Comments on: Speeding Up Windows Vista… (Yeah, Right)

By: Juuso

Juuso — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:45:06 +0000

The hibernate thing has been great: it’s definitely been much faster thing. I’m now considering adding an SSD drive and moving Windows to it (or installing in case moving is no no).

I’m not going to get Windows 7 now as Windows 8 is supposed to come out next year..

Anyway: hibernate, totally recommend. Also recommend changing power options so that when you push the shutdown button in your computer tower, it actually hibernates.

By: Jerrac

Jerrac — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:58:02 +0000

I just tried installing the free version of BLIde on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Didn’t work. It installed fine, but won’t run. I suppose there’s ways of tweaking settings to get it going, but it’s not worth the effort.

@Fili
Tortoise SVN can be replaced by http://rabbitvcs.org/ It works almost exactly the same.

Not sure about the other two programs you mentioned.

Also, it’s easier for me to find the apps I need on Linux that it is on Windows. So, ‘no apps’ doesn’t really apply unless you are talking about no Windows apps.

So, yeah, Linux is awesome. Unless you need a program that only works on Windows. Then you’re stuck.

By: Fili

Fili — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:13:21 +0000

Go back to XP if you don’t want to upgrade to Win7. I don’t see any advantage that Vista brings, besides some eye-candy that’s not useful at all.
Don’t make the mistake of switching to Mac. I’m using both WinXP and Mac and I can tell you that it’s not worth it. I’m using Mac just for iPhone development, movies and browsing, nothing more. The only available games are Team Fortress 2 (but on low details on my top-of-the-line MacBook Pro) and browser games. Forget about the “stability”, I have to reboot it about once every 2 days because some programs just hang, especially XCode. Don’t believe the mac fan-boys that clap when Steve announces that the new MacBook will have a card reader (my 4-years old laptop has one) and the new iPhone is so revolutionary that it can make video calls (but only on wifi). I had a phone that could make video-calls in 2005 but the apple fan-boys still clap and think apple is the best thing ever.
Ubuntu is nice, but only for browsing and development. Again no games (ok, besides quake) no apps (couldn’t get total commander + beyond compare + tortoise svn to work together, only separately with wine).
My conclusion: go for XP :)

By: Gorgor

Gorgor — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:34:31 +0000

Get finally Mac, man..

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 08:12:43 +0000

…and with hibernate it’s close to 50 secs

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 07:29:38 +0000

MyDefrag worked wonders… down to “bit over 2 minutes”.

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 06:01:06 +0000

Hmm, what virus software are you guys using? I have AVG which – I feel – is doing nasty things in the background :)

By: Juuso

Juuso — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:58:50 +0000

These are good suggestions all. I’ll try that jkdefrag – or MyDefrag as it’s nowadays :)

@Jerrac: “I personally use Ubuntu 97% of the time. I only boot Vista if I want to play a game on it, or some other Windows only task.” => this was the thing I was thinking of. I could consider Wine I suppose. No idea if it works though.

By: sb

sb — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:21:57 +0000

Unity runs awesome on my Mac. ;) I wish I had an actual solution. Every Win box I’ve ever owned got slower over time. Sludge magnet, I guess.

By: Loris

Loris — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:28:03 +0000

A few tips:
- Use jkdefrag (http://kessels.com/jkdefrag/) to defragment and optimize your hard drive. It moves windows’ files to the beginning of the hard disk to increase loading speed.
- If you are on a laptop, you probably have a 5400RPM hard drive. By switching to a 7200RPM one, you will have much better loading times at a fraction of the cost of an SSD
- Use Autoruns by SysInternals to disable useless startup programs (hello adobe reader preloader)

And finally yeah, hibernate is much faster than shutdown/startup, especially considering that you can leave your programs open :)