Searching for files on a computer is a very computationally intensive task. Not surprisingly, search is one function that will definitely put a hit on your performance. Search works on Vista by “indexing” the files on the computer. Indexing is Vista’s way of keeping track of what is stored and where it’s stored. Indexing can return a faster search result, but the process of tracking the location of a file can cause your computer to perform more slowly under most circumstances.

Searching Affects More Than The Search Command

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here. There’s more to the term “search results” than the computer’s ability to locate last year’s tax returns efficiently. To be sure, your tax “papers” are files as far as the computer is concerned, but so are the application you use to do your taxes and the drivers to run your computer hardware. “Search results” aren’t just applicable to files you happen to be looking for. Mostly, they’re files the computer is looking for!

Is there a happy medium? Maybe. If you want to tweak Indexing, you’re going to have to get comfortable with waiting a bit for file system search results. The other option is to settle for faster searches and slower performance, so if you’re willing to be patient when searching for files, you can have faster performance when you’re doing other things.
In earlier versions of Windows, Indexing was pretty much off the table. That is, you the user couldn’t adjust Windows’ indexing behavior. Vista has done away with that and now you can tweak Indexing to suit your personal tastes.

For maximum performance, you’ll want to disable Indexing for all areas except the Start Menu. If you turn Indexing off, you can expect better overall performance, but slower response when you (or the computer) are looking for files (including applications). Leave Indexing turned on for the Start Menu, and you’ll at least have the benefit of faster application response.

To modify Windows Vista’s indexing options, choose the Start button and select Indexing Options. Click Ok. Choose Modify > Show all locations. Uncheck all areas in the tree except the Start Menu. You can make your own personalized adjustments here if there are other areas you use frequently. You can also personalize the Indexing behavior by file type and other options, using the Advanced button.

If you don’t like the way Vista behaves after these changes, you can go back and tweak your indexing options further to suit your tastes.

In my last post, I provided a basic algorithm for setting up and configuring a new computer. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have new computers to start with. We don’t start looking for a problem on our existing computers until its operation seems unbearably slow.

Speeding Up An Existing Computer

So how do you speed up an existing computer? First, a simple cleaning may or may not solve your problem; don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work, or doesn’t produce the performance boost you were hoping for. This is usually because performance degradation is a combination of things, and is rarely one element of a configuration.

Having said that, if you’re trying to recover performance from an existing computer, start with the usual suspects. Take a look at what your computer loads when it starts. The fastest way to get an idea of what’s loading at startup is to look at the notification area in the lower right corner of the screen. If you’ve got a trail of icons there, examine each one carefully. Roll your mouse over each icon to see what the icon belongs to. Check the Hidden Icons, too by pressing the button that looks like “<" in the notification area on the task bar. Shut down anything that doesn't need to load and run constantly.

Not all programs put an icon in the notification area, so use the Software Explorer in Windows Defender or the System Configuration Tool to get a complete picture of what's taking up system resources at startup. Using the Software Explorer, you can look at the category "Startup Programs" for a list of what runs at startup. Reconfigure the computer to eliminate apps that are unneeded at startup.

Finally, take a look at the Task Manager to see what's running at any given instant. If you still spot programs that are running and shouldn't be, you can kill any process with the Task Manager.

Remove old, unneeded files from the computer, with one caveat. Sometimes programs need temporary files and use a special directory to write the files to. Removing temporary files is most often OK, but removing temporary directories may cause significant problems for some applications. After you're done housekeeping, defragment your hard drive. This is a good overnight task, especially if you don't often defragment your drive. This is a task you can schedule, too, so there's no need to get behind on defragging.

Close programs you're not using. It's tempting to open application after application after application. Each running app takes memory. If you're finished with an application, shut it down and make its memory available to other programs.

Periodically, restart your computer. That alone sometimes works wonders!

Photo Credit: Spike55151, via Flickr