Make Windows faster and easier to use

Check reliability (Vista)
Curious about how reliable Vista is on your PC? Type reliability and performance into the Start menu search box and press Enter. Under Monitoring Tools, select the Reliability Monitor option and you’ll see a calendar detailing when problems have occurred.

Get a detailed system health report (Vista)
Vista comes with a detailed report generator that tests your hardware and highlights potential problems. To run the report, click Start, type performance and information and press Enter. On the left, click ‘Advanced tools’ and then ‘Generate a system health report’. After a short wait, your report will appear.

Take quick screenshots (Vista)
There are plenty of third-party screenshot tools, but Vista has its own built in. Type snipping tool in the Start menu search box and press Enter. You can then take a screenshot of the entire screen or just a selection.

Activate voice recognition (Vista)
A vastly under-used component of Vista is its voice recognition. To give it a go, make sure you have a microphone attached and then click Start, type windows speech recognition and press Enter. You will now be taken through the setup process. Before you know it, you’ll be using voice instructions instead of your keyboard and mouse. It’s also very handy for dictating rather than typing text into documents.

Increase the font size (Vista)
If you have a high-resolution monitor, text may be very small. To increase the text size, right-click the desktop and select Personalize. On the left, click ‘Adjust font size (DPI)’ and either select the ‘Larger scale’ option or choose your own by clicking Custom DPI.

Disable fast user switching (XP)
By default, XP lets you switch user accounts without logging off, however this can slow down performance. To disable this feature, click Start, Control Panel then User Accounts. Select the ‘Change the way users log on and off’ option and then remove the tick from the ‘Use fast user switching’ box.

Rebuild the search index (Vista)
Vista’s built-in indexing tool that lets you perform super-quick searches can sometimes slow down or even stop working altogether. If this happens, click Start, type indexing options and then click Advanced. Now click the Rebuild button.

Operate the mouse via the keyboard (Vista)
In Vista the keyboard can take over the controls usually provided by a mouse. Click Start, then Control Panel. Double-click the Ease of Access Center option and click the ‘Make the mouse easier to use’ option. Now place a tick in the ‘Turn on mouse keys’ box and then click ‘Set up mouse keys’ to configure it.

Change the mouse scroll speed (Vista)
In order to change the speed of the scroll action on your mouse, click Start, type mouse and then press Enter. Now click the Wheel tab and change the number in the Vertical Scrolling section to adjust the scroll speed.

Change Recycle Bin size (XP)
By default, the Recycle Bin is able to take up to 10 per cent of your hard disk’s space, but if you have a large hard disk (more than 250GB, for example) this is probably unnecessary. To change how much space it’s able to use, right-click the Recycle Bin icon, select Properties and then use the slider to adjust the maximum size.

Reveal the Hibernate option (XP)
If you want to hibernate Windows instead of switching to Standby or shutting down, click Start, Turn Off Computer and then hold the Shift key. The Hibernate option will now temporarily replace Standby. Hibernation mode saves open documents to the hard disk and so is safer than Standby, which saves them to the memory.

Increase battery life (Vista)
You can increase battery life on your laptop by limiting the processor usage. Click Start, type power options and press Enter. Select the appropriate power plan and click ‘Change plan settings’ then ‘Change advanced power settings’. Double-click ‘Processor power management’ and then ‘Maximum power state’. Selecting a lower percentage will boost battery life but also limit performance.

Review the event log (Vista)
Vista keeps a record of all events that occur while it’s switched on. This lets you find out, for example, exactly when the battery in a laptop ran out or when a critical error occurred. To view the log, type event viewer into the Start menu search box, double-click Windows Logs and then click System. Further information on each entry can be obtained by double-clicking it.

Create a shortcut to abort shutdowns (Vista)
If a rogue application regularly tries to restart your PC, right-click the desktop, then select New, Shortcut. Enter shutdown.exe -a, click Next and give it a name. When your PC starts to shut down, double-click this shortcut to stop the process.

Open folders with single click (XP)
To speed up program and folder opening times, open My Computer and select Folder Options from the Tools menu. Under ‘Click items as follows’ select the single-click option.

Alter the Shutdown button (Vista)
To change the function of the Start menu’s Power button, click Start then type power options and press Enter. Under the currently running plan, click ‘Change plan settings’ and then select ‘change advanced power settings’. Open the ‘Power buttons and lid’ option and then ‘Start menu power button’. You can now choose between Sleep, Shutdown and Hibernate.

Give old software a chance to run (Vista)
If you’re having trouble running an old Windows program in Vista, right-click its .exe file and select Options. Click the Compatibility tab, place a tick in the ‘Run this program in compatibility mode for’ box and then select from the list of operating systems in the dropdown box. If you’re not sure where the program file is, right-click the shortcut you use to open it and select ‘Open file location’.

Turn off delete confirmation messages dialogue box (XP)
The confirmation dialogue box that appears when you delete a file might seem unnecessary, especially when you’ve got the Recycle Bin to help recover them. To stop it appearing, right-click Recycle Bin and deselect the ‘Display delete confirmation dialog’ option.