Works in: XP, Vista, 7 Quick--what's the single most-used app on your PC? The Web browser, of course. So it's no surprise that one way to make your Windows experience faster is to switch to the swiftest browser, and that's Google Chrome. As we reported in "," Chrome loads pages faster than Firefox 3.5 (which ran a close second), Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, and Safari 4. Granted, the advantage may amount to only a second or two, but those seconds add up.

Works in: Vista, 7 Using Windows' power-management features to save energy makes sense--but you shouldn't do it at the expense of productivity. For example, if you're working on a desktop PC (or using a plugged-in laptop as your desktop), you don't need your hard drive to turn off after 5 minutes, your processor to throttle back when idle, or your video playback to be ‘optimized for power savings'. Since you're not trying to preserve battery life on this machine, you should crank every performance setting to maximum.

By default, Windows Vista and 7 both come configured for ‘Balanced' performance. To crank things up a bit, click Start, type power, and select Power Options. Choose the High performance plan. (If you don't see it listed, click Show additional plans.) Now your machine will run with desktop-optimized power settings. If you want to tweak individual settings, such as how long the hard drive should sit idle before shutting down, click Change plan settings, Change advanced power settings.