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January 4, 2008
Dear CNET members,
Happy new year, folks! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. This year, my Christmas was pretty laid back--I did a lot of Lego building with my son and playing with baby dolls with my daughter. My New Year's Eve celebration was a nice and quiet one, just me, the family, and Dick Clark. Since my wife had to work, I spent a lot of quality time with my kids over the holiday break. And one wonderful thing that happened was that my daughter has really developed an attachment to me. Before, it was always "Mommy this" and "Mommy that," and now it's "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." And I really can't get enough of it! Anyway, I truly wish for your 2008 to be a happy and safe one! Now, let's get down to business and help Darren with improving his Vista system speeds.
While reading through all the answers to Darren's question, I couldn't help but notice a couple of suggestions that came up quite often. One of the common ones was from people advising him to ditch Vista and load XP, while others were telling Darren to get a Mac. While these two solutions are completely valid, they don't really address the question at hand--which is how to improve Vista speeds. Darren has forked out his money already for his system, so let's work with what he has and try to help him improve his Vista experience.
Darren, there will be many people who dislike Vista, but there are many who praise it also. I know you are frustrated with the speeds of your new system as compared to that of your Windows 98 system, and that's why our members are here to help. Just remember, like all new OS releases, there will be some time getting used to it--and there will be some growing pains. And for that, I'd like to point out member xjohnhamx's comment about the evolution of an OS. (Don't you all remember when XP was released how many people bashed on it? Or held off until service packs were released to jump ship?) More to the point, Darren, I have rounded up a few great recommendations from our members to start you off. So check them out, along with all the other valuable advice from our members.
Just remember, your computer's overall speed aside from hardware, has a lot to do with what's happening behind the scenes while your OS is running--like programs running in the background, programs loaded during startup, possible virus and spyware infections, and many more factors, which all can hamper speeds. And as many members mention, if you aren't into all those nice and prettied-up moving graphics on Vista, then disable Aero and it will improve your speeds almost immediately. Good luck, Darren! Discussion is open for additional advice! Thanks, everyone, for your time and contributions. Have an awesome weekend!
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Member Question of the Week
Hi! Very simple question to the Vista gurus out there. What
can I do to improve the speed of a Vista machine? Seems like
my old expired computer with 98SE was faster, but how can
this be when I have four times more memory (2 GBs), a huge
hard drive of 250 GB, a better video card I think, and a much
faster processor. Vista is nice and pretty and all--moving
icons, nice colors--but why is it so darn slow? From booting
up to shutting down, to open and closing programs, it seems
like Windows took one step backward. OK enough of my
complaints, because that's not what I'm writing in for. I
just wish someone can advise me on some things I can do to
speed up Vista without having to add more hardware to my
fairly new computer (5 months old). Or is this really a lost
hope as to I have just accept what I have and deal with it?
Please say it isn't so. Thanks for listening, I hope you can
help me. Signed the frustrated one.
Submitted by:
Darren S.
Vote for the most helpful answer
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For the member whose answer was voted the
most helpful by our community, we will send
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 Previous week's Q&A
My 12-year-old son has been begging my husband and I for a
Nintendo Wii this entire year. And as part of an agreement
with him, we said we would consider it, only if he received
good grades in school. So far he has been keeping up his end
of the bargain. Christmas is approaching fast and we would
like to buy one of these for him, but when I spoke to my
brother-in-law, he threw me a curve ball saying that he may
quickly grow out of the Wii and should consider buying him a
Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 instead. He says that while the Wii
is fun, the game titles are less mainstream for the
adolescents and more for younger ones and the older
generation. I don't pay much attention to this gaming stuff,
but this is of a concern for us. I know my son wants one, but
is the Wii a right fit for him or should I take my
brother-in-law's advice and consider a PlayStation or Xbox
where it may not be so susceptible to sitting there to
collect dust after a while? What are the differences? I
also have heard many people also say the Wii is fun for all
ages and while that sounds great, the game console would be
for my son. Please help me out in this dilemma.
Thanks to all who contributed!
Community Buzz
 Each week we take a look at topics discussed in the forums.
Have fun and enjoy!
More from the forums
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Check out next week's question:
I would like to get rid of my Sony Hi-8 camcorder and get something better. In the stores, I see lots of different styles including hard-drive, mini-DVD, and even memory card formats. There are even some high-definition camcorders that I have seen for under $1,000 that record to HDV. What is the difference here? I know there has to be pros and cons to each--please let me know what they are. Is it worth my time to get an HD camcorder, or am I better off waiting another 6 to 12 months, or should I just stick with the mini DV and forget the HD hype? Thanks!
--Submitted by:
Russ E.
We feature a new question every Friday, and if you have the answer for our member, you can submit it above. If your submission is picked by our members as the most helpful answer, you'll receive some cool CNET branded gear.
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