Two Vista Registry Hacks
Here are two easy registry hacks for minor performance gains. First, turn off the low disk space checks:
1. Using the left side of the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
2. Right-click in the right pane and select New Key.
3. Name the new key Explorer.
4. In the Explorer key, right-click in the right pane and click New DWORD (32-bit) Vaue.
5. Name the DWORD NoLowDiskSpaceChecks.
6. Right-click the new DWORD and click Modify.
7. Set the Value Data to 1.
8. Click OK.
This will prevent Windows Vista from checking the space on your hard drive and popping up the notorious “Hey, you’re running out of space!” warning balloon.
Next, you can probably safely disable the NTFS habit of creating 8.3 versions of filenames for backward compatibility. DOS is dead, right?
Open the Registry Editor and:
1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
2. Find the DWORD called NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation.
3. Right-click it and click Modify.
4. Change the value to 1.
5. Click OK.
You should reboot after you alter the registry. These tweaks mildly speed up hard drive access by removing needless overhead.
As always, you should back up your registry before making changes.
Tags:backward_compatibility, filesystem, Hard drive, hkey current user, hkey local machine, minor_performance, ntfs, performance_gains, reboot, registry_hacks, Software, user_software, Windows, windows vista
