Tutorial: Improve Windows 7 Performance on Acer Aspire One

Windows 7 comes with the same Windows ReadyBoost feature as Widnows Vista.  By adding USB flash drive, Windows will use it as the first cache choice instead of using the hard drive.  Since USB flash storage is faster than regular notebook hard drive, you can have a faster experience on Windows.

On the Acer Aspire One, there are 2 SD slots.  After installing Windows 7 Beta, the slot on the left can read SD card but it does not work with Windows ReadyBoost.  The slot on the right won’t be able to read any SD card at all due to missing driver.  Don’t panic.  You can find the necessary driver in the download section of this blog.  After installed the driver (no need to reboot), put in a 1-2GB flash card into the left slot (I prefer the left slot because the flash card can fully insert into the Aspire One and you won’t notice it’s existence).  Windows 7 will ask you what to do with the card and you will choose to use the card for Windows ReadyBoost.  The drive properties dialog will appear as following:

[smartads]

In Windows Vista, there are only 2 choices in this dialog: Do not use this device or Use this device.  In Windows 7, there is 1 additional option: Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost.  I use this option because I won’t be using the SD card for anything else (there is a right slot for the other SD card and there are 3 USB slots for Aspire One!!!).

Click OK to close this dialog and Windows 7 is ready to go with better performance!