Get Windows Vista to behave the way you want it to – Part one

As I have mentioned before in this blog, editing the registry, although not for the faint-hearted, can lead to a better-performing machine. This is mainly because by editing the registry you can customise Windows Vista to such an extent that it works exactly the way you want it to.

Before editing your registry it is extremely important to back it up, so that if something goes wrong you can quickly revert your computer to the state it was in before you made any changes. Incorrectly editing the registry can cause serious problems to your PC, so be very careful.

Speed up hard drive access

To get a small performance boost when Windows Vista is accessing your hard drive, you can disable the low hard drive space checks that Windows Vista performs. In the default setting Windows Vista will periodically check how much space you have on your hard drive, and if you are running low will display a warning dialogue box to inform you. Turning off these checks frees up resources.

Open up the registry editor by typing ‘regedit’ into Start Search.
Scroll down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
Right-click in the pane to the right, select New Key and name the key Explorer. Open up the key, and then right-click in the pane to the right and select New DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name this NoLowDiskSpaceChecks. Right-click it, select Modify, set the Value Data to 1 and then click OK.

Prevent your computer from restarting automatically after downloading Windows Updates

If you’ve set your computer to download and install Windows Updates automatically, you may get frustrated when your PC  reboots by itself. With this registry tweak, you can prevent that from happening if a user is logged into Windows Vista.

Open the registry editor and browse to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
If it’s not already there, create a key called WindowsUpdate (right-click Windows and select New > Key) and then another key inside that called AU. Right-click in the right-hand pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name this value NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers. Right-click the value and select Modify and set the Value Data to 1.
 
This is just the tip of the iceberg with what you can accomplish with Windows Vista registry. Check back tomorrow for some more registry tips.