For instance, the otherwise excellent (and free) Avast! Home Edition can
completely halt a Vista system for 15??“20 seconds while it downloads and
installs necessary updates.
While you may not want to stop loading your antivirus software automatically,
you can delay it by writing a simple startup script (see Chapter 9) that
loads the software after waiting, say, 45 seconds. This way, you can start
working while your antivirus program loads in the background.
Add more memory
Vista really isn??™t happy with less than a gigabyte of memory; 2 GB is better.
Memory prices are always dropping, typically making it remarkably inexpensive
to add more RAM to your system, and doing so will significantly
improve performance across the board. See ???Make Your Hardware Perform,???
later in this chapter, for details.
Networking
Windows polls each active wired network connection on your system while
it boots your system, and then polls your wireless adapter (if you have one)
for any networks in range. Each of these steps takes time, so if there are any
network adapters on your PC you don??™t use, you can disable them to speed
things up. In the Network and Sharing Center in Control Panel, click Manage
network connections, and then right-click on each network connection
you??™re not using and select Disable.
Next, if you have any permanent mapped network drives (see ???Access a
Shared Folder Remotely??? in Chapter 8) you??™re not using, open Windows
Explorer, right-click any unneeded mapped drives, and select Disconnect.
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