Top Vista Tweaks and Hints @ [H]

Jason_Wall

[H] Consumer Managing Editor
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
Messages
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We pulled together a short list of what we think are some of the best tweaks and hints to make your burgeoning Vista experience a bit easier and more productive. We hope that you'll use this article as encouragement to explore the OS a bit and share your own discoveries and tips. A dedicated thread for that can be found here.

Tip 4: Speed up Flip3D.

This tip will be useful for notebook owners or anyone whose PC is packing less than stellar graphics processing power. The Flip3D animation can bog down weaker graphics cards if it has to flip a lot of windows, so this is a tweak that lets you set the number of windows that will be rendered in 3D at one time.

Thanks for reading!

Support [H] and Digg here!
 
The one big tweak you didn't mention which I do to every Vista machine I've seen is change the function of the start menu power button from Sleep/Hibernate to Shut Down.

Power Options>Change Plan Settings>Change Advanced Plan Settings>Power Buttons and Lid>Start Menu Power Button>Shut down

Then select different plans from the drop down menu and adjust accordingly.

I know it doesn't make the system any faster, but early on it was a good way to prevent customers from experiencing the hibernate bug and it quite frankly makes more sense for most users if hitting the power button on their system actually turns the system off. But then again, you can't Fold if the system's off can you?
 
They forgot to list a tweak!

-Format hard drive

-Install XP

That's a bit more than a tweak. :p

Tip 2 sounds interesting, although i'm not sure if it's worth the risk. When files are written to RAM, i assume, will they still remain on the hard drive?
 
Nitpicking, but it does bother me:

We’re right there with you, and have poured over the Web looking for the coolest, most-useful tweaks we could find.

Unless you're Odo, Sergeant Shlock, or one of many Spiderman villains, you can't pour yourself over the Web. You can, however pore over written material or research in an attempt to find information.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pore
 
I have Ultimate and Aero Mouse Scheme is enabled by default... I find it odd that the default mouse scheme is not Aero as it is stated in the tips.
 
I think it's funny that there's only one new set of cursors in vista... and the old hands, dinosaurs, etc. are still available. :rolleyes: :D
 
I have Vista Home Premium, and Aero mouse pointers were enabled by default here too.

Vista ultimate and pointers are on by default for me too.

Also how is the partitioning tool in vista a tweak? A feature does not = tweak. Same with the ability to stretch wallpapers these are features of vista and IMO are definitely not tweaks. Otherwise great read for me especially with the last one thats been bugging me for a while.
 
I have business and they were enabled by default too. Maybe someone was messing around with the cursors after installing?

Also am I missing something? The "wallpapers" are only 450 pixels wide. It would turn into a mosaic if I stretched those to 1680x1050. Is there a place to get full resolution ones?
 
GREAT article! This is the kind of stuff I like - what are the chances of an Ubuntu version? Maybe once 7 comes out? :)
 
Jason, think you can give the creator and developer of the many multi-meter's he's developed props in the article? His name is SFKilla, and here's his website

http://www.betanetwork.net/hobbylounge

if anyone is interested he's in the process of developing a gadget that reads System Sensor/EveRest data as well as a Folding@Home gadget for you [H]orde'ers.

Good tips, btw!
 
One of the more useful things in Vista is symlink (mklink). Although not 100% complete (not accessible via 2k/xp or other OS. Doing a FindFirstFile from an XP machine across the net wont work to path into a symlink in a directory) it does provide a very handy way to patch together hard coded paths to a moving target.

Whats cool about mklink is that it 1) spans drives and 2) links to directories and files (junction only was for directories and could not span).

For example, you will notice that Vista has dropped the 'My" from many of the folders of XP (My Documents, MyMusic, MyPictures, etc). In fact, they link those old directories into the new structures. I play good old Roller Coaster Tycoon and it has many hard coded pathing references. Its an easy fix now to simply delete Vista's link and symlink My Documents to Documents.

Try it, its fun! http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2006/04/15/576568.aspx


edit: Oh, one somewhat disappointing, limitation of the partition distribution feature is that it (and every commercial program as well) is that it is unable to combine a system partition. In my case I made two initial partitions, a 500g for XP and a 100g for Vista. After a month or so of living in Vista, I regret that choice. mklink came to my rescue there as well as some repartitioning. I created a third partition (400g) drive E: to hold programs, source, media and other bulk. Now Documents, Music, Video, etc point into 'MyDataDrive' (E:) as does my XP boot (using junction). Cuz remember, if you boot to XP, it is the C: drive and Vista is D:. Boot to Vista and its Visa Versa. Yet, MyDataDrive (E:) remains the same.
 
Funny how for years people have been aiming to unclutter their OS enviroment, now all of the sudden you're supposed to clutter your desktop with every imaginable useless near-malware people can invent. Gadgets widgets animated wallpapers the works. :rolleyes:

Best tweak to Vista is indeed format and install XP - and tweak even that down.
 
I have business and they were enabled by default too. Maybe someone was messing around with the cursors after installing?

Also am I missing something? The "wallpapers" are only 450 pixels wide. It would turn into a mosaic if I stretched those to 1680x1050. Is there a place to get full resolution ones?

There's a link on that page for the whole set. They're at full res.
 
Another important "tweak" or configuration tool for those who like to get into the weeds is the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security management console snap-in.
 
I'm surprised that disabling the UAC wasn't on the list.

Yeah, that was one that we initially included, but decided against it. I know that it annoys the hell out of us, but it's serving a good purpose.

FWIW, I have it disabled on my Vista machine.
 
That may make an interesting poll...

Have you disabled UAC?

Why?
I dont understand it and its a pain in the butt
I know what Im doing and its a pain in the butt
I have a ton of anti-malware and its a pain in the butt


I could go for all of UAC except initial program launch where I have allready provided credentials at login and am allready running in a local secure shell from the system console.
 
I'm surprised that disabling the UAC wasn't on the list.

Yes, UAC is annoying as hell when you are setting up your system. Once you finish setup though, you will rarely see it. The only time I see it is if I'm deleting something from the "Program Files" directory, or when I run MeGUI (it needs admin rights to create profiles). Outside of those, I never see it.
 
Back in the XP days, if one wanted to partition a drive from within the OS, he had to purchase expensive, third-party software to do so.

Totaly wrong. XP always had a partitioning tool. You can start it by the command compmgmt.msc or navigate the Control Panel, Performance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. Now click Storage, then Disk Management and voila.
 
Totaly wrong. XP always had a partitioning tool. You can start it by the command compmgmt.msc or navigate the Control Panel, Performance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. Now click Storage, then Disk Management and voila.

But couldn't resize and move partitions in XP, you can in Vista.
 
I used to partition my hard drives way back when disc space was an issue. Hard drives are dirt cheap and have huge capacity now. The partition feature in Vista is irrelevant as is most of the other bloat that comes with the OS.
 
Totaly wrong. XP always had a partitioning tool. You can start it by the command compmgmt.msc or navigate the Control Panel, Performance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. Now click Storage, then Disk Management and voila.

Yes, but you could not shrink or expand volumes.
 
Yes, UAC is annoying as hell when you are setting up your system. Once you finish setup though, you will rarely see it. The only time I see it is if I'm deleting something from the "Program Files" directory, or when I run MeGUI (it needs admin rights to create profiles). Outside of those, I never see it.

yep....how long is it gonna take for ppl to figure this out? :rolleyes:

does MS have to make a cute commercial to get the point across that you will rarely see it when you are done getting all your settings right?
 
does MS have to make a cute commercial to get the point across that you will rarely see it when you are done getting all your settings right?

Definitely - they need something to counter the Apple commercials (funny as hell, but quite inaccurate...)
 
i wished they would have continued with the campaign they were doing with demetri martin. the only time i saw it was during his comedy special. it was actually quite interesting to watch lol...although i found myself going "wtf?" a few times.
 
I always thought the definition of a tweak was an improvement of performance or functionality, and most of this list are more like tips... in some cases they'd be helpfull, but most users will read this article hoping for good tweaks and end up being disapointed (I know I was).

As far as partitioning in XP, I'm sure you guys have never seen the Logical Disk Manager (as a plugin of the management msc or standalone). I can't see anything in the Vista version that's not in the XP version. I know that you couldn't change volume sizes on the fly, but there are several freeware alternatives that can accomplish that.

Also, LLTD has existed in XP for many monthes, and AFAIK it's available right in windows update. Honestly, I don't remember installing it.

Mostly, you guys skipped the most important tweak available for XP and Vista -- disabling extra display effects in the system properties tab. Hands down, this has got to be he best tweak available, and any user can notice the difference in responsiveness immediately. I just disable everything but drop shadows (if you use a background pic) and visual styles, as everything else is barely noticeable or just slows the interface down. Another good tweak is to disable unneeded services, but there are way many more dependencies than in XP to worry about.

Other than that, I wouldn't even consider using Vista if it didn't come with your new PC. If you absolutely have to have it, make sure you have absolutely NO LESS than 2gb of memory (more like 4gb if you want good performance).
 
Printing now...grrr...what happened to the "print article" link? :confused: It's been gone for awhile now. :(
 
Definitely - they need something to counter the Apple commercials (funny as hell, but quite inaccurate...)

No they dont... Let apple have the ignorant consumers that dont do their research and listen to a condescending jackass on a commercial to make their multi thousand dollar computer investment.

The commercial i really want to see is the one where the mac guy is outnumbered 2,000 to 1 and gets his ass kicked that would be more accurate.

Bill gates probably watches these commercials laughing his ass off while whiping his ass with the equivalent of steve jobs yearly income.
 
The gadget that displays your drives free space has a memory leak. Leave it running for a few days and see what happens...
 
The article said:
Back in the XP days, if one wanted to partition a drive from within the OS, he had to purchase expensive, third-party software to do so. Not anymore.

I think that your statement in this respect is rather inaccurate. Diskpart came (comes?) stock with WinXP and it worked fine for most partitioning tasks. Sure enough, it cannot shrink partitions and cannot extend the system partition. The disk management MMC snap-in has most of diskpart's features accessible through a GUI.
 
I've known about that HD tweak for some time, figured it out rooting around in device properties, but when I check to use the cache (I can check both boxes); exit and re=enter the policies tab, it hasn't saved the settings. My config is in my sig, what am I doing wrong or is it a limitation of my Raptor HD?
 
I found that the HD information gadget was taking 30-40% of my e6300....
i also had 4 drives showing (2 partions on each drive) but still, something was NOT right...
 
No they dont... Let apple have the ignorant consumers that dont do their research and listen to a condescending jackass on a commercial to make their multi thousand dollar computer investment.

The commercial i really want to see is the one where the mac guy is outnumbered 2,000 to 1 and gets his ass kicked that would be more accurate.

Bill gates probably watches these commercials laughing his ass off while whiping his ass with the equivalent of steve jobs yearly income.

You mean the yearly income Jobs gets from cooking the books with his stock options right? Techinically Apple Inc. pays Mr. Jobs $1 of salary..
 
I found that the HD information gadget was taking 30-40% of my e6300....
i also had 4 drives showing (2 partions on each drive) but still, something was NOT right...
I just installed that gadget and have no such cpu hogging.
 
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