for you, we asked. As Kissell points out in his book, there are Mac equivalents of almost every major Windows application.

But there are reasons: the proliferation of games on Windows (sorely lacking for Macs); some Web sites are designed to be viewed in Windows’ Internet Explorer, and Web designers often need to preview their work in a browser like IE. Plus, he says, “most people have one or two Windows programs that they really have to run that don’t exist for Mac.”

Kissdll details the install requirements and procedures in his book, along with the pros and cons of the virtual Windows software. His next project: a guide to Apple’s coming next-generation Operating System later this year, Snow Leopard.

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Digg Hackers Strike Next at YouTube

In recent weeks, they've targeted social bookmarking site Digg, spreading malware by adding malicious links into innocuous-seeming comments or in the guise of legitimate posts.
Now, it's the Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube that's coming under similar attack.
Sean-P0ul, threat researcher and security evangelist at antivirus vendor PandaLabs, told that hackers are targeting visitors to porn videos on YouTube, which gives them a greater chance of success

Spokespeople from YouTube did not return requests for comment by press time.
In both the Digg and YouTube attacks, links claim to take visitors to a video. Instead, they redirect them to one of several sites that then download malware like the Adware/Videoplay worm. The worm steals cookies, passwords, user profiles and e-mail account information and sends these to a remote site over the Internet. It can also make copies of itself in removable media to spread further.

The links can also direct users to download fake virus removal software -- called scareware -- which itself often contains viruses.
Correll said these attacks increased by 401 percent between January and the end of February because the malware authors are leveraging the way Digg works -- namely, its voting mechanism, which makes highly rated links more prominent.
"The malware authors were voting their malicious comments up in order to increase the visibility," he said.

Thanks to all the attention their sites received through placement on Digg, the hackers also were able to gain favorable search engine positioning. As a result, they ensured that their malware sites appeared above legitimate sites in search results, thereby spreading their attack even further.

The problem will continue, Correll said. Digg had previously terminated more than 300 accounts for spreading the malware, but the infection is still spreading.
"We're going to see more malicious posts on social networking sites," he said.
In the meantime, social media and community sites like Digg and YouTube are working to keep pace with the bad guys.

"Malware attacks do happen on occasion despite all of our efforts to fight them," Jen Burton, community manager at Digg, told InternetNews.com in an e-mail. Digg is working on solutions that will help keep out links to malicious sites, but these long-term solutions take time to build, she said.

"As always, we rely on our community to report bad content they see on Digg and, as soon as we become aware of the content, we take immediate action," Burton said. "We are always evolving and upgrading our processes to combat this activity, and have several short-term tools in place and are building out longer-term auto-detection features." She did not elaborate.

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