NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

However, if there are any file shares on the school network that you need to get to, disabling that service might prevent you from doing so.

Gary

 

per openoffice, i cannot get the spell checker to work. I type in gibberish or an incorrect word and it does not have the red squiggly line under it nor does it recognize the mistakes when i use spellchecker. Anyone know how to activate it.

 

Try

1. Google search
2. Update openoffice
3. openoffice.org forums
4. help (f1)

 

Just wanted to thank flamenko and others for being generous with their time and expertise for the benefit of all of us who are just getting on the Vista bandwagon. This is a tremendous resource! I know it takes lots of time, lots of tinkering and lots of patience at answering all of our questions. Your instructions are so clear and easy to follow; i'm a self proclaimed anti-expert and still my 3 day old M1330 is singin' and dancin' after consulting these guides (this and the Vista Clean Install thread). Thanks again and all you contributors are repped as soon as I figure out how!

 

Glad these have helped you out!!!

 

flamenko,
your thoughts on CCleaner or other "free" programs.
Thanks

 

I have CCleaner listed in the original page. I think its an excellent program for cleaning your system up. As my system is 64Bit, its nice to know it supports this.

With respect to other free programs, I am a supporter of many. I use open Office and have listed several others throughout the tweaks.

 

Hey Flem,

I dual-boot XP & Vista x64, and when I load Vista I have the boot screen option enabled so I can see what is going on, and my system startup spends 50s checking my drives...is this necessary? It would be nice if the answer is no

...I saw your startup time for the lappy you just bought for your wife and I got jealous, mine is upwards of 2 minutes right now ONce I get past all the pre-lim stuff Vista loads very quickly, I've disabled services and whatnot, but it takes a while to get to that point.

 

Hey Flamenko,

Are you going to update, with some new goodies ?
or is it still good as it is.

Thanks...for it

i love it, its fast..........

 

Can you give me your opinion, about AWC Pro from IObit
some people say it's good, some say it enter's spyware....

i am using PC Doc Pro like it a lot (some expierence with it ?)

like to trough it in to the group to see some opinions

thanks,

 

I have one or two that I may include one day but always invite others to submit a tweak to me via PM. I can't promise anything though because these tweaks truly are the best you can get. I take no credit for this as many came from others but, there isn't another site around that has the works as this does and...a recent check shows plaigerism grows strong for this thread in different countries.

and meetloaf:

50 seconds just to check drives is very off for Vista or XP, unless of course there is something in the drive (DVD/USB). I would have thought maybe it was background activity from system restore but it doesn't seem like it.

Can you tell me what tweaks you have followed? For instance, is your system indexing on or off and what is your pagefile size? s it system determined or have you done that. A second thought was that maybe you had very little ram and the system was spending so much time writing to a swap file...and then comes the question...what is your hard drive write speed??

 

Hey Flem,

I just upgraded to 4GB RAM from 2GB RAM and I see no difference...maybe even longer b/c windows makes my pagefile ABSURDLY huge-mongous (I did
cap it off at 2GB, no difference that way either). Indexing is off, HD speed is 5400 RPM (want 7200 but they're spendy). This pause seems to happen before the Vista startup protocols start to load, perhaps, I'm wrong. I'm about out of juice, but once I get my power cable back, I'll boot up again and report back.

Thanks for the help (hope your wife's lappy is coming along )

 

There is no reason it should do that unless you have some sort of a virus program or windows defender or firewall checking the files on startup. I don't understand because that an extremely long time to wait for it to check drives.

The worst part is it does it before the OS is loaded so you cannot check through that... Did you say you were monitoring through a boot loading program? It woulod be nice to know the file executed to cause this.

Does it happen no matter what OS you start? Im guessing it is pre-boot screen.

 

UPDATE:
Flem, no boot loading proggy, I was just referring to the Secret boot screen...and I was wrong it's not due to checking the HD (I don't think). I have Avast anti-virus running. It doesn't seem to happen when I load XP. Also, the bit about before windows is loaded, it is after the Windows files are processed, but before Vista pearl and all, I put a little chronological schedule below.

<Duration = Description>
START:


5s = Load Windows Files (ends at 5s )


49s = After Windows Files load I see Screen that tells me version of windows & processor and ram specs, it sits here for a while (ends at 54s)


24s = I see screen where Drives C&D are check and declared clean (this takes 2-3s) and it sits there for the duration of the 24s (ends at 1:18)


21s = I see the Pearl & Vista is loading for 21 s after which I see desktop (ends at 1:39)

14s = Firefox is has webpage loaded (Ends at 1:56)

Here is what I've done:
Eliminate Startup Programs
Disable TMM
WaitToKill = 5000
Secret Boot Screen
Disable Processes (Trebuin's and most of BlackViper's)
Video Drivers up to date
Scuderia's defragmenter
CCleaner
System Defragged

 

This sounds like a boot command, something setup through bios. It almost sounds like the system is doing a system check on boot each and every time.

I have had this similar when there was an error in HD for some reason I think. Is this possible? Would you agree that this is part of the boot command that is doing this?

I would love it if you could take pictures and attach them...

 

BUMP for Flem, I added pics to my post above for ease of reference...thanks again.

 

Meetloaf, are you shutting down your system properly before booting up again? Windows usually runs a disk check if it wasn't shut down cleanly... for example, if you forced shutdown by holding down the power button instead of selecting "Shut down" from the start menu. I've also seen this when I've unplugged a USB drive without doing safely remove hardware or a shutdown... it'll check the USB drive on the next boot if it's plugged in.

I haven't used SP1 yet though... so I don't know if that matters.

 

I am shutting down properly, although I did shorten the shotdown time to 5s instead of the default 20s (WaitToKill...).

Another thing is that I am running SP1, not the latest version, but first public release beta from early December.

 

Yes and that version has had alot of probs... I dont have SP1 installed yet and Im fine. Also, Swarmer is right (gonna rep u for that) when he speaks of the USB in his use and experience. Sometimes if you have a USB plugged in such as an external hard drive on boot, that will happen also.

You are getting the diskcheck which may even somehow be set for when you startup. Check your scheduled tasks...your prob may lie there.

 

I'd undo that tweak at least temporarily until you figure out what's causing this problem.

Partially right?
Well thanks for the rep anyways.

Good advice.

 

It's possible that Windows may not be shutting down properly even when you do a regular shut down because, as flamenko states in tweak 3,

Also, good idea to check the scheduled tasks, flamenko.

 

Ya...wouldnt it be sweet if it was all simple as that.

 

I did try with the Kill tweak back at 20s and no change.

I checked my BIOS and here are the only settings I thought might pertain:
-SATA operation was set to ATA instead of AHCI (I think I got the acronym correct =D )

-HDD Acoustic Mode = Performance

-Dynamic Acceleration = Enabled

As far as the AHCI is concerned, should I enable that?

I just checked the task scheduler as well. I did not see any Disk Diagnostic tasks scheduled or that had run during the past hour (3 or 4 reboots). There are 7 Tasks, named below:
ConvertLogEntries
HotStart
MsCtfMonitor
NAPStatus UI
SystemSoundsService
SystemTask
UserTask

Should I try upgrading to the latest SP1 build?

 

thanks for the post

one question-
what you stop indexing in the C drive, would that mean the search function would not longer work? I like using the search function, but I don't want it to keep updating, and indexing every WORD in my documents (which I know slows down the search)

Thanks

 

I think it'll work but it just won't pick up any new stuff after you stop indexing.

Do this... (it was already like this by default on mine though)...

 

@ Work:

No the search function would not STOP working, it would just take longer to find thing. I believe it would work like it did in Windows XP...though I don't know if it would keep all the previously indexed files in an index, or if it would delete it.

 

Also under Control Panel > Sys & Maint > Power Options > Advanced settings, there are 3 options for the "Search and Indexing" setting. "High Performance" is what I use when plugged in, "balanced" does the indexing very slowly... and I don't even want to think about how slow indexing would run under the "power saver" setting....

 

Thanks meet and swarmer for the SPEEDY reply (seriously that was quick lol)

Yea, mines is set as properties too but whenever it still seems to search within a word doc. which is AWESOME AND UNBELIEVABLE but would definately account for slowdown as time passes.

I guess I"ll have to try and see

 

Oh whoooops, I misunderstood how that "index properties only" checkbox works. That setting applies only to the selected file type. When I scroll down to ".doc" in the main box, and click on .doc, there it's set to "Index Properties and File Contents". Try that.

It's annoying you can't easily set it to "properties only" for all file types in one swoop (or at least I don't see how to)... but if you're like me, then most of your files are of only a few types anyway.

 

oooo ic. thanks a bunch man. Will do right now

 

You know what though... it's not worth it. Once you index the files, you're done. And how often are you creating new files where the contents can be indexed? A few files a day max I would think. So that change probably isn't worth it... up to you though.

 

already did it. I feel better just changing the option lol.

btw, do you know anything about hdd noise?
My new m1330 seems to make a wurring noise thats louder than my old m1330 (this ones a replacement). Would this effect performance? deteriorate my hdd?

also: any way to stop firefox from going overboard in terms of ram usage. It just seems to creep up after time passes.

Thanks lol. btw, your not obligated to answer these questions lol

 

Some HDDs are loud, some are quiet...
There's a setting in Dell BIOSes where you can make a noise/performance tradeoff... haven't played with it.
FF memory... I think it's mostly caching... there was a thread about it here not long ago... try searching the forum.

 

Meetloaf:

Your system should be running in AHCI mode. I canno account for any changes because you are running a dualboot system but I do know so long as you are in ATA, you are running about 15-20% slower. I had previously proven this in benchmarking once upon a time.

I'd be considering a Clean Install and start over soon I think.

 

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no!!! Hah, that's a naughty word in my house...maybe I'll think about it. Can't I just apply patches to both my XP & Vista Installations and load the new AHCI drivers to get things up and running?

 

Just found that topik! great work ! thankS!

 

Hey Flem, just enabled AHCI. Here are my updated times:

5s = 0:05
42s = 0:47
18s = 1:05
21s = 1:26
12s = 1:38

OLD:
5s
49s
24s
21s
14s 1:53


So, we're on the right track, but I can't help but think something is still amiss.

Thanks for the help so far!

 

If you have 160Gb with free fall sensor I bet you've got a seagate drive as replacement and your original was fujitsu.
I personaly decided to keep fujitsu it's much quieter.

 

Interesting... Flamenko, do you know what Dell's default is for this... and also have you played with "HDD acoustic mode" in Dell BIOS? (Mine's on "bypass" I think, but there's also "performance" and "quiet" settings.)

 

I don't think it came with a fall sensor - but I have the fujitsu one and it seems to make a wirring sound and occasional chirping. It worries me, I hope it doens't fail or something.....

 

can I suggest removing all unnecessary language packs? My system sneaked in Thai, Ukraine and some other one and the boot times were massive!

 

No go on that one...in the meantime my startup is schtinks like sour milk :\

 

OK guys, so I was tweaking a little bit this morning. I changed some services from Auto to Auto(delayed), and then I Ran CCleaner's registry cleaner...and then I shutdown completely...

"Lo and behold", my startup time was under a minute, I almost peed my pants (sad, I know)...I thought to myself, "can this be true?"

Well, I'll save you from peeing your pants, it's not true. My startup time is even WORSE. Here are the latest 3 startup times (with complete shutdown as well as a simple restart):

Time to see startup Pearl = 1:04
Time to see webpage in Firefox = 3:20

Time to see startup Pearl = 1:06
Time to see webpage in Firefox = 3:26

Time to see startup Pearl = 1:25
Time to see webpage in Firefox = 3:26

A few more things that have happened since last time. I uninstalled SP1 & upgraded to the newest RC. I ended up have to repair my installation (now my XP/VISTA dual boot screen says "Vista [recovered]". I also resized a partition. I had a disk error had to run chkdisk twice. All is running as usual except for the startup.

!!! What do you guys think?

 

UPDATE:

Hey guys, I got my Boot log and there are 378 instances of drivers that didn't load...I included an excel file that lists them all.

Note: I sorted the entries for ease of seeing duplicates and frequency, but the instances of this message occurred as several instances of a series (ABCD, ABCD...etc)

I hope this helps me solve this beast.

EDIT: Here are the unique entries (I deleted 300+ iterations of these entries):
Did not load driver @battery.inf,%acpi\acpi0003.devicedesc%;Microsoft AC Adapter
Did not load driver @battery.inf,%acpi\pnp0c0a.devicedesc%;Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery
Did not load driver @cpu.inf,%intelppm.devicedesc%;Intel Processor
Did not load driver @hal.inf,%acpi_amd64.devicedesc%;ACPI x64-based PC
Did not load driver @mdmcxhv6.inf,%hsfmodem_cnxt2%;In-Build COnexant HDA Type 2 modem
Did not load driver @oem14.inf,%st64.devicedesc%;SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
Did not load driver @oem17.inf,%devicedescription%;Laptop Integrated Webcam
Did not load driver @oem7.inf,%nvidia_g84.dev_0407.1%;NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Did not load driver @sdbus.inf,%pci\cc_080501.devicedesc%;SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\kbdhid.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\srv.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\SysWow64\DRIVERS\rassstp.sys
Did not load driver kbdhid.SYS
Did not load driver RDPCDD.SYS
Did not load driver Wanarpv6.SYS

 

Probably when you reinstalled the Vista SP1, it erased all your optimization data, causing your system to boot up slower. I had the same problem happen when I first installed the SP1 RC Refresh, my system boot up really slow for about 2 days, then it got faster. Give it a few days and see if there is any improvement.

 

Although I knew about most of them out of experience some were new and quite helpful as there are just so many who actually know Vista! 10x u guys and keep up the good work!

 

Just for some closure:
I chanced upon a sweet deal for a Seagate Momentus 160GB 7200RPM drive. Long story short, I'm in good shape with a clean install. Boottime ~1min

...too bad we couldn't figure it out before, but thanks for all of your help anyhow.

 

just up-dated CCleaner and now have Yahoo tool bar which I "don't want".
can't seem to get rid of it can someone help?
Thanks

 

As you install CCleaner you have to uncheck the yahoo tool bar. Uninstall toolbar for now.

 

Calv, that's what he wanted to know how to do.

FLH, do you have IE6 or 7?