1. Introduction
‘The Wow starts Now’, was the catch-cry at Vista’s lavish launch
early in 2007. The campaign was slick and glossy, but it didn’t take
long for users to complain in droves that Vista was as slow as a wet
week, a resource hog and painful to work with. The cool aero-glass look
wasn’t enough to offset the pain. The verdict: Vista was a cane toad in
fancy drag.
Microsoft’s infrequent responses reflected, with crystal clarity,
the company’s arrogance. ‘Frankly, the world wasn't 100 percent ready
for Windows Vista,’ was how one spokesperson put it. Mostly, Microsoft
ignored the howls of protest because it knew that Vista would sell up a
storm regardless, because it gets installed on almost every new PC sold.
By mid-year, the rousing chorus chanting that the Wow had become a
mere whisper stung Microsoft into action. A new campaign was launched:
‘100 Reasons You’ll be Speechless.’ The marketing hype took enormous
liberties with the truth and failed to mention the heavy slug of the
Vista upgrade price or the cost of the extra hardware needed to run it.
By the end of 2007, most of the early wrinkles - including missing
drivers - had been ironed out via various updates, but Vista’s poor
performance remained. Those who hope for Service Pack 1 to improve
things will be out of luck, as the tests at
this site show. Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, on the other hand, showed a 10% improvement.
Reality bites
Vista’s advantages over XP are largely cosmetic, despite what
Microsoft says, while some of its drawbacks are very real. For a
light-hearted take on this comparison, check
this story
which uses reality inversion to great effect by introducing XP as the
successor to Vista and going on and on about the many improvements XP
introduces.
Bottom Line: If you have a well-working XP set-up on your PC, keep
it. There’s little you can achieve with Vista that you can’t do
faster with XP.
If you run professional graphics applications, the lack of support for
the OpenGL graphics library under Windows Vista is an extra handicap.
The same applies to CPU-intensive applications like video transcoding,
where Vista lags a long way behind XP.
The old XP theme doesn’t look too bad if you change the blue borders for silver ones (Control
Panel>Display>Themes) and replace the green lawn with a pretty
picture (right-click on picture>set as desktop background). If you’re
still hankering after Vista’s eye-candy, there’s plenty of it and it’s
mostly free.
Vista Style is a popular choice.
Vista transformation pack is another. Be warned that some of these transformations can have unintended effects on system stability.
If you still have your heart set on Vista, the best way to avoid the
steep upgrade price is to buy it with a new PC. My Vista Business
edition came with a bargain Compaq Presario laptop I bought on sale
(twin AMD Turion cpus, 1gb of RAM, nVidia go 6100 graphics).
"Vista makes using your PC a breeze"
This is one of the first of the ‘100 Reasons you’ll be speechless’.
It did that alright because, fresh out of the box, Vista Business took
many minutes to reveal its full glory, the long periods of darkness
relieved occasionally by the mouse pointer appearing with the circle
spinning like a top.
About performance, the 100 reasons list says this: ‘New technology
in Windows Vista makes your PC significantly more responsive while you
are performing everyday tasks. Improved start-up and sleep behavior
helps both desktop and mobile PCs get up and running more quickly ...’
Don’t believe a word of it - Vista runs many more services than XP
and uses far more resources as it looks after itself. That’s no
surprise, since new Windows releases have always been heftier than
previous versions, and Microsoft’s architects have always relied on
Intel to restore performance. Put another way, ‘whatever Intel giveth,
Microsoft taketh away.’
"It’s the Safest Version of Windows Ever"
This is the third reason in Microsoft’s 100 reasons campaign. With
Microsoft’s poor track record in security, that’s not saying much.
Vista’s User Account Control, the great new security feature here, is
about as well-thought out as Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
What is the point of forcing a user (who is also the administrator)
to re-enter the same password she started the system with, over and over
again, and going all dark on her every time she wants to do something?
It’s worse than the constant pop-ups in XP that warn us not to open
files from un-trusted sources (including those from Microsoft). At least
that made you stop and think. UAC just makes you mad.
And Vista still needs the same old security software to keep it
protected, despite Microsoft’s assurances to the contrary. More of that
further down.
2. Optimize Windows Vista for better performance
That’s the title of
one of the articles
Microsoft has dribbled out of late to address the issue. It shows
clearly that Microsoft is still in denial, preferring to blame the user:
‘That state-of-the-art PC you bought last year might not feel like such
a screamer after you install a dozen programs, load it with
anti-spyware and anti-virus tools, and download untold amounts of junk
from the Internet.’
That’s adding serious insult to grave injury, but the court jesters
at Redmond aren’t done yet: ‘Sometimes changing your computing behavior
can have a big impact on your PC's performance. If you’re the type of
computer user who likes to keep eight programs and a dozen browser
windows open at once—all while instant messaging your friends—don’t be
surprised if your PC bogs down.’
There you have it, you pitiful dumb users. The final insult for this
user who bought a brand-new laptop with Vista Business installed is
this piece of advice: ‘If your PC is rated lower than 2 or 3 [on the
Vista Experience Scale], it might be time to consider a new PC ...’
The Vista Experience Index
In the Control Panel, clicking on ‘Performance Information’ leads to a
panel where Vista offers to rate the Presario's performance. Taking up
that option produces an ‘Experience Index’, which holds up numbers like
those sullen judges who rate Olympic ice skaters.
You’d assume that the score is on a scale of 5 but it turns out to
be out of 5.9, a number only the King's architects could conjure up,
isolated as they are in their tall towers at Redmond. They say it's the
nVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 integrated graphics chip that's letting the side
down, which I’m not ready to accept. For one, the Presario handles
Ubuntu’s Emerald’s aero-glass and compiz-fusion 3D with no dramas of any
kind.
When you explore 'learn how to improve your computer's performance',
you’ll find that Vista's first suggestion is turning off the
aero-glass. Microsoft’s article makes the same suggestion, but why would
you turn off the WOW already? Isn’t that why you bought Vista in the
first place?
Getting rid of excess baggage
Let’s move on. Our tweaks are for simple users with a working
knowledge of Windows. Most involve turning off various services Vista
starts automatically, whether you need them or not. To follow the simple
instructions here, please choose ‘Classic View’ on the left hand side
of the Control Panel.
We’re not going near the Windows Registry, where one wrong move
could stop Vista dead in its tracks - we’ll keep it nice and simple.
The first candidate for deletion is the Vista Welcome screen. This is an easy checkbox at the bottom left of the screen.
Vista’s Sidebar is also on by default. I like a sidebar but Vista’s
gadgets are on the garish side and ill-matched. You can turn the Sidebar
off by right-clicking the Windows Sidebar icon in the system tray>
Properties>Uncheck the Start Sidebar when Windows starts box.
User Account Control is the next item on our list: Control
Panel>User Accounts>Turn User Account Control on or off. Uncheck
the box that says ‘Use User Account Control to protect your computer
...’
Stop auto-start applications
The simplest way to do this is to run Windows
Defender>Tools>Software Explorer. Go down the list and disable the
start-up services you don’t need. This is one of the few useful
suggestions made in the Microsoft piece.
If you’ve already installed a security suite that includes spyware
protection, you may want to turn Windows Defender off as well. Bring up
Windows Defender from the main menu, click on Tools>Options, scroll
to the bottom of the long panel until you see the ‘Administrator
Options’, uncheck the ‘Use Windows Defender’ box and click SAVE. Confirm
in the pop-up panel that you mean it, click Close, and you're all set.
If your security suite includes a firewall, you should turn Vista’s
firewall off. Some security suites do this for you – check Control
Panel>Windows Firewall.
Other candidates
Microsoft’s article suggests uninstalling programs that are no
longer needed, and getting rid of excess files. That’s like saying that
washing your car will make it go faster. The advice to restart you PC at
least once a week hints at users who’ve grown tired of waiting for
Vista to boot up and shut down.
User Account Control is a pain and a drain on resources. UAC’s
primary purpose is to stop users from doing dumb things, like
downloading suspect files or programs from unsavory sources. If you use
common sense, download files only from reliable sources and have decent
security software on board, there’s no need for Vista’s heavy chastity
belt.
Vista has a new search feature which replaces that useless puppy of
old, but it indexes your files in the background to make searches more
snappy.
If you use Google or Copernic desktop search, you can turn this
feature off. The easiest way is to open the Control Panel>Programs
and Features>Turn Windows features on or off.
Google desktop offers a sidebar as well. Right-click on the Google
Search icon in the notification area (bottom right of screen), tick the
sidebar option and choose your gadgets. If you choose carefully, they’ll
look neater than Vista’s garish collection.
Vista’s built-in disk defrag utility is enabled and set to keep your
files tidy in the background. This is overhead and overkill, and
Vista’s defragger does a pretty poor job anyway. You can turn it off
this way: Control Panel>Performance information and tools>Advanced
Tools>Open Disk Defragmenter. Uncheck ‘Run on a schedule’.
Automatic backup is another candidate for deletion. It works in the
background to back up files as you work. It’s a nice idea but you may
not have an external drive, or you don’t have it connected all the time,
or you’re running Vista on a laptop and backup your work when you get
home. Most likely, you already have your favourite backup and defrag
programs sorted out.
Antivirus Software can bog a PC down faster than a mud slide.
Norton, McAfee and Trend Micro used to be the worst offenders but Zone
Alarm Internet Security Suite is the new champ. The suites that have the
lightest footprint and interfere the least are ESET NOD32/ESS,
Avira/Antivir and AVG. The first two also provide the best malware
protection currently available.
Laptop Users have found that Vista sucks battery juice like a Hummer
guzzles gas. So much for Vista smarter power management capabilities. I
said that Aero-glass wasn’t a big drain on performance but it is a
drain on batteries because the video is doing the work, and the video
card consumes power.
When you want to get the most out of your batteries, turn off the
aero-gloss. You’d assume that you do this under Personalization but
Microsoft likes to play hide-and-seek with us as usual – go to
Performance Information>Adjust Visual Settings>Visual Effects and
select the radio button next to ‘Adjust for best performance. That turns
Vista Business into Vista Home Basic but it conserves precious juice.
Tuning for Performance
The easiest option on a PC with 1gb of RAM is to double it. A simpler
and cheaper way to raise performance is Vista’s Ready Boost feature,
which uses the flash memory of a USB stick as additional RAM. Simply
plug the USB flash drive in and select My Computer, right-click on the
USB drive, select the Ready Boost tab, choose ‘Use this device’ and
select as much space as you can. 2gb is optimal for 1gb of RAM.
It makes a small difference to overall response, which will vary
from PC to PC. I ran a simple benchmark often used by PC mags called
PCMark05. Without the USB stick, PCMark05 came up with 2431. With a 2gb
Cruzer flash drive, the number was 2741 – a 13% improvement. Not bad,
but it doesn’t feel that much faster.
Bear in mind that flash drives vary dramatically in read/write
speed, even the newer USB2 types. The Cruzer is among the faster ones
but a Lexar Lightning might’ve come up with a slightly better number.
Disk Performance can be optimized for SATA disks, which are the norm
these days. Here you can enable write-caching and advanced performance.
This will speed up disk access but it has a downside: if you lose
power suddenly, you’ll loose whatever data was sitting in the cache at
the time. If you’re running Vista on a laptop as I am, that’s okay since
the batteries take over when the power cuts out.
To enable better hard disk performance, right-click on your hard
drive in ‘My Computer’ and go to Hardware>Properties>Policies
where you’ll find the check boxes we’re looking for.
Superfetch is a new Vista feature that learns your habits and
pre-loads the apps you use most often and keeps them on stand-by after
you close them. It makes start-up a little slower but speeds up
launching programs. The experts say that superfetch needs 2gb of RAM to
show a benefit, or at least a USB drive on Ready Boost. With systems
running 1gb of RAM, the advice is to turn it off.
I tried both settings - Start>Run> type ‘services.msc’>
scroll down to superfetch >right-click>properties>change
startup type to disabled and status to stopped. Turning it off produced
no improvement in speed of any kind. Against the odds, the Presario
seems to run better with superfetch left on.
This is one of those things that comes down to individual set-ups:
by the time I got this far down the list, I’d cut the number of running
services down from over 70 to 45 (see below) and Vista was using just
over 500mb of RAM instead of over 700 at idle. That meant I had some
spare RAM left for superfetch to work on. On systems with less available
RAM, it may slow things down – there’s only one way to find out.
The Page File is a small part of the hard disk Windows uses as
‘virtual memory’. In XP or Vista, you can adjust the size of the page
file but just how much difference it makes is a hotly debated topic.
Bring up the Control panel, choose System>Advanced System Settings.
Choose Settings in the ‘Performance’ panel and then ‘Advanced’ in the
Performance Options panel. Now you see a page file size, set to a
minimum of 1500 here (if you have 1gb of RAM). Click on ‘Change’ and set
the maximum number to 2500, then click ‘Set’ and ‘Apply’ and close the
panels with OK. The common advice is to make the upper number 2.5 times
the actual RAM.
That’s about it for the easy tweaks. By now you should have a Vista
setup that works reasonably well. The next section explores an area that
is more tedious but it may help to improve performance by another 10%.
It’s the law of diminishing returns.
Serious Tweaks for Serious Types
Unless you’re a competent user, you might want to skip this section.
When you turn on your system, Vista starts up a host of background
services for applications you may never use – Network Printing or FAX
and Smartcard services, for example, and offline files and tablet PC and
blue tooth stuff. Most of Vista’s services are much more obtuse, and
you’ll need a reliable guide to help you decide whether you do or don’t
need them.
I used two guides to help me:
this one from Black Viper's well known website, and
another
a stumbled on. The two guides don’t agree, which adds some drama to the
tedious exercise. If in doubt, go with Black Viper’s ‘Safe’ settings,
and don’t let the name put you off.
The second list is a bit more radical and best left alone unless
you’re looking to trim every bit of excess fat from Vista’s bulk. If in
doubt, don’t disable a service but set it to manual. That way, a program
or service that depends on it can prod it into action.
To find the list of services you can use RUN and key in "services.msc", but a program like
Starter from Codestuff is a better option.
Starter makes the job a little easier with one click descriptions of
running programs, services and processes. Just double click on the
service you highlight and a panel pops up telling you what it is.
Starter also has a section where you can easily check the services that
keep ingratiating themselves in the start-up process.
Unexpected Rewards
After hours of fiddling, we've got the number of start-up processes
down to 45, and the RAM that Vista chews up just idling is down to
500mb. Another reboot produces a big surprise: the login panel pops up
in about 40 seconds, and it takes another 50 to get ESET’s signature
database updated, the icons on the desktop settled down and Google’s
sidebar up and working. Google desktop/sidebar runs 3 processes and uses
over 20mb of RAM so it has an impact on performance.
Still, programs are fast to launch and files quick to open, and I'm
beginning to like using Vista rather than just admiring the show. What
we have now is close to optimized XP performance, which is hard to
believe after reading so many stories about Vista, the slug.
Most of it was easy. Just what difference disabling the extra
services made is hard to measure but it gives Vista much-needed elbow
room on a machine with 1GB of RAM.
Keeping the Edge
Windows tends to get clogged up over time, and Vista is no exception.
It’s worth cleaning out temporary files, the gunk that builds up in
applications and in Windows, but registry cleaners that boast of
restoring your PC to as-new performance aren’t worth the money. The only
software that boosts performance is a good disk defrag utility, and
that doesn’t involve the risk of breaking the fine china in Windows’
special cabinet – the registry.
The experts say that the best way to rejuvenate Windows is to
re-install it from scratch. For most of us, that’s about as much fun as
doing tax returns. And it takes longer, given the time it takes to
restore all your data and your programs, and to update Vista.
An easier way to do this is to take a snapshot of our trim, taut and
terrific Vista installation with disk imaging software like Acronis
True Image (or the free version of Seagate Disk Wizard, if one of your
HDs is a Seagate or Maxtor drive).
My Presario didn’t come with a Vista install DVD – just a restore
partition – so a disk image is essential. Now I have an easy and
complete emergency option that restores my last optimized configuration,
not the one HP put on the restore partition a year ago.
And remember, it’s not the stuff you pile on your hard drive that
adds the performance-strangling bulk, it’s Windows. Just take a look at
this chart I found on WikiPedia
The table doesn’t tell the whole truth, though: the specs given for
XP above have increased dramatically over the last five years, after
many updates and major revisions like Service pack 1 and 2. In fact, at
the time of Vista’s release, Windows XP takes as much hardware to run
well as is listed for Vista in the table above.
The old PC I’m writing this on reflects this trend perfectly: it
started life back in 2002 with a 600mHz CPU, 128mb of RAM and a 20GB
hard disk, which seemed overkill at the time. Several upgrades later, it
runs a 2.4gHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard disk. The original 20GB
HDD – a Seagate Barracuda that is still doing duty for file backups –
is now just big enough to hold Windows XP (including restore, page file,
hibernation file and trash can).
If this trend continues with Vista, and there’s no reason to assume
it won’t, by 2012 the new OS will need a CPU 5 times more powerful than
current issue, 8GB of RAM and 150GB of disk space. So be prepared for
the occasional hardware upgrade.
Unfortunately, even with all the great new security and updates to core features, Windows 8 has been hampered by the dual desktop and Start Screen interfaces. I personally switched back to Windows 7 because I find the Start Screen and lack of the Start button frustrating. However, back on Windows 7, I no longer have the new more-reliable copying functions of Windows 8.
In addition to faster performance, Windows 8 also handles file conflicts and other errors way better than previous operating systems. The best part is that you can actually pause and resume copy operations, which is really useful.
However, until Microsoft fixes Windows 8 the right way, I’m going to stick with Windows 7 and that means having to use third-party apps for copying large number of files. In this post, I’m going to list some of the best file copying utilities currently out there that you can use for Windows. Depending on your copying needs, some programs are better than others. I can’t say there is one copying program that’s the “best”.
Instead of just listing them out in random order, which doesn’t really help anybody, I’m going to break them down into categories: fastest (local), fastest (network), handling corrupted data, and most features.
Fastest File Copiers (Local)
1. FastCopyFastCopy has been tested by many people and the results show that it is far the fastest copying program out there for Windows. If you just need raw speed, then this program is the best.
Pros: copies extremely fast, shell integration, x64 capabilities, runs without installation, strong command line support, NSA file wiping utility for secure deleting, handles long path well, ability to see what files/folders will be affected before executing using the listing button.
Cons: Interface is very bare bones and not very intuitive, unable to pause a transfer, uninstalling is not intuitive.
Download FastCopy
2. ExtremeCopy Standard
ExtremeCopy Standard is a free and does a very good job of doing local data transfers really fast. For whatever reason, it’s pretty terrible for network transfers, so don’t bother downloading this program if you have to transfer data across your LAN. It’s faster than TeraCopy and very close to FastCopy.
Pros: copies data fast, integrates directly into Explorer so you can copy and paste like normal, x64-bit version, ability to pause copy operations.
Cons: standard version has no user interface, except for options, bad for network transfers, pro features are available for free in other copying programs, must install program to run.
Download ExtremeCopy Standard
3. KillCopy
KillCopy has a horrific looking interface when you copy files, but it gets the job done very fast. It’s also kind of old and isn’t updated like TeraCopy, UltraCopier and other popular copy programs.
Pros: can resume copy on crash, parallel read/write, resolution options in case of errors or file conflicts, some boost options for faster performance, great network performance when copying, ability to securely wipe data before copying.
Cons: terrible looking interface, doesn’t get updated very often, must be installed in order to run.
Download KillCopy
Fastest File Copiers (Network)
1. RichCopy 4This tool was created internally by a Microsoft employee and wasn’t released to the public until years later. It’s a bit old and hasn’t been updated since 2009, but it’s ultra fast for network transfers. However, it’s very slow for local copying, so don’t use this for anything other than network transfers.
Pros: Very fast for network copying, parallel copying, ability to pause and resume copying, ability to continue copying even if network connection lost, clean interface.
Cons: hasn’t been updated in a long time, very slow for local copying.
Download RichCopy 4
2. KillCopy – KillCopy is just a tad slower than RichCopy when performing network transfers. Unfortunately, because of it’s horrible looks and lack of updates, it’s not that popular even though it’s very fast.
3. FastCopy – This is your best bet if you’re looking for one copying program to use on a regular basis. It’s not the fastest for network transfers, but it’s very close and since it’s the fastest for local transfers, it’s probably the best copying utility overall.
4. Ultracopier
UltraCopier is fast, but speed is not it’s main selling point. It’s got a nice interface and has a lot of useful features. Development has slowed down, but it still gets updates every 6 months or so.
Pros: works on Linux and Mac too, supports third-party plugins to extend functionality, start/stop copy, limit speed, search through copy list, simple and clean interface.
Cons: speed is above average, but nothing special.
Download Ultracopier
Copying Corrupted Data
1. Unstoppable CopierThis is pretty much the only program that you can use to copy not only a large number of files, but also corrupt files. In terms of copying speed, it’s very slow compared to all the other programs, but that’s because it is the most reliable of all copiers. If you have any data that you believe could be corrupt like data stored on a hard drive with bad sectors or on a scratched CD or DVD, then you should use Unstoppable Copier.
Pros: can recover data from corrupt files while copying, batch mode, various settings for data recovery
Cons: very slow in terms of copying speed
Download Unstoppable Copier
File Copiers – Most Features
1. TeraCopyIf you’re looking for a more full-featured and fancier-looking copier, then TeraCopy is the best choice. It would actually be the best one overall if it’s copying speeds were on par with FastCopy, however, it’s only about average. Where it makes up is all the features and the nice interface.
Pros: very nice interface, integrates fully with Windows, works with Windows 8 x64, stop and start, ability to recover from errors, failed file list, very actively updated.
Cons: copying speed is only average.
Download TeraCopy
Alternatives
Beyond just the above-mentioned file copiers, there are some other programs that can help you copy files in different ways. Here are two of my favorites.1. XXCOPY
XXCOPY is a command line copier program with no GUI interface. However, if you know how to use the command line, it has over 230 command line switches you can use to create very specific copy operations that you can’t do with any other program. Want to copy only the files older than a certain date, larger than a certain size and with a certain word in the file name? XXCOPY can do that.
Pros: huge command line options, works with all versions of Windows, access remote network storage
Cons: only non-stop copying, can’t recover from errors, can’t pause and resume
Download XXCOPY
2. Beyond Compare
Another smart way to copy files is to just compare two folders and see what’s different. That’s how Beyond Compare works. Even if it crashes in the middle or there is some sort of error, you can always just run it again and since it’s comparing everything, it’ll copy over any remaining items. This is the only program that doesn’t have a free version, though, so you’d have to cough up $30 for it. However, there are lots of programmers and IT Pros that overwhelmingly vouch for this program.
Download Beyond Compare
There are a bunch of other file copier programs out there, but there’s really no point in mentioning all of them because you’ll be better off using one from the list above. If you use a file copier not mentioned above or prefer one over another, let us know in the comments. Enjoy!