NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

There's a safe, non-problematic tweak that is missing and really helps...

By default, Vista's boot settings are to use 1 core only to boot, even if you're using a quad-core processor.

In msconfig, on boot, hit Advanced. Click processor number and choose 2 (supposing that the vast majority of people have dual-cores). Hit OK, and in msconfig choose the option to make boot settings permanent. All done.
If you're not timing the boot, there's a visible telltale of this - your deskptop at boot will appear fully much faster.

I don't know why Vista doesn't do this by itself by default. I guess it's just a human error... there are no downsides to using this.

 

I'm wondering if there wasn't a significant discussion on this that conluded that it doesn't work like this...

 

I dunno - it works great for me. There may be something I don't know, but it doesn't disable any service, it just lets the OS use the computer's full capability when booting.

 

I think you will find that is not the case. All cores are enabled by default. The setting you refer to only allows you to disable one or more cores for trouble shooting purposes. Leaving it unchecked does not disable anything and checking it for the number of cores you have is the same as the default setting.

See this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4242301#post4242301

 

I rest my case.

Thanks for the link.

 

good info in that link. thanks for posting it, i learned a lot

 

cool tweaks. wat about internet tweaks? any of that in here

 

http://www.dslnuts.com/

 

No, internet/networking tweaks have not been discussed here (except for disabling the workstation service).

 

i see nothing useful on that dslnuts site...

oh tanx crash. there should be a internet tweaks thread! or mebe there is. i want to learn how to speed up my internet

 

Feel free to make your own thread on the topic in the Networking and Wireless forum: http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28

That said, I don't think there is too much out there that will do much. You can take a look at these sites, but don't expect anything drastic.
http://www.tweakxp.com/internet_tweaks.aspx
http://www.speedguide.net/articles.php?category=93
http://tweakhound.com/vista/tweakguide/page_9.htm

 

Here is one for Vista internet tweaks:

http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=2574

 

My processes are 70+ running all the time and cpu usage is 20-40% and ram usgae is 50%...In my inspiron 1525 which have vista ultimate 32 sp1,T5800 procy,2gb (800mhz) ram.
I reinstall vista ultimate and only install driver and utility like dell diagnosis tool,quick set.(enabled aero)
Please tell me how to low down my processes and is this OK to use cpu 20-40% all the time?
thanks

 

Check the first post from Les here in this thread. He mentions about this in two places, one of them turning off processes (with msconfig) to prevent them from starting at boot up, and the advanced method of tweaking with services (follow blackviper's suggestions). Though I must warn you to be very careful when tweaking with services - make sure you understand very well, before proceeding.

 

As much as I hate to be picky about grammar and all that, I know this will bother me to no end unless I get it off my chest. Besides, we want NBR to have a good name, right?

The proper term for this situation, meaning "to bring about" is effect.

Oh, and right below it:

Was that intentional, or do you mean work?

 

Pixelot, lol! We should all strive to speak good English with no grammatical errors, I agree...no sarcasm.

P.S. (I checked over this message three times before submitting, lol). NBR's a great site.

 

well i am new the site and vista since i just purchased a the new FX laptop and this may have been answered in the begining. i just bought a new system and i was wondering ever time that i try to save somthing the c program where things should be. I get a message that says dont have permission to save their please contace admin, but iam the admin, what is solution? Do i have to turn off the uac feature or can you have it on buy bypass since i heard that it not that great to run without it which is stated close the begining of the thread

 

First off, neither "affect" nor "effect" is the proper word to use in that sentence. A more correct word would be "facilitate". However, "affect" is more grammatically correct because it is a verb, whereas "effect" is a noun. I don't know what dictionary you're looking at, because "effect" is NOT a verb, and does not mean "to bring about". It means:

Source: http://www.answers.com/effect

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^

lol
Thanks for clearing that up (+1)

 

I hope you're not serious.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html
http://www.writersblock.ca/tips/monthtip/tipsep99a.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect

IT'S EVEN IN THE SECOND SECTION OF YOUR LINK!!!

 

Not to sound like a jerk, but I believe "effect" is correct.

Great guide though.

 

I need to read posts more carefully, and the links

But I just woke up a while ago, and I'm trying to get my brain in gear.

Thanks for those links, pixelot

I'll actually CLICK on them lol (+1)
For some strange reason it won't let me rep you
Apparently I've given out too much recently

 

Indeed, it is. And if you know how to use a dictionary, you'd realize that the "To bring about" definition is under the transitive verb(s) of "effected", "effecting", and "effects", neither of which are used in the first post. I even highlighted it for you:


Also, there is a little bitty next to the definition that says "See Usage Note at affect". I highlighted that too in case you missed that as well.

The point is, in that sentence, a verb is needed, and "effect" is not a verb.

 

And if you look at the usage note, you'll see this:

Effect is a verb. And did you look at my other links?

 

Yes, I read your links, and it seems I just made a fool of myself I suppose that's what posting after a party does to you..

Nevertheless, I still don't think the current wording (whether affect or effect) is the most effective way to state what that post was trying to say, but it's not my guide

 

LOL...if you're willing to discuss finer points of grammar, you're not a fool. How was the party?

Well, you can always make suggestions, no?

 

Here is a quote from grammar.quickanddirtytips.com

Affect

Affect with an a means "to influence," as in, "The arrows affected Ardvark," or "The rain affected Amy's hairdo." Affect can also mean, roughly, "to act in a way that you don't feel," as in, "She affected an air of superiority."

Effect

Effect with an e has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but to me the meaning "a result" seems to be at the core of all the definitions. For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing," or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo."

So it would seem that "affect" would be the proper usage instead of "effect".

 

Just go and read the above links. Neither of your uses of "affect" would effect(bring about) the desired effect(result), thereby affecting(influencing) the post in the proper manner. In fact, your affectation(acting in a way you don't feel) of grammatical superiority borders on inanity.

To clarify further, the reason "affect" wouldn't work is because we aren't trying to "influence" the changes, but trying to "bring about" the changes. See the original text below.

 

One question?
Can I tweak my laptop with these words?

Although for an observer its a tad funny, I don't think the mods will like this in the long run.

its off topic.

 

You are absolutely correct. However, it is discussion relating to the content of the OP. Maybe it should be moved into Site Suggestions and Announcements?

Seriously, though, I think matters are clear, and it shouldn't need to go on. I probably should've just PMed Les with the corrections, in the event he would want to implement them.

 

I assume you are familiar with XP. Vista is different and can be quite annoying.

You thought you are an admin and have unlimited access to files and folders on your machine, but it's only true if you take control of the machine by assigning ownership of the system and admin privileges to yourself.



Right click on the property of the folder and click on property and assign to yourself full control and ownership.

 

Hi guys, I did the TMM tweak stated however when logging in, my notebook screen still flickers black once or twice at least before settling down. Any idea?

 

It could be a number of other things, such as a start-up program or your video card driver. Unfortunately, if the TMM tweak didn't eradicate the flickering black screen from your boot up, you may need to play around a bit with your start-up programs to see if one of them is causing the problem.

Also, it's quite likely it's your graphics driver. Are you using the stock driver or a modified one?

 

I like the idea of editing my Power profile, but I want to change things on certain times w/o having to reset the previous ones all the time. Is their a reg file I can save to reload them in one shot caus every time I move from Balanced to any other and come back, it is reset to the fix settings for that mode and I have to re-enter them all over (my sub item settings)? Like I want a gaming profile where CPU stay full and some other features off or down etc.

thankx!

 

You can create a custom power plan (for gaming or whatever) so you don't have to change your settings all the time. Click on the power icon in your taskbar, and select "More Power Options". See attached screenshot.

 

This is really helpful. You can set what exactly you want power buttons and shutting the lid to do, set the screen brightness in different circumstances, limit the CPU, etc.

I have it set so my laptop doesn't go to sleep automatically, since my nVidia driver is screwing something up and won't let it wake up.

 

Thankx, that's what I used to do but like I said, when I go back to balanced, it is fixed to the "balanced" preset, not the balanced,+ edited I set before (ie, S3/S4, monitor off, HDD time out times etc.). Is this normal, we just get the 3 fixed settings and have to tweak each time we move away from either?

thankx again.

 

No, the settings should remain fixed once you change them. I have all 3 of my profiles edited (Power Saver, Balanced, and High Performance), and the settings always stay whether I switch between them, shut down, etc. I don't know why your settings revert back to default.

 

Will using any of these tweaks effect my wireless in any way?

 

whats the best video driver out there for the m8600gt?

 

No, unless you muck around with the services without knowing what you're doing. But that's not really on the tweak list anyways.

This isn't the thread for that. Post here: Updating Video Card Drivers in WinXP and Vista - READ BEFORE POSTING

 

How do you guys feel about System Mechanic 8? My company offers it for free and in the past it seems to have worked pretty well for me. Any other good programs for keeping everything clean and running smoothly that are pretty easy to use and maintain?

 

Ehm - if its like system Mechanic 7 then I don't know why you have to pay for it...
Plenty of legally free tools to do the same.

I also believe someone here had some significant problems with system mechanic.

 

I just ran the zip file that defrags the boot files and it messed up my system. All the icons/documents on my desktop were erased. And all my applications are acting like they just got installed. For example firefox opens blank with no history, no bookmarks and it asked if i wanted to import bookmarks from IE like it would if it had just been installed.

I looked into the Appdata folder and found my profile there but it looks like firefox isn't accessing it or something? (This is the same for all my applications. The old files are still in the appdata folder but each application has returned to default settings as opposed to how I had changed the settings)

Can anybody help me? I'm a little flustered.

I'm running Vista Business SP1 32bit

 

What exactly happened? The defrag zip file has nothing in it that would do what you are talking about. Did you get any errors? Did you monitor the two defrag processes? Did you let the command prompt window close by itself. More details are needed here.

Gary

 

Hi Gary, thanks for getting back to me quickly. After typing that I backed up my Appdata folder to prepare to reinstall everything but I did a second reboot just in case and when windows loaded everything was back to normal.

I started the defrag and left to do some other stuff and when I came back to my computer a few hours later the command prompt window had closed. So I rebooted and that's when things got problematic. It was like all my programs had been cut off from their respective Appdata folder. I tried googling to find a solution but that didn't help so I copied the files to an external drive and then I rebooted and when I got back to windows it was back to normal.

I don't know what happened but I'm glad it's back to normal. I guess someone up there was watching out for me.

 

About setting the power management to the "High Performance" profile, if I set it on "Balanced", does it mean that it will change automatically between power saving and high performance? Or does it still limit how fast the computer can use the CPU and such?

 

their is a section under advanced power settings and it shows something with the process power and management. i dont exactly know how much of a difference is but the values do change when switching between high and balanced. i kind of was wondering the same thing

 

From what I can tell, balanced reduces power to the CPU when the system is in low use, but raises it when it is in use. Open up task manager and go to your performance tab. In high performance mode, the max utilization for your cores is 100%. In balanced, it is something like 30% (when idle) but goes back to 100% anytime the cores are utilized.
In power saver, it does something similar, except max utilization doesn't return to 100%. In addition, dedicated GPUs under Vista are set to balanced mode rather than max performance.

So Shaythong, balanced kind of does that. It certainly changes between high and lower performance mode, but not quite as low as powersaver mode.

 

You can also alter these settings under Power options" change powr plan/ change advance power settings/ processor power peformance. Windows default for C+P state is usually 5% in idle state but it can be altered to require more CPU loading to kick into full throttle or lessen to advance much quicker (ie; 3%).