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Boost Your System Speed
Hybrid hard drives, which embed a cache of flash memory inside a hard drive's 3.5-inch shell to improve its performance, aren't on the market yet. But they're just one way Vista uses flash memory; ordinary thumb drives can, cheaply and easily, let your PC read small, random bits of frequently accessed data, a Vista feature called ReadyBoost. Here's the thing: To maximize its efficiency, a ReadyBoost thumb drive should have the same amount of memory as is built into your system. In other words, match your 2GB of RAM with a 2GB flash drive for best performance.

Eliminate That Warning
Windows Vista hates it when you don't use an antivirus program, a firewall, or some other security feature. But if you don't need one part of the built-in security, you also don't need the Security Centre shield icon to pop up constantly in the system tray. Right-click the icon and click Open Security Centre. Then, in Security Centre, click Change the Way Security Centre Alerts Me. You want to select Don't Notify Me and Don't Display the Icon (even though Windows tells you it's "Not Recommended").

Set Affinity
Multitasking is an efficient way to spread resources across multiple CPUsor the multiple cores of a dual-core CPU (or quad-, or octo-, or whatever!). But if you have a single application that consumes a large amount of the system's resources, such as Norton AntiVirus, bypass the multitasking and set it to run exclusively off a single core, potentially improving its efficiency. Bring up the Task Manager, find the resource-hogging process (for Norton, it's called nprotect.exe), right-click it, and select Set Affinity. Then deselect one of the cores, isolating the process and boosting its efficiency.

Gain Speed
Does Vista seem slower than XP to you? A default power setting in the "Power Saver" plan limits the CPU to 50 percent. Open the Power Options control panel and change it to "High Performance" to give it full throttle.

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