NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

Ouch, I take a random peek over in this thread to see how it's doing (congrats on the 310,000+ views Les) and I find a random link to a better list of free software. I've actually found something like this for all of my guides, I'm going to have the reconsider what I'm doing with them and I might just start working on these other sources and replace my guides or something.

 

Yea but keep in mind you have one thread in a forum dedicated to a list of free software whereas that link is an entire website dedicated to it that touts itself as

If there was some way to collaborate with those other sources, however, you could improve on an already great guide.

 

My Best Free Software for Windows list is at a good stage in its life, I may hand off the torch to someone else when I feel I'm being incompetent with it (probably won't be for a while) and thanks to your comments and some help I got from a fellow guide writer I think I'll just continue to work on my guides and try my hand at working on these other resources too. I think I might be able to help them with web design and add some software to the list/clean it up.

 

Cal...just popped bsck in which is getting harder to do these days. Where is this link to another guide you speak of? I cant find it....but havent got the time to go through every post much anymore.

I must concede that I am extremely lucky to have people such as Crash, Meetloaf, Schuderia, Fade to Black, darthsat and many more who seem to carry the flame in these threads...

Great Bunch and truly appreciated....apologies if i missed a name or two which I know I have

 

I think he was talking about mine. It's on pg. 155. I believe it's #1549. I posted that site because it has a bunch of Vista tips and tweaks and programs you can use to tweak Vista. I thought it'd be relevant. It also looked like good, solid information to me. I use many of the freeware programs advertised on the site and it seems to accurately portray them. The only software I have on my computer that I paid for is the OS!

As for me, I *LOVE* threads such as these, because before they existed, you couldn't get this kind of information anywhere. If you had a problem, you'd spend hours on hold, followed by hours talking to someone you practically couldn't understand, followed by back-and-forth e-mails, and next thing you know you've burned a week without a solution. Now we just post the question, and boom there's an answer within a few hours!!!

And it's all thanks to everyone mentioned above, as well as you, Les, and many others who donate their time and effort to places like this. I'm very thankful that I stumbled upon NBR. Great stuff!

 

Yes its a good site where I have learned tons myself...

 

whats your guys thoughts on superfetch? Keep running or disable?

 

Thanks Les! I'm glad to continue to help out in this thread. It has become such an accumulation of knowledge since it started.

Keep it running. I see no reason to disable it. Granted, I haven't done any benchmarks/tests to see what the performance loss (or gain) would be, but Superfetch affects mainly your RAM usage and since I haven't had any issues with running out of RAM, I see no reason to turn it off.

 

Does anyone know what the "Desktop Performance for Windows Aero" depends on in the Experience Index? It's the lowest score I have and I was just wondering what exactly affects that.

Thanks for any input

Update: Nevermind I'm an idiot. Read it off of this site:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/help/0fee4637-8b21-41f1-87f6-66d2205420d61033.mspx

Now to see if I can increase my video card's memory bandwidth somehow...

 

The WEI sucks as a benchmark, but I found info on it here: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/458117.aspx

Here's the relevant info...

I wouldn't worry what your score is as long as it's high enough to run Aero.

 

in Trebuin Safe Process Changes it states he used this on vista ultimate, do these have any adverse effects for the registry on home prem, or can these go both ways?

 

I am not entirely sure about this, but I guess it should work depending on what services you would need personally.. I would recommend taking a look at the services and seeing what they do for you and if you need them for any specific needs and then make the change. But I can trebuin safe change tips are really good and has not problems with VU, and if the experts say they work on VHP, you can go ahead.

Also, I would suggest blackvipers page as a better and well-informed alternative for your specific question. there you can find separate instructions for the different versions of vista and I have followed it and I guess it should work for you as well. And of course, LES has posted a remark about being very careful about these, but after taking a long hard look at blackvipers along with trebuin safe change tips, I can assure Blackvipers are safe too, if you just follow it word-by-word, as you would have followed Les' guide here.

In any case, blackvipers also has the default service files which u can always go back to and merge/apply if you aren't happy with the way some things work after you made the change or if you are worried for any reason.

Good luck and cheers.

 

this guide was very helpful thanks a bunch

 

Alrighty, with your advice I'll answer my own ques. Comparing on blackviper, the defaults between every vista seems to be the same except when an application isnt in that version of vista like it is in ultimate...IE Dreamscene is automatic as default but in home premium its just N/A. Looks as though the changes for the Registry as safe across the board, but dont be suprised if your not using Ultimate and you cant find the service.

 

Yeah well, thats pretty obvious, isn't it? Anyways, in this case, it would be better off to look at blackvipers site and check the defaults, and proceed with the 'safe' option to begin with. In case there are applications absent in VHP compared to VU, I would probably leave the default values alone or else I would probably set them to manual and see how things are going, instead of completely disabling them.

IMHO, whatever said and done, one of the reasons for so many services out there is one reason why I think Vista is kinda nice and easy to use and particularly for novices (including me when I started using Vista first) because it seems to kind of detail everything and the respective reason for the service being there as well. And going by your config, I wouldn't worry too much about services affecting your overall system performance in a big-time, major way. 'safe' changes from blackvipers or even just following the Les' guide here (the first big post) would improve your performance quiet a lot beyond which sometimes I would guess the increase goes almost unnoticed. Good luck and cheers.

 

Hey les do you mind if when i get my new laptop when i do these tweaks if i use cam studio to record it and then put it on youtube and eventually my website? And if you have a website of yours you would like me to link to i can.

 

Fantastic guide, will Rep tomorrow when I get some!

One question though, would it be worth it to do all of these on my system? I think 4GB is enough but I can't be sure, specs in my sig if you are wondering.

 

Ditto, but I plan to do that in spanish

 

gonna try it tomorrow. vista makes my 5793 looked like an old man.

 

I have no objection in use of the guide whatsoever but please be polite and let Andrew give his blessing as well. Permission has been granted in several languages, the most recent being polish and there, of course, are some minor things which are asked. Providing appropriate credit to the author is customary along with a link back to the original is normal.

Here is the latest translation:

http://www.kannettavatietokone.fi/artikkelit/1216928073/sivu_1.html

I am very flattered actually but darn if I had better business sense ehehehe.

 

Yeah wish you had....

PS., Heyyyyyyyyyyy, whats up Les? Long time. My system is so wonderful and super cool now after your guide and the recommended weekly maintenance schedule also of course the free software thread helped a lot as well. Anyways. See you around. Cheers pal.

 

Tx Italy...I just jump in and out here and there now. I am glad I, along with Cal with his free software thread, have helped.

 

So I've been reading the first 20 or so pages in this thread. Wonderful information and I plan on implementing lots of this when I do a clean Vista install next week on my 8510p. Thanks to all who have contributed.

One question. Is the 1st post in this thread updated with the most current tweaks that have been verified to work? Thanks much.

 

It hasn't changed much recently, but honestly nothing with Vista has changed much recently either. You will be in good shape if you follow the guide w/in the context of your situation.

For your clean install, if you don't have a Vista disk with SP1 integrated, I recommend do as little as possible (drivers...even your video driver, programs ,tweaks, etc.) until AFTER you update all windows updates.

FWIW, This has produced the optimal performance for me (and it guarantees that SP1 doesn't reneg any of the tweaks you implement.

 

Listen to Meetloaf. He knows what's up

 

My Vista Ultimate 64 DVD had SP1 included, and I plan on vLiting the install with my drivers as well.

 

Sounds good... which makes me think, should we add a link to jisaac's vlite guide in the first post? It's another great (albeit advanced) way to improve performance on your computer.

Les, I know you don't frequent here too often anymore, but do you have any ideas about this?

 

I am here but just don't have as much opportunity to jump in. I started reading it and, yes it may be a bit complicated for Joe Average User but.... let me work with it for awhile and then make a decision if thats ok.

Question... Can this create a bootable image of my exact system after I set it up completely with tweaks, drivers and whatnot?

 

Yea, perhaps a short message like "more advanced users may want to integrate all these tweaks into a customized Vista install disk using Vlite..." and then a link to Jisaac's guide would direct more comfortable users to the guide while the Average Joes would just stick the tweaks in this guide.

At the end of the Vlite process it creates an image that is burned to a DVD. I don't know if that image can be saved during the vlite process, but by using img burn (or a similar program) one can create an image of the DVD afterwards.

 

Okie I read through the vlite guide as well as your conversations.. I have a doubt or may be something is not clear to me.

Vlita lets you make an Vista Install CD thats been tweaked / settings chosen by you personally? Am I right? I got a bit confused with the part where we insert the vista install CD and copy the contents into a folder on the computer....

Or is vlite making you an image of the computer you are currently working on with the vista installation CD format?

I mean, lets say, now I have a computer which is tweaked and all things done, most following Les' guide here. And if I want to make a install CD of the Vista I am using right now, is this what is being done by Vlite?

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I never seem to get the hang of things some times.. lol

 

The very beginning of jisaac's guide has your answer...

And while I'm at it, Les, to answer your question, I noticed this in the guide as well...

 

Thanks for the reply, Crash..

It says vlite lets the user remove components, and this means the components from the install CD once they are copied into the users computer, right?

But I was thinking how will I be able to get in the tweaks followed from Les' guide, things that wouldn't be probably be easy to do in the install CD files?

You get what' running through my mind??

 

Yes. It doesn't affect the original install disk in any way.

I do. Many of the tweaks consist of disabling components or services, both of which (I believe) you can do with vlite.

 

Thank you This was what I was having a doubt about..

I'll take a look over again and read through the vlite guide and also read through Les guide again and see how much of the components tweaked here can be incorporated there.. would like to know. May be during this weekend, I'll set aside a time for this learning activity

Cheers. Thanks again.

 

Sounds good man. Glad to help.

 

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly.

From what I understand, you can create your own Vista installation disk with V-lite..w/o actually installing Vista the way you want it.

I.E., you copy the image of the installation disk, and then via v-lite remove options/services/programs/etc from that image's file pack, and then v-lite recompiles everything to an .iso, which you then burn and voila...custom install disk.

It does not however, mean that you install vista, update everything, tweak everything, and then make an install disk from your current setup, which the becomes your .iso which you would use to restore a current system setup (that would potentially be a HUGE amount of data).

Is my understanding correct?

If it isn't, why would you then just tweak everything, install everything, update everything and then just image your disk and simply reformat and apply the image (would save you considerable time...shoot I should just do this anyhow =D ).

 

That is correct.

That's also a great approach (one that I prefer to do over vlite), however, there are things that vlite can do to slim your Vista install that any amount of tweaking can not do. For instance, you can remove Internet Explorer from your Vista install (not advisable, but it's possible). It can also reduce the size of the Vista install in case you're worried about disk space.

They both have their pros and cons. I'm not trying to market vlite as a "must do", but rather as another option for tweaking. Obviously, it's not for everybody.

 

Awesome, perhaps (really want to, but do I really have the time?) I will do a vlite install and then image my vista OS partition with System Rescue CD, then I will truly have a lean, mean, fighting machine!

P.S. I remember reading that Vista installations done with V-lite could not update to Vista SP1. If an SP2 came around, this might pose a potential problem (I'm not suggesting that SP2 is imminent or anything, I'm totally out of the loop on that one). But, from a reasonability standpoint, how often are you going to reinstall Vista b/t now and the next service pack (unless you're a tweak freak, and also an application tester supreme )...will it really be worth the v-lite hassle? I guess that's something each person needs to weigh out.

Hah, ok, rambling over!

 

Yea I've also heard that integrating SP1 causes some problems with Windows Update. I suppose that can be avoided by integrating all the drivers with vlite and installing SP1 once Vista is installed.

And I know there are some people who find vlite useful. I see it's usefulness, but just not for me.

 

Thanks for this great guide, I used it on my new Vista notebook and it is running very fast and smooth.

 

Your welcome...Glad it helped.

Hey Philly eh? Just went through there on my way from NYC to Virginia Beach. I brought my son and a few friends to the 'Mutter Museum'; somewhere that must be seen at least once

 

But there were issues with folks not being able to install SP1 if they had used vlite to install Vista. It was even mentioned in Microsoft's knowledgebase article on "why can't I install SP1" along with the list of problem drivers.

I think it is not worth the potential hassles down the road. Why use vlite now and only to find out latter that you won't be able to install SP2 or some other update latter???

Gary

 

I wasn't aware that it had issues even if SP1 wasn't integrated. Thanks for sharing this info. I then agree that it's not worth it if you can't get the updates you need from Windows Update.

 

Here is the Knowledgbase article that talked about this. It has been updated with new info about vLite. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948343

But the problem is explained a bit better on the vLite forum here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t114322.html

Because components were removed, the SP1 install would fail. The only solution for vlite users was to either install the removed components and then install SP1 or create a new vlite installer with SP1 slipstreamed and then reinstall Vista with that. Yuch, to both "solutions".

Bottom line, is it really worth the possible hassle if this rears its ugly head again?

Gary

 

Thanks for the links, I'll take a read through them.

If that's the case, then vlite is definitely NOT worth it IMO.

 

Thanks for jumping in here Gary....long time..

 

Surely this has been talked about somewhere:

How do you disable the mouseover tips/balloons that pop up anytime you mouse over anything. Not the Task bar balloons, but the mouseover balloons.

They appear when you are looking at your list of favorites in IE7, when looking at files in my computer and mouse over a file, when you mouse over a tab in IE7 I get a nice big ballon that tells me the name of the tab .... AGAIN. Dag that is stupid stuff.

This should be easy?

 

Please check here

http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/28/disable-balloon-tips-in-windows-vista/

 

Tried that tip, but did not get any results. I created a DWord and it is set to 0, but after reboot, the tips are still there.

Maybe I am missing something

 

MrM1 >> You on XP or Vista?

If its XP, probably you could try this

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=1349036&postcount=8