Archive for the ‘PC Performance Tips’ Category

Turning Off the Windows Vista Account Control Feature

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

The Windows Vista User Account Control feature has been designed to stop your computer being affected by malware and prompts you for authorization before carrying out things such as putting on new software or making a change to the computer’s settings.

While the idea behind this is sound enough, in reality it can get a bit annoying after a while and will cause you to spend more time doing simple things than you would otherwise take.

To turn off this feature go into the Control Panel and then go into User Accounts and Family Safety followed by User Accounts. Here you will see the option to Turn User Account Control On or Off. A click here take you to the place where ticking or unticking the box will change the settings.

The official Microsoft advice is not to take turn off the User Account Control, but there are some parts of it you can deactivate without fear. For example, you can stop it blacking out your screen before it does some tasks. This is an option on Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions and you do it in the following way.

Go into group policy by choosing Start then Run then gpedit.msc. Now you need to go to Computer Configuration followed by Windows Setting and then Security Settings followed by Local Policies and then Security Options. Here you can look for the policy called User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation. If you put this to disabled then you will get rid of the rather annoying black out feature.

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Improve your Performance with ReadyBoost

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

If your PC could do with a bit of an extra performance boost but you don’t really want to go out and buy an expensive memory upgrade you can still do it by plugging in a USB flash device and using the Windows ReadyBoost facility.

This is a feature which is available on Windows Vista and Windows 7, and while it won’t give you all the benefits of a memory upgrade in aspects such as gaming speed it is still a clever and pretty inexpensive way to read information a lot quicker than straight from the hard drive.

The ReadyBoost feature works by speeding up access to data by caching it on the USB drive, and it is encrypted so that if you lose the flash device no one can find out the information on it.

You can find flash drives which are ReadyBoost compatible pretty easily online, and a good tip is to look for one which matches as closely as possible the amount of RAM which your computer has. After you plug it into your USB port you will be asked whether you prefer to use the device as a ReadyBoost driver or as an external memory drive. Choose the ReadyBoost option. After this is done your computer will suggest the amount of memory to be used in order to give you the best performance. Click on ok if you are happy with this suggestion and it will start working without you doing anything else.

As mentioned earlier, this isn’t going to give you the same effect as adding more memory to your PC, but for the cost a USB flash drive it is a pretty good investment which will give you a noticeable improvement with no hassle.

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How to Use Windows Update

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

It is really important that you keep your PC up to date with all the latest advances and security features which have been released since you bought your computer.

The main reason for doing this is to keep your machine working effectively and safely. Having old drivers is one sure way to have problems with system crashes, slow running applications and issues with other vital aspects of your computer’s performance.

The first step towards keeping your system as up to date and protected as possible is by using Window Update. There are really two ways to do this:

Automatic updates. You can set your PC to automatically scan for updates and then download them onto your system. This is the recommended way of doing it as there is no risk of the task being forgotten or carried out the wrong way. The way to set this up is to go into the control panel and then “automatic updates”. Here you can choose the option which best suits you. (more…)

The Danger of Using Old Drivers

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

When you buy a new mobile phone or a television it can pretty quickly be replaced in the market by better and more efficient models within a matter of months. The same happens with computers but the big difference is that instead of buying a new PC you can often simply update your current model’s drivers to maintain a good performance and get it working as new again.

The main problem is that most computer users are unaware of how to update their drivers, and a lot of the time they aren’t even aware that what they are using isn’t the current model. Because there are few visible signals that you are using an out of date driver – no smoke rising from the machine or alarm bells flashing – it is probably something which you would never really think about checking on your own.

However, if you are having recurrent problems with your machine then there is a pretty good chance that old drivers have something to do with it. The three main problems with not keeping your drivers up to date are listed below. (more…)

6 Ways to Speed up Your PC

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

It is a fact of life that even the best and most expensive computers slow down a good bit over time. The addition of new programs, the ageing process and the fact that new technology has been introduced since you bought it are some of the factors for the slowing down of your machine. However, some of these of these issues can be resolved with just a little bit of simple, regular maintenance which anyone can carry out.
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