Ready Boost?

The biggest downfall of Windows Vista is how much memory is needed to run Vista, not to include other application. Other than adding more memory (or RAM) there is one other alternative. It is know as Ready Boost.

Ready Boost takes advantage of the fact that flash memory. It is slower than regular memory, but it a good duct tape patch. The flash drive can be used to store virtual memory. Hard drives are faster at reading large amounts of data, whilst a flash drive is faster with smaller amount of data.

What you need is a USB flash drive. Plug it into a USB port of your computer. When the AutoPlay window that pops up, select Speed up my system. Your computer will test the flash drive determine if it meets the requirements. This is because not all of USB flash drives are fast enough to meet the needs that Vista will require.

If the flash drive passes the test, a Properties dialog box will appear. Left click on Use this device. The with the sliding bar adjust to how much of the flash drive you want to use. I would stick to whatever the recommendation is that appears below the sliding bar.

Note: Don't use a flash drive that has important information on it. I have heard of people losing that data when using the very flash drive for Ready Boost.