Vista on minimum memory

I'm visiting a growing number of people who have recently bought computers running Windows Vista and which have only 1Gb of memory or even less for those computers whose integrated graphics take a chunk out of it. All these people are complaining that their computers are going increasingly slower and a lot slower than when they first bought them.

I display the Windows Sidebar CPU meter gadget which shows the memory needle hard over in the red and not moving. The disk drive is paging like mad and there is a row of icons in the notification area. Further investigation show 60 to 80 processes all competing for the valuable memory resource and Vista's memory manager trying to sort out the mess. So how do I fix it? Sell them more memory is often the easiest solution. Easy for a desktop, but the extra laptop slot is often already occupied. Here's another solution:

a) remove the integrated security solution (Norton, McAfee, etc.) that was supplied with the computer and replace with AVG Free Edition.

b) using msconfig, go to the Startup tab and remove all the other programs that are supplied with the computer from the Startup list. All of them, completely, totally not one left. Leave AVG though.

c) still in msconfig, go to the Services tab and stop any non-essential services. For example; Windows Search which I've never understood, as it won't search the whole hard disk for the files that I want to find and won't find other computers on the network. Also Windows Defender as you've already installed AVG Free with Anti-spyware.

d) disable the Aero user interface. Nobody notices the difference anyway. They never do Windows key and Tab key.

Having done all this you should get a Windows Vista computer that is useable, responsive, protected and works as it should. The CPU meter should now show memory use at about 38-40% on idle, giving plenty of spare room for your applications. Which after all is what you wanted to do with the damn thing anyway!