Use any USB stick to ReadyBoost your computer

Sooner or later, everyone's computer tends to slow down. Call it old age or simply doing too much, but even the most cutting edge PC's seem to lag after a year or so of use.

For those who aren't keen on opening up their PC to put in more memory, Windows Vista has a handy little feature called ReadyBoost that can use USB sticks for additional memory. Unfortunately, Windows Vista doesn't take kindly to the slower sticks on the market and refuses to use them. Proving once again that we control the computer and not the other way around, here's four simple steps to get around this limitation and use any USB stick you have to increase your computers memory.

1. Setup

First things first. Plug the device in. Ignore AutoPlay if you have the enabled, and go to Computer in the start menu. When it pops up, right-click the USB stick and select properties.

2. Disable the stick

Click on the Readyboost tab on the properties menu and check Do not restest this device. Click okay and unplug the stick from your computer.

3. Edit the registry!

Woah! Don't panic, it's not as frightening as it sounds. Firstly, you need to open regedit, by opening the start menu and typing regedit, then enter. The registry window should load up.

Using the left-hand pane, work your way through the following folders: HKLM (Local Machine) -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows NT -> CurrentVersion -> EMDgmt. You'll have a list of USB devices the computer has encountered, one of which should be your USB stick. Click on it.

Here there's a few details you need to edit. Double click on Device Status and change the value to 2, then ok. Do the same for ReadSpeedKBs and WriteSpeedKBs, changing their values to both 1000. Exit the regedit and breathe a sigh of relief.

4. And back in again