How to Increase SATA HDD Performance in Vista

How to Increase SATA HDD Performance in Vista

Nowadays, SATA hard disk drives are very common. They offer a series of advantages compared to older models, one of them being the improved performance. Windows Vista not only offers built-in support for SATA hard disks, but it also allows you to squeeze a little more performance from them.

You can increase SATA HDD Peformance by going to Computer(right click) > Properties.

Then select "Device Manager" on your left sidebar.

Go to Disk Drives and select the SATA hard disk you want to speed up.


Right click on it and select Properties. The Device Properties window will open. Here, go to the Policies tab, check the Enable advanced performance option and click on OK.

Windows Vista will now improve the performance of your SATA hard disk by enhancing write caching.

IMPORTANT !!!: In order to make these changes, your user needs to be an administrator. If your computer does not have a backup power supply such as an UPS(Uninterruptible power supply) it is not advisable to enable this option. I personally had issues with data corruption on computers without an UPS. It is better to be safe than sorry.

If you have an UPS or a laptop with a working battery, then enabling this option does not put your data at risk.

How to Customize Send To Menu in Vista

How to Customize Send To Menu in Vista

The Send To menu allows you to quickly send files and folders to another location.

By default, the places where you can send a file or folder are the following: 'removable drives' such as the memory sticks that are plugged into your computer, your CD/DVD-RW drives, a 'Compressed (zipped) Folder' , your Desktop, your Documents folder and 'Mail Recipient' which means attaching it to a new e-mail message using your default e-mail client.

You can customize the SendTo Menu options, which means you can add your own options, where you want the files to be sending to.

1) First, click on the Start button and, in the search box, type 'shell:sendto' and click on the shell:sendto search result or press Enter instead. The Send To folder will appear.

In the Send To window you can add your own favorite places where you want to send other files or folders.

2) To add your own option in Sendto menu, you need to decided about the place where you want to send other files or folders. Let say in D:\Folder1\.

Go to Folder1, right click it > Create Shortcut . Then Copy/Cut the created shortcut folder To Sendto menu folder.

3) Done. Once you have added all the shortcuts you wanted to the Send To folder, you can right click on any file or folder from your computer and send them to any of your new favorite places. If you want to remove a location from the Send To menu, just delete its shortcut from the Send To folder.

How To Disable User Access Control(UAC) in Vista

How To Disable User Access Control(UAC) in Vista

UAC or User Access Control is a new feature of Windows Vista that is meant to enhance the security of your system. Each time an application is installed or whenever an important system change is made by the user or by a running process, the screen is blacked out and temporarily disabled and a dialog is shown with the choices to allow or deny the action.

This UAC pop up is quite annoying especially to those who a new to Windows Vista. Actually you may disable this function.

To disable UAC, go to Control Panel > User Account

Click "Turn UAC On / Off "

Deselect the option Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer and press the OK button.


That's it. Restart your computer for the new setting to take effect.