Vista tips, tricks, and tweaks, redux

QUESITON

Is there a way to replace the new Vista explorer (with the stupid new "address" bar, the dumb forward/back buttons, "file" menus in the wrong place, etc.) with the one from XP? The new one is really driving me crazy, I personally (don't argue if you don't agree with me) find it completely counter-intuative, takes me longer to do stuff, and inefficient.

Thanks.
 
Considering that Explorer is a core component of Vista (it's the shell, actually, as it has been in all versions of Windows since Win95) the answer would be no. I know in the past back in 9x days you could actually use the 95 explorer.exe under 98/98SE - that was a big thing at the time using 98Lite and other such tools - but things are very different now.

It's possible with some tweaking to get Explorer's interface to look almost exactly the same as the XP Explorer interface, so mess with it and see what you come up with.

Worst case scenario: You change something you can't get back to it's original or default status and end up reinstalling the OS - last ditch drastic measure but hey, it's always an option, right? ;)
 
Well, I have it installed on a VMWare virtual computer so reinstalling is easy :p

But, I can't find any good guides on tweaking that. I've been googling and searching, but there's nothing. I REALLY want to get the File bar where it belongs and get rid of that dumb new address bar thingy. I think I can live with/get used to most of the other annoyances I have with the OS interface (there are MANY), but these are unforgivable! :p Any links?
 
Croak said:
Desktop Icons
You can resize the large Vista desktop icons by right clicking on the Desktop, View, and selecting one of three sizes, Large, Medium, and Classic.

But wait, there's more! You can variably adjust the size of the icons by left-clicking on the desktop, then holding down the CTRL key while spinning your mouse wheel up and down. Little tip here, if you're going for small icons, you may want to bump the mousewheel up one more notch after you've hit the smallest setting. That leaves the icons at the same size, but retains things like shadows and perspective, at the absolute smallest setting the icons are "flat".
Click to expand...

Trying to resize my desktop icons messed up the positions they were in, so I've been looking for, but could not find a way to restore the positions because I think Windows doesn't save the positions until my account logs off or the computer shuts down.

How about adding a warning to that tip.
 
Soberteq said:
There is a button in Vista that I am greatly missing. In explorer, you use to be able to click the up arrow "UP" one level.

Is there a way to customize the address bar and add this button ? didn't find a way!!
Click to expand...

If you can get a Links toolbar in Explorer like I've seen some installations of Vista have, you may be able to add a link to ".." as an up one level button. There's always Alt + Up Arrow.
 
recurr said:
Trying to resize my desktop icons messed up the positions they were in, so I've been looking for, but could not find a way to restore the positions because I think Windows doesn't save the positions until my account logs off or the computer shuts down.

How about adding a warning to that tip.
Click to expand...


Want to save Icon positions? Try Ultramon
 
djBon2112 said:
QUESITON

Is there a way to replace the new Vista explorer (with the stupid new "address" bar, the dumb forward/back buttons, "file" menus in the wrong place, etc.) with the one from XP? The new one is really driving me crazy, I personally (don't argue if you don't agree with me) find it completely counter-intuative, takes me longer to do stuff, and inefficient.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have been search as well for this. What I really miss is the little "up arrow" that would take you back to the parent folder. You can kind of have this by displaying the full path in the address bar and then click on the parent folder. It was so much easier the old way. The stupid thing is, the functionality is still here in Vista. Some older programs still have this up arrow in the File-->Open dialogs.

Tried Tweak Vista but to no avail. Tried every combination of settings in the folder view to no avail. But at least I now have transparent windows, yeah! Would never have gotten vista except it came with the laptop I bought.:mad: Downgrading options don't appear to be available for Vista Home versions so I would need to throw more money into an upgrade then a downgrade.
 
one question: does the indexing service begin indexing right from the start of a new installation? if so, why did microsoft not include the index list of a default install into vista and save alot of time? I mean, other than some drivers, we pretty much all have the same files at start, right?
 
feltstone said:
I have been search as well for this. What I really miss is the little "up arrow" that would take you back to the parent folder. You can kind of have this by displaying the full path in the address bar and then click on the parent folder. It was so much easier the old way. The stupid thing is, the functionality is still here in Vista. Some older programs still have this up arrow in the File-->Open dialogs.
Click to expand...

As many people have come to realize, the "breadcrumb" style of directory nagivation in Vista is actually superior in many respects over the old Explorer style. The old way would list a directory name and then you'd have to drop the entire menu and possibly click a minimum of twice to get back up a level or to go hunting for another directory all together.

Now, with the breadcrumb method, any higher level directories from the current one you're looking at are one click away, in the Address Bar, just by clicking the tiny arrow next to the directory name.

At first it made no sense to me whatsoever, but after about a week of using it more and more, suddenly it dawned on me just how damned useful and cool the breadcrumb style really is. Now if I have to use XP and do directory navigation it's actually slower and less efficient for me to do so using the old heirarchy methodology since I can't see all the possible subdirectories listed from my current position without at least two clicks.

Play with it for a bit and suddenly a lightbulb turns on in your mind and you're like, "AHA!!! Now I get it..." and you're home free from that point on.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
As many people have come to realize, the "breadcrumb" style of directory nagivation in Vista is actually superior in many respects over the old Explorer style. The old way would list a directory name and then you'd have to drop the entire menu and possibly click a minimum of twice to get back up a level or to go hunting for another directory all together.

Now, with the breadcrumb method, any higher level directories from the current one you're looking at are one click away, in the Address Bar, just by clicking the tiny arrow next to the directory name.

At first it made no sense to me whatsoever, but after about a week of using it more and more, suddenly it dawned on me just how damned useful and cool the breadcrumb style really is. Now if I have to use XP and do directory navigation it's actually slower and less efficient for me to do so using the old heirarchy methodology since I can't see all the possible subdirectories listed from my current position without at least two clicks.

Play with it for a bit and suddenly a lightbulb turns on in your mind and you're like, "AHA!!! Now I get it..." and you're home free from that point on.
Click to expand...
Heheh, after a couple of minutes it hit me and the best part was that it got out of the way if I needed to type a path in. I also like that I can back up a level and then get a list of folders from the parent folder and select it without going back down to the file pane. I love this feature and I especially like that I can setup linked folders and searches in the shortcut pane. Now they only need to make it so programs that utilize the old file open and save dialogs will use the new ones with the shortcut pane. It hurts whenever I open an image in Daemon Tools and I'm forced to use the classic file open dialogs and I have to navigate through the file system instead of using the shortcuts I created. Maybe there's a group policy for this...
 
Thanks for this. It does take a moment to get used to, especially copying and pasting the path like before. I still hope they bring back the up-arrow, though, at least as an option. Right now I have to think about which folder in the bread crumb list to click on and when I am trying to navigate quickly I don't want to think about anything. Also, the parent folder is in a different spot a lot of times. Also, if the folder name is too long you cannot see the parent folder in the bread crumb list at all. Try navigating system directories with long funky names you're not familiar with and you'll see what I'm taking about. Of course, there's still the "back arrow" but this arrow is context sensitive--depending on where you came from.

I posted in a microsoft forum stating as much and hope they listen. I would want to keep the bread crumb feature but having the option for a little up arrow doesn't seem like a big deal. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg with little Vista quirks am I trying to get used to. I guess this is just part of the game but I would have hoped there would have been a more concerted effort to allow picky people like me to go "back to the old way".

Anyway, thanks for the tips!

bbz_Ghost said:
As many people have come to realize, the "breadcrumb" style of directory nagivation in Vista is actually superior in many respects over the old Explorer style. The old way would list a directory name and then you'd have to drop the entire menu and possibly click a minimum of twice to get back up a level or to go hunting for another directory all together.

Now, with the breadcrumb method, any higher level directories from the current one you're looking at are one click away, in the Address Bar, just by clicking the tiny arrow next to the directory name.

At first it made no sense to me whatsoever, but after about a week of using it more and more, suddenly it dawned on me just how damned useful and cool the breadcrumb style really is. Now if I have to use XP and do directory navigation it's actually slower and less efficient for me to do so using the old heirarchy methodology since I can't see all the possible subdirectories listed from my current position without at least two clicks.

Play with it for a bit and suddenly a lightbulb turns on in your mind and you're like, "AHA!!! Now I get it..." and you're home free from that point on.
Click to expand...
 
I was skimming this thread, and didn't see this one around:
Vista has a new performance monitor, better than XP's.
To get to it, Hit Start and right click on 'Computer'. Then click 'Manage'
There is a heading on the left called Performance and reliability monitor. 2X click it to bring up the monitors. The best part is the reliability monitor, which documents, in simple terms, any hardware or software issues. So if you are seeing repeated reboots, a BSOD etc, you can check this area and it will tell you. The only drawback is that, from what i can tell, an issue only shows up the next day...
 
im having an issue with this tip
Gaming and DWM
If you are trying to play any DirectX games under Vista with an LDDM compatible video card with Aero Glass enabled, you may notice that the game performance is slow or laggy, but you can disable DWM temporarily when the game executable has run. To do this, follow these instructions:

1. Locate the shortcut for the game you are wishing to play, or the executable file (which can usually be found somewhere within X:\Program Files, where X is the drive letter you have installed Windows Vista to. You can find the target executable file from right clicking on its shortcut and clicking “Find Target”.
2. Right click on the shortcut or the executable, and from the context menu, click on “Properties”.
3. Click on the “Compatibility” tab.
4. Under “Settings”, check “Disable the Desktop Window Manager”, and then press OK to dismiss the properties dialog.

This will temporarily disable DWM while running you game, and it should give you a performance boost with the application. Once the application or game has quit, DWM will be re-enabled.


i right click on the exe for command and conquer 3 tiberium wars, go to props, and i dont have a disbale DWM option....i have run in 256 colors, run in 640x480 resolution, disable visual themes, disable desktop composition, disable display scaling on high DPI settings. which is the correct one to choose? this is in home premium
 
Forget about that tip. The sticky was written for pre-release builds of Vista and that tip is no longer relevent. DWM doesn't impact on games performance anyway, because it stops running when a game (or other fullscreen 3D application, if such a thing exists) is launched.

Even if the tip was possible it wouldn't do anything! The final release of Vista isn't the same code as early pre-release builds.

There are quite a few other 'tips' in this sticky which are no longer relevent, by the way.
 
I'm thinking that brings up a good point.
This was written up before release, so I'm going to unsticky it, but it is linked in the FAQ thread

If someone wants to make an updated one, let me know and I'll sticky it or link it in the FAQ thread.

Thanks.
 
Croak said:
Vista Install Times
Vista takes forever to install. An hour or more, depending on your system. The good news is that unlike XP, you don't need to babysit it during the install...once you've got it started (after entering the CD-Key), you can walk away until its done, there are no more user prompts until it's complete. It's still a good idea to peek in on the install from time to time, in case there's a stop error of some sort.
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity (because it almost looks to be hung up right now) is almost all of that time during the "completing installation..." step? The dots keep rotating (so the whole comp isn't frozen) but its just sitting there. And its been a while. Hour+ at least. Does my computer fail?
Its a e4300 at stock ATM, so its not like the CPU is slow.
fixed: gigabyte had a flash for the gigabit adaptor. Had to root around for my USB floppy, but I got it.
 
"Disable Hibernate

Due to the new Power Options control panel applet not having an option to disable the Hibernation feature, used in previous versions of Windows to store the data from RAM when the machine was put into hibernation mode, we end up with an oversized hiberfil.sys file on the root of the hard disk or partition that Windows Vista is installed on. To remove this and disable hibernation, simply click the Start button, and then click on “Run”. Type in “CMD.EXE” (without the quotes), and then click OK or press Enter.

In the command prompt window, type in the following command:

powercfg -h off"

The command prompt window says I don't have permission or authority to do this. Interesting. There is security even in the cmd prompt window!!

ANY IDEAS to turn this off or give permission??
 
Thanks for this one, I was about to ask and thought to look at the FAQ section first. Answered all my questions as I am about to make the jump from XP to Vista Ultimate 64!!
 
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