1. Windows Vista:
When a customer complains about speed and uses Windows Vista, we simply ask him or her to upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7, particularly when they have an entry level Vista – not supporting the ReadyBoost technology, adding to their sorry state. The upgrade of OS – Operating System does 2 things:
a) Reduces the drag on the hardware that Windows Vista – a comparatively slow OS burdens the hardware with, and
b) Reduces the clutter on the operating system and registry making system faster because of the new installation.
In this case, knowing that my friend is averse to changing OS – (he does that only when he changes his hardware so that the OEM copy that comes preloaded is absolute value for money for him and his company – something that I do advise and stand-by).
2. 1GB RAM:
When RAM is available dirt cheap, I wonder why people do not use minimum 2GB RAM, an absolute must for any system to work properly, unless, of course, they use Linux (I know, few use Linux for business desktops or laptops, at least in the segment that I am connected to.). Even the Windows XP, with Service Pack 3, demands a little more from the memory, and if you open up many windows, which is easily done when we use 2 browsers and multiple tabs of the browsers, suddenly your computer can start gasping for memory. This laptop had ready-boost capabilities so we plugged him with a 4GB external USB disk and suggested that he can upgrade RAM in his laptop to minimum 2GB if he finds carrying external disk troublesome.
According to me, anyone being made to use computers with 1GB or lesser, should be allowed to sue his or her employer for inhuman working conditions. With my friend, this was not an option, for he headed his corporation.
3. Jazz - the jizz!
Computers today come with pleasing desktop screens, softening and smoothening graphics and animations while you do copying and invoke basic tasks too. While these may be soothing to the eye and add to the funk factor, they actually bog down your computers by using processing power and memory that should be rightfully allocated to system programs. While configuring business desktops, Fortune Grecells has a Best Practices Manual that minimizes all this jazz and is configured in the BEST PERFORMANCE mode.
This switch saves a lot of pain for the user in terms of speed at which his computer works, again something that was missing when we received this laptop and had to set it right.
4. NTFS - not FAT32, but FIT.
While MD's laptop was not formatted with FAT32, I see a lot of system integrators still use FAT32, explaining to their customers that Data Recovery, in case of software crashes, is easier with FAT32. While not going into merits of that statement, a lot of laptops and desktops bought with Windows XP are still using FAT32, which is slow, has size limitation and is obsolete.
We recommend NTFS formatting to every of our users as FAT32 is simply inefficient when compared to NTFS. Check if your computer disk partitions are formatted the FAT32 way or NTFS NOW.
5. Restore Points:
While Restore Point, Live Imaging, etc. serve effectively as safety chute for safe bail-out in case of a crash, Fortune Grecells implements FAST+UP and thus unless the hardware is latest, state-of-the-art killer configuration, we prefer to shut off Restore Point/s. This effectively shuts down all the computation that Windows performs in the background to save current state of image of the computer as well as stops the multiple write operations that happen in the background due to imaging while a file is saved. Knowing how every software auto-saves the data, be it a part of MS Office or otherwise, the number of CPU cycles and disk write operations this simple thing saves is enough to get one more year of life to your supposedly end-of-life laptop or desktop.
In case of my Managing Director friend, his data is on the server with Offline Folders being on his laptop and he has a FAST+UP implementation done, so we safely turned off his Restore Point which his neighbour's intelligent geek-O-rama son had turned ON.
6. Programs or Background Services?
I have seen a laptop being set to greater allocation of resources such as processor and memory to Background Services, which are ideally reserved for pseudo-servers. In my friend's laptop though, this was not the case, but this is something you got to be careful of as it leaves little memory and processor cycles for the programs that you wish to run and more for the programs that run on their own, at the background.
If the laptop or desktop is being used by a user for applications, switch to allocating resources for Programs, and not to background services.
7. Graphics / Display settings:
If your laptop is forced to display at the highest resolution (number of dots- pixels- in a given slice of area) in full colour of 32 bits it will use more processing power than it would at a lower resolution and in lesser colours. Does the display processing requirement halve when we go from 32-bit colour setting to 16-bit colour settings? How many dots lesser does your computer have to process when it goes down from processing 1440x900 pixels vs. 1280x768 pixels on the same screen? And what is the processing power saved when the system has to process each of those dots in lower colour depth?
This laptop we had received was gasping for more power and we could not change the screen resolution (as all laptops come have LCDs fairly matched to configuration and have a default resolution that makes the images and text most readable), we did switch colour depth from 32-bit to 16-bit to make system run faster.
8. Startup Processes:
A look at the startup processes and you know some of these have no reason to be there. Like, this MD, doesn't use social networking, MSN, Yahoo messenger, google talk, rapidshare, real player, and all these were right in his startup list. We had to switch these off and many others and the system booted well now, not taking 10 minutes to boot-up, the primary source of his irritation.
This needs to be done ONLY BY A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL.
9. Services:
Some services are there running because the user did something and some that Windows has by default that you can disable safely depending upon the user profile. Not only does stopping and Manual switching these save a lot of processes and memory, but suddenly, your laptop becomes more responsive.
This needs to be done ONLY BY A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL.
10. Muck in the Disk:
Like your computer, your disk too needs maintenance, something that your service provider doesn't do as he expects you to do that. This includes running chkdisk, defrag, virus scan, spyware scan and disk cleanup. Sometimes, this is the real problem and gets your computer running with almost 100% extra speed than what it used to be before running these maintenance routines. How to run these will form a part of my series that I shall blog in future on this site.
We ran all these for my friend and gave him his laptop back on Monday morning. I asked him to contact me in case he still needs to buy one but after 2 days when I spoke to him, he was very pleased with his laptop after our medications, a Sony Z series he had bought in 2007 from us.
On second thoughts, this is how we can perfectly ruin our chances of selling new hardware. But then, isn't honesty the best policy? And would he not continue to be our customer for life, referring us to many more?! I feel it is not only honesty, but also being competent and honest that makes the best policy.
* Warning: Do your research and document whatever you do before you touch points 8, 9 & 10.
