Do you have old programs that have slow disk performance on Windows Vista or Windows 7? If so, you can squeeze a little more performance out of your hard disk by enabling what I call compatibility mode for your file system.  This speeds up the performance of your hard disk by changing how write caching works. However, if your computer is not connected to a battery backup and you loose power you have a increased risk for data loss or corruption. If you have a laptop your chances are data loss or corruption are dramatically less since your laptop battery will kick on if your power source is lost. Let's get started:

1. Click on the Start Button and key in Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right click on your hard drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab:
   
   Windows Vista: Check Enable advanced performance
   Windows 7: Check Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device.
   
5. Hit OK and close Device Manager.

Read about the interesting history of this feature on Windows Confidential