Vista>> Tips and tricks

Vista is very resource heavy. The following tips show you how to disable some of the unnecessary stuff, speed up your PC, and use Vista more effectively:

Warning:
These tips are for power users only - don’t change system settings unless you know what you are doing!
Some of these settings (e.g. disabling defender) make your PC more vulnerable to malware etc. Also, disabling some services can cause your PC to malfunction / behave unpredictably, and / or pop up a video of Steve Ballmer doing the developper dance. Or not.
By following these tips you agree that if you mess your PC I’m not responsible. Please back up your PC before attempting these tips.

VISTA Tips and Tricks list:

1. Disable Windows defender
Open control panel- click classic view.
Open defender - it’s at the bottom, next to Firewall and other stuff like Sidebar.
Click Tools - then Options - and untick everything you see, such as:
Untick automatically scan my PC
scroll down, untick use real time protection
untick advanced options, click save
If user access control is on, you may get a warning. Click continue.

2. Disable User Access Control

On most versions of Vista, User Access Control is enabled - basically this is a security procedure which warns you before you (or any application) enables to do something considered risky, e.g. modifying system settings. Disable it only if you know what you are doing.
Open Control Panel
Open User Accounts
Click turn user account control on/off.
Untick use user access control
click OK (you may need to restart).

3. Turn off hibernation

If you don’t use the hibernation feature, you can disable it and recover around a gigabyte of hard disk space.

To do this, run “powercfg - H off”

4. Press Alt

In most windows, you can get the traditional menu (File, Edit, View..) by just tapping the Alt key.

5. Turn on hidden files view
In any drive window, click Alt, then click Tools - Folder Options
Click View tab
Select Show hidden files and folders.
You can also untick various other annoying “Idiot mode” options like Hide extensions for known file types, and “Remember each folders view settings”.

6. Disable the sidebar
If you get tired of the sidebar, you can disable it easily via the control panel.
Open Control Panel - Sidebar Properties
Untick start sidebar when windows starts

7. Move swap file to another drive/partition

If you have another drive, you can speed up Vista a bit by moving the swap file to that drive. Even if you are using only one drive, moving the swap file to another partition is useful (if you intend to back up your primary partiton via a compressed mirror, saving space on the primary partition will speed up the process and reduce the backup file size).
Press Windows + Pause/break key
Click advanced system settings
Click the advanced tab
Click the settings button
Now click Advanced (yes I know this is a bit confusing)
Under virtual memory click change
Untick automatically manage
Select the new drive/partition you want to use for swap file and click system managed, click set (Note: Unlike Ubuntu, windows will not wipe the drive or partition - instead it just makes a file called pagefile.sys).
To cancel the swap file on C click C and select no page file, click set

8. Disable unnecessary services

Warning - disabling services can cause your system to behave unpredictably, reduce security, not boot at all, or rupture the space-time continuum. Proceed with caution, only if you know what you are doing:

Navigate to: control panel - administrative tools - services Then try disabling the following (doubleclick, select disabled under startup type, click OK).
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
DHCP client (Only if you use a static IP, see Dan’s note below!)
Diagnostic policy service
Diagnostic System Host
Distributed link tracking client
DNS client
IP Helper
Offline Files (See http://207.46.197.98/Windows/en-US/Help ... 91033.mspx for more info on what this is)
Portable Device Enumerator Service
ReadyBoost (if you are not using this feature (no flash drive)
Secondary Logon (This may prevent you from using the “Run As/Run as Administrator” option.
Security Center (prolly kills off defender etc).
Shell Hardware Detection Service (Kills autorun - and good riddance).
SSDP discovery (Something to do with UPNP devices. Darned if I know or care)
Superfetch (This is Vista’s amazing caching service. Think of it as Vista’s Smartdrv. In theory it will slow down some operations but AFAIK it didn’t make much of a difference, and released a LOT of RAM).
System Event Notification Service.
Tablet PC input service (If no.. tablet PC?).
Terminal Serives.
Web client.
Windows Defender (First disable it from control panel).
Windows Error Reporting.
Windows Event Log.
Windows Image Acquisition (if no scanner and you are using your digital camera via a card reader).
Windows Search (This is that annoying indexing utility. Keep it if you need to find files fast).
Windows Time.
Windows Update (if you can’t manually update, turn this back on).
Print spooler (if you dont have a printer).
Tip: Don’t disable task scheduler as defragment depends on it.

9. Setting up custom network settings
Vista will usually automatically detect your network, but if you need to set it up manually, heres how:
Right click the Network Icon on the taskbar
click Network and Sharing center
Click the blue View Status link (if it’s not visible, ensure your cable is plugged in and click connect..)
Click properties
Doubleclick Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
Enter your custom network configuration (The IP for this PC, the subnet, default gateway and DNS server - gateway and DNS server are usually your routers IP.
You may need to restart your PC.

After restarting, you can select your type of network (e.g. Home) and you are good to go.

If you have other tips for Vista, please list them here as comments!

1. If you hate the look of Aero, click Start/Control Panel/Themes and you can choose a non-Aero theme, such as Windows Classic.

2. Windows Vista's installer can detect serial-ATA (SATA) drives without the need to provide a driver diskette. Don't bother creating a diskette for your SATA drives before you install Vista.


3. If, for some reason, the Vista installation gets interrupted due to an unintentional shutdown or reboot, start the computer without booting the Vista DVD. Windows Vista's installer should pick up where it left off. If it does-n't, then restart the installation over from scratch.

4. When you perform a search with Vista's new, instant search feature, you can save the search in a special folder. This powerful feature allows you to create a virtual folder which, by default, is saved in your \\Searches\ folder. Every time you open such a folder, the search results are updated.

5. In Windows Vista, you can add additional clocks to the system tray. Click the clock, and then click Date and Time Settings. Click the Additional Clocks tab. You can add one or two additional clocks to the tray and select their time zones.

6. You can save your progress in most of the games included with Windows Vista—even the carry-overs from earlier versions of Windows.

7. You can create XML documents, which are more secure than regular text files or even word processor docs. Just create a document in a word processor, print it via the options menu, and select the XPS printer.

8. If you upgrade your graphics card in preparation for Windows Vista, be sure to get a new card with as much local memory as possible. Since Windows Vista renders everything—even the desktop and windows them-selves—as 3D surfaces, local 3D memory greatly improves performance...sometimes even more than a more powerful GPU.

9. Windows Vista games deposit their saves into a special directory, called Saved Games, in your personal folder. In theory, that will make upgrading to a new system much easier for gamers, who like to migrate their game saves.

10. When using the Help system, it's usually advantageous to include Microsoft's online database in your search. The online/offline status of your search is located on the bottom right of the Help window. You can click it to toggle.


11. The Games folder is a powerful repository of all things gaming. From within, you launch games, update games with the latest patches, enable parental controls to protect younger users from harmful content, and more. Invoke it by clicking Start/Games.

12. Several applications are available to help you tweak Windows Vista for maximum performance. They in-clude TweakVI (http://www.totalidea.com), TweakVista (http://www.tweakvista.com/tweakvistautility), and VistaBootPRO (http://www.vistabootpro.org). And don't forget about Windows ReadyBoost, which lets you use a removable flash memory drive to boost system memory.

13. Do you use the icon in the upper left corner of system and application windows? A quick double-click closes the window (instead of a single click on the X at the upper right). Though Microsoft left the icon out in Vista, the function remains.—Sarah Pike

14. In Microsoft Windows Explorer, you can use column headers (Name, Size, and so on) to sort files. Savvy users may right-click on a column head to remove items or add some—say, Dimensions for images. There are around 45 such columns available in Windows XP. Windows Vista has well over 250, covering a multitude of metadata.—Sarah Pike

15. If you've become used to surfing your Program Menu to get to applications, you'll be in for a shock when you first use Microsoft Windows Vista. The new Program Menu shows you only recently used applications and requires extra clicks to navigate to submenus. This can be very frustrating but, thankfully, the Search box Microsoft has added to the Start menu is a great replacement—as long as you're an accurate typist. As quickly as you can type, it returns intelligent results in apps, files, even e-mail messages.