How to use ReadyBoost to speed up Vista
Windows Vista has often been at the receiving end of many critiques and harsh reviews – but it has a few gems hidden in it as well. One of them is ReadyBoost, a simple application that jacks up the working speed of the Vista PC by using any portable memory – such as a USB, an SD card, etc. – as a disk cache. This can actually be a boon if you have been having a hard time dealing with Vista’s slow performance, and freezing up problems. This small application when used will improve the situation quite dramatically.
To activate ReadyBoost, you need to first plug in a USB thumb drive into your PC. As soon as you do his, in the Autoplay menu that crops up, you can see the option that says Speed up My System. This is the option that you have to select to startup ReadyBoost.
However, if the Autoplay dialog does not show (and this might happen due to a number of reasons), simply follow the steps given below.
- Open Computer using the Windows Explorer.
- Right-click on the Removable Drive icon and select Properties from the context menu that comes up.
- Click on the ReadyBoost tab.
- Select the option for Use this device, and set the Space to reserve for system speed to the maximum limit of the USB drive.
- Click on Apply.
- Click on OK.
After this is done, your Vista PC will se the USB as part of its virtual memory (disk cache) stock and you will not be able to store anything on this drive. This price is nothing compared to the increase in the performance speed of the system which becomes noticeable quite easily – particularly if your USB has a capacity of 4GB or higher.
One thing to note, however, is that you need to have a USB 2.0 for all the above to work.