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Problem solved!
Instead of add/remove programs, you just click on Programs.
Not if you know right where to go. One thing I like about vista is the ability that when your chaging settings, you can just use the explorer to click back to control panel etc, no matter what setting your adjusting, mostly.
Yeah, after you go past the first 2 basic options, you can either set your own definition by choosing a base model, then go in and edit it one option at a time so you get it EXACTLY the way you want. Or be like me and choose the power saving one, but turn off 'turn off hard disk' and your all set.
If your 'selecting' vista, it sounds like your boot loader is to fault. You can't expect to have a multi boot system and to never have problems.
The only blue screen I ever got in vista was when I tried to install it with 4gb of ram (I had a early 07 copy). I pulled out the ram and it installed fine then dropped the memory in. Funny though, the 32bit version booted fine with 4gb of ram but when I installed the 64 bit version w/2 gb then put the other 2 in, it blue screened, So I had to put that memory hotfix on it, and it worked. Later I decided to do another fresh install and just kept 2gb in, updated to SP1 and put the other 2 gb in, sp1 has the hotfix built in for the memory issue.
Vista has stupid sounds for opening/closing windows and task in windows. I like the boot sound though.
Using aero? Aero = speed. Have you tweaked services? Vista services > xp services. Other than turn off system restore (because of disk space) and gadgets, I left it alone and it's really fast.
Your HD is constantly going because it can't find the files very fast because you turned indexing off. Vista handles ram and disk access a lot better than XP. It turns off services (like indexing) when they are not being used, so there is no reason to not have them on, especially for the reason that you just said. Plus, vista uses idle time to pre-cache stuff into ram so that when you use the applications, they load faster. As soon as a memory intensive program starts, it drops all the cached stuff.
You need to select 'change the way windows alerts me' and uncheck everything. You can also turn off the account warning (or whatever it's called) that warns you about going into system folders etc.
I know because checking your IP address is something you need to do every day and when you do need to check it, you need it NOW!.
Seriously though, click the windows icon and in the search box, type in the name of the command you want to run, it goes right to it. It's kinda like a 'Search for files and folders' AND 'Run' in one entry box.