NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

anyone do the pagesys file tweak on a 1720 2.2ghz w/ 2 gigs of ram?
would like to try it out but dont know what would be safe/ideal..

 

You should change your name to "The Tech-Guy Formerly Known As Flamenko"

 

...or just some weird squiggly symbol.

 

When I go to disable the indexing in the C: drive, I get an error message stating it cannot apply changes to multiple files in the "Common Files" under "Program Files." I just did a clean install so I'm not too sure what is restricting me from disabling the index...

Any ideas?


-*More Importantly:

In regard to disabling the UAC, are there issues with the virtualization folder with installing Microsoft Office?

And btw, do you recommend disabling Windows Sidebar?

Thanks for the great guide!

 

Well, unless you really really like it I'd disable sidebar, especially if you game because it takes a fair amount of resources on what I think arn't very demanding tasks.

Dunno about your main problem though, sorry dude.

 

Ok Les,

I'm going to do it, clean install Vista again, hopefully I can get my boot-time under a minute. I just wanted to check with you to see what order I should do things, as far as installing Vista, and then loading drivers/programs. You mentioned to me earlier that I should install and then apply all of the tweaks.

I do a few things that really benefit from the increased networking speeds of SP1, should I tweak/install everything before upgrading? Or tweak, upgrade, install miscellaneous programs?

I plan on following Trebuin's guide for a clean install, less the Media Direct part, I removed that partition.

So that's that, any suggestions would be great, so that I don't find myself where I am now, wishing I had done something the last time I clean installed.

Thanks!

 

This is an excellent guide! I clean installed Vista Home Premium 64-bit and startup time is about 40 seconds to login screen and then about 5 seconds to desktop!

 

Ressom, me = jealous! =D

 

I was just kidding, by the way.

 

Oho! I just had a wonderful idea Les. What if we asked our local programming genius Lawrence to make a program to automatically do most of these tweaks? It could also be integrated into Winbubble, and would simplify the process of newbies doing these tweaks. What do you think?

 

Lawrence has his pride and joy in WinBubble and I...mine here.

I believe there are many already encorporated into his program in any case.

Tx anyway Cal.

Les

 

Was just throwing an idea out in the open Les, just wanted to see what you thought. Thanks for the reply.

 

hey isnt the snipping tool just like control+print screen?

 

not the same,
by pressing print screen, you can only copy the whole screen,
you then need to paste it somewhere else to save it or do any alterations.

in snipping tool, you can copy any part of your screen,
even copy it in irregular shape,
it also gives you the function to highlight or draw stuff on it.
you can save your snips in jpeg, gif, or png.

I think snipping tool is so useful

 

Yes, Snipping Tool has replaced the One Note screen shot for me, which I lived and died by for quite a while.

 

Hey Les, I found out one of the major reasons for my startup problems last time around. If you have any mapped network drives you will see a considerable increase in startup.

After installing some apps at work, I was pretty upset when my beautiful startup went from 45s to 1.5 minutes. I can attribute 30s of that to having Mapped Network drives persists after you shutdown. So, if you select for them to be persistent over reboots, you will likely have this slowdown.

So, my question is, anyway I can make a batch file or .vbs that can reconnect these mapped drives? That way windows doesn't have to spend 30s every reboot looking for them (even when they are connected)?

 

7. Disable Excess Windows Processes at Boot! (TY and Pls Rep Trebuin)

I need help understanding what the image means. I don't understand which ones is to disable and not. If someone could explain which ones to disable versus which not cause I don't understand from the picture.

 

Not to be rude, but if you do not understand what that tweak is about you should not attempt it. Having someone just tell you which ones to disable is not enough. You really ought to understand WHY you should disable certain ones and what is actually going to happen as a result of your disabling them.

Gary

 

Agreed, Rocky, you need to go about disabling services in the context of how you use your computer. There will potentially be services that he suggests you disable that you might use. I have gone through 4 or 5 lists similar to these, but you really should study up on each item to know if you really want to shut the process down...otherwise, you will be sitting at your computer in a couple months, and something won't work and you won't know that it's b/c you disabled something several months prior...many of this know this one from experience =D

 

K, then I won't even attempt then thanks.

 

Rocky,

That was not the point of my reply. The point was you should try to learn what these services do. Take a look at the list, pick one or two that the poster disabled or set to manual and look to you like you might not need them. Then spend some time and investigate. Do some google searches. Do some searches here. Then if you are still confused or not sure ask here. Something like, "I have been reading about service XYZ and it appears to do abc, and since I don't need abc, would I be better off setting it to manual or disabled". That sort of question will garner you much more of an informative response than just asking someone to tell you which services to turn off.

Happy hunting!

Gary

 

I purchased a Hp pav dv9700t with the t9300 4gig ram 240gig 7200rpm HD nvidia 8400m gs 512mb graphics blueray an so on, it comes with windows ultimate on. Is there any real advantage to staying with windows ultimate 64 or should i reformat to windows xp pro 64 instead. Thanks for all the tips here an the reading has helped alot.
Thanks

 

William, that all depends on how you find Vista Ultimate to be. Both Vista Ultimate 64 and XP Pro 64 will allow you to use all 4GB of RAM you have. If you find Vista itself to be too bloated for your taste, then XP Pro maybe worthwhile for you. So this is more of a personal taste decision.

 

In regards to this post.
Some time ago I posted a long message in this thread explaining what was REALLY going on behind the scenes when TweakXP was being used to optimize the boot files under Vista.

I mentioned that I wanted to create an app or some way for folks to do the same thing on their own without the need for TweakXP. (Especially since it was NEVER designed for Vista in the first place and some of its other options might be detrimental to Vista's health.) I have been swampped since then, but yesterday this issue came up again in the Sony forum here. So, after helping someone there with this issue I am copying it here as well.

------------Quoted from the Sony Forum here---------------------------------
Have you allowed Vista to defrag and reorder the boot files? Most laptop users never get a chance for this to be done, because they don't leave their machines idle long enough for the automatic process to kick in. There is a whole series of messages about this in the "top tweaks" thread. The tweak recommended is to use an app called TuneXP, which was designed for XP and use it to do some "magical" trick to defrag and reorder the bootfiles. I did a complete expose' of exactly what it does and it comes down to two simple commands.

Open notepad and paste these two lines in it:

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks
defrag -b %SystemDrive%

Next save the file on your desktop with an extention of .BAT. (DO NOT NAME THE FILE DEFRAG.BAT) Or better yet I'll include an attachment right here!

It is a zip file but just open it and move the file to your desktop. Close ALL running applications.

Then right click on it and select run as administrator. The first line just tells Vista that all applications are idle and it can start a background task that is just sitting there waiting for this event to occur. That task analyzes the bootfile history that Vista maintains and creates a file with the optimum order for these files. The second line starts a specialized defrag process that uses that ordering information and puts these bootfiles into the proper sequence!

It will popup a command window and look like it is just sitting there hung on the first line. It's not, trust me. If you open Task Manager and view all running processes you will see Defrag and DfrgNtfs running. When they are done the command window will disappear. Be patient give it some time. It can take anywhere from a few seconds to an hour even. Just depends on how fragmented your files are. I just ran it and it took about seven minutes. Your disk drive light will show LOTS of activity.

Sit back, have a cup of coffee or whatever. Just wait until the command window disappears. That cannot be stressed highly enough! DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW! BE PATIENT! LET IT FINISH! Now reboot and see if it made any difference in boot time.

I am in the middle of trying this. I did as you said, it opened up a cmd box and its just sitting there with C:/windowsblahblahProcessIdleTasks and a blinking cursor under it. Am i supposed to press anything or leave it like that?
I checked task manager and defrag and the other thing you said isn't running

EDIT: Ok its finally starting lol. it just took awile.
2xEDIT:This slowed my startup more and when i do start it up, my desktop is black for like 5-10 seconds then it finally loads up ;[

 

Did you let it run uninterrupted until the command box disappeared? I guarantee you there is no way this will EVER make the boot time longer. All this "tweak" does is start up the bootfile defrag process bulit into Vista. What was your boot time before and after the process?

Try it again. This time make sure you shut down all other programs and don't do ANYTHING with the machine while it is processing. Let's see if that helps. Do not touch anything until the command box disappears.

Gary

 

hope someone can help: I recently installed 4GB on my notebook, under vista ultimate x64. first boot: 5 minutes of boot gui! after it enters in windows it was all ok. but the boot was always very long!
so I selected maximum memory in msconfig (it recognises I have 4096MB). after that the boot was very fast! but now I have another problem: it recognises only 3GB as if my system is a 32bit system! if I deselect maximum memory in msconfig, it recognises 4GB again, but the boot is very long! (about 5 mins on boot gui). any idea?

 

The first time I did it, I thought it wasn't working so i exited the command window and re-did it. MY boot time before was like 7 green bars, after the defrag was 11 1/2 green bar plus when I get to my desktop, the whole screen is black for about 5 seconds then my desktop loads my BG, taskbar, etc. I had everything closed. I shall try again.

 

There is the problem.

 

I didn't really know where to put this question and I didn't want to start a thread, so I'm asking it here. I figured it's somewhat related to what's talked about in this thread. Do bootskins and log-in themes affect your boot speed? Also, do they affect PC performance in any way?

 

As I've replied before (you cross posted). It's probably going to slow you down, but as far as I've tested them and heard, they don't slow you down by much.

 

Ok. So what do I do.

 

I didn't create it so i wouldn't know. But he did put a lot of emphasis on not closing it. Did you not see that part or did you just feel like not following his instructions?

 

Sorry, I didn't see where you had replied to this before when I checked the other thread. I thought it went unnoticed in that one. I apologize.

 

No problem, just letting you know.

 

As I told you earlier try running it again, but read on before you do. Each time the machine is booted, Vista keeps a log of the boot files and the order in which they are used. The first part of the process I documented tricks Vista into thinking the machine is idle. (Which is why I said make sure NOTHING else is running. Vista is being told by my "tweak" that it is idle, so it SHOULD be idle.) Once Vista thinks it is idle a scheduled task runs. (This task ONLY runs if Vista thinks it is idle.) This task processes the log of boot files and determines an optimal sequence for the boot files and saves off this optimization list for the next time a defrag is run. Then my process causes the defrag to kick in with the parameter telling it to defrag just the boot files. At this point I am not sure what happens to the log or the optimization list. I suspect they are disposed of, but I am not certain of that.

My point here is you may need to reboot a couple of times over a couple of days to allow Vista to recreate the log file and then try the process again. This time MAKE SURE THE MACHINE IS IDLE AND DO NOT INTERRUPT IT!!!!!

That is why I made that line bold and red in the original write up, it is VERY VERY important.

Gary

 

How often do I defrag it. I think I fixed it. It's back to 7 bars.

 

You only need to defrag the boot files when a boot file has been added or updated. So if you install a new driver or app that loads something at boot time, you should re run the boot defrag, otherwise there is no need. But then again it doesn't hurt to run it either.

So what did you do to fix it???

Gary

 

Before I did it, I created a system restore point. After running the defrag, it became slower, so I restored the point, but it was still the same. I then rebooted it a couple of times. Ran the defrag again, rebooted a few times. It was still around the same startup speed. I then took my 1gb SD card out that I use for ReadyBoost and restarted and noticed it was back to normal. I don't know if this is a coincidence or what, but that SD card, slowed it down. I then did some tests. I restarted with the SD card and w/o. Surely enough, with SD card in, it was significantly slower. I still don't understand this, but what ever.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also went into the BIOS and put my boot order sequence to default. I disabled seek floppy drive though.

 

You do realize that ReadyBoost is only effective for machines with less than 2 gig of memory, right? With 2 gig or more it has virtually no effect at all.

Gary

 

Another interesting thing I should point out. When running on AC power, my bootup is faster than on battery. I find that interesting. ;o

 

That sounds like your power profile for battery power has the maximum cpu speed throttled back. How much difference do you see?

Gary

 

2-4 seconds. How do I make it the same as AC power? Put laptop on high performance?

 

put in high-performance may get your battery run out quicker,
you may fine tune your "regular" power plan in advanced setting

 

Ok, Ill try it later. I'm on my desktop atm.
Mod deleted my BSOD UAC. x[

EDIT:im on HP recommended. i was jw how to and why battery power is slower than ac power. putting it on high performance will make it equivalent to ac? i know battery will die out quicker

 

sorry if I repost. noone can help?

 

Big problems.........my internet has slowed to crawl, sometimes getting the "internet Explorer cannot display webpage" screen after completeing step 6. This is a new x61s. Internet was working fine prior to starting the tweaks recommendations. I do have a connection, as I am using my r61 without any problems right next to the x61s. I reset the "wait to kill" shutdown time back to 20000. I did get some error notices after turning off the indexing service, clicked "ignore all" and the indexing service was turned off.
What can I check to get my internet working again?

 

Perhaps you have spyware?

 

I don't think so. After I open Internet Explorer and get a blank page, I can't even close the window.

 

Does this happen in other browsers? FF?

 

I don't have FF on the laptop, and I can't get onto the internet to download it anyway. I don't understand why it would all of sudden stop working, I didn't change anything that should cause the problem. The few changes I did make (the Workstation service, Waittokillservices time) I changed back to factory defaults, restarted and still the same problem. Windows seems to be working fine, its only a problem using IE. And why won't it close when I click the X?