Welcome to the Slow Computer Blog!

January 16, 2012

Even though the holidays are recently over, it may seem like our computers take a vacation as well. Definitely not a good time to be suffering with a slow computer when a lot of us are downloading a lot of pictures and videos from the holiday season. Here's a great tip for those of us who use the Windows 7 or Vista operating systems. Wait for it......wait for it.......its called "Windows Ready Boost."

What the heck is this 'Ready Boost' anyways, you may ask? Well, it's a great feature to add some more memory and speed to your computer without having to go out and purchase more RAM, or random access memory.

How can I set this up you may ask? Well, don't fret, it is pretty easy! The first thing you would want to do is get a USB 2.0 memory stick, also known as a jump, flash or thumb drive. You could also use a regular 2.0 memory card. Just make sure there is at least 256mb of memory free on the device. The more free space the better.

Since I like pictures, I find its best to include a few with this process. Put the USB 2.0 thumb drive into your computer and a dialogue box will appear:

Click on the "Speed up my system" section:

Next, you would want to decide how you want to utilize the device. You have the option of using all available space to ReadyBoost or just utilizing a a certain amount of it. Choose how you want to utilize the storage device and hit 'OK'

Windows ReadyBoost will then adjust the cache and automatically close the above dialogue box. Your computer should be a bit speedier! If you want to discontinue using the ReadyBoost feature, all you have to do is unplug the memory drive.