Probably the most effective steps you
can take involve your hard disk, discussed later in this chapter.
Paradoxically, this section??™s first topic involves the Glass interface, a new feature
that indeed makes Windows run more slowly. But making Vista perform
isn??™t always about making it run faster; rather, performance is as much about
the quality of your experience as it is about raw, number-crunching speed.
Disclaimer: Keep in mind that there??™s a certain point beyond which your
computer is going to turn into a money and time pit. The older your system
is, the less time and energy you??™ll want to invest in making it run well, and
the more you should start looking to replace it. It??™s easy to calculate the point
of diminishing returns: just compare the estimated cost of an upgrade??”both
the monetary cost and the amount of time you??™ll have to commit??”with the
cost of a new system (minus what you might get for selling or donating your
old system). I stress this point a great deal, because I??™ve seen it happen time
and time again: people end up spending too much and getting too little in
return. A simple hardware upgrade ends up taking days of troubleshooting
and configuring, only to result in the discovery that yet something else needs
to be replaced as well. Taking into account that whatever you end up with will
still eventually need to be further upgraded to remain current, it is often more
cost effective to replace the entire system and either sell or donate the old parts.
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