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Monday, December 31, 2007

Tips of the Year for 2007 (Speeding up XP and Vista Both)

by Don Burnett

Over the holidays, I went to quite a few stores looking at new hardware and software.. A lot of people at these retail stores by from salesman and give their feedback about product speed and performance to the people they bought their computers from, so I asked what the major complaint that most people were having.. Most of the complaints was that Windows Vista was "slow" in situations that were common..

The over all biggest concerns were file copies and Window refresh and redraw with layered windows.. It kind of surprised me to hear this, but I took what was being as fact. I keep an eye on Microsoft's HOTFIXES so when issues like this spring up I fix these right away. Apparently though a vast number of consumers who buy through the retail chain don't know about these and companies like HP and others don't always suggest people install these until Microsoft decides to issue a service pack.  So, as an end of the year, suggestion if you haven't installed the following updates, RUN don't WALK! to install these. You may see some very serious performance boosts.. Some of these are still being tested, so I would just advise you that you might not see these on Windows Update right away..

 

For Windows XP and Server 2003:

Performance is poor in a WPF-based application in which you have enabled layered windows in Windows XP or in Windows Server 2003

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937106

You may have to use this link to Request the Hotfix (Which Microsoft should just link to, not make people request it.)

Request the HotFix from Microsoft


For Windows Vista:

Performance for a WPF-based program that uses the layered windows feature may be less than expected in Windows Vista

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938660

Request the HotFix from Microsoft for Vista

Other Fixes:

Video performance may suddenly be reduced when certain Windows elements overlap the video window in Windows Vista

File Copy Hotfixes

You experience slow performance on a Windows Vista-based computer after you establish a VPN connection

 

Multi-GPU Performance Enhancement (do have more than one graphics card?)

Graphics performance can be improved in certain multiple-GPU scenarios on a Windows Vista-based computer

3rd Party FTP Server File Copies

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555564/en-us

VPN file copy performance Issues

You experience slow performance on a Windows Vista-based computer after you establish a VPN connection

 

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