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    NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Les, Sep 7, 2007.

  1. odin243

    odin243 Notebook Prophet

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    The difference is that many Windows users frequently use safe and well-known programs that require root priveleges. UAC will only be useful when the majority of programs that people use are made to be compliant with this new (for Windows at least) type of security feature.
     
  2. Jayayess1190

    Jayayess1190 Waiting on Intel Cannonlake

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    Thanks for the link to This website, it is very helpful. :)
     
  3. noxxle99

    noxxle99 Notebook Deity

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    I cannot turn indexing off by unchecking the INDEX box when I right click on C:

    I get an access denied message for files such as 'c:/boot/something'. I can click 'ignore' but I keep getting messages for more files.
     
  4. Tex1ntux

    Tex1ntux Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the tips, got my boot time down to ~30 seconds.
     
  5. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Noxxle99...

    I am not aware of why this would occur unless, UAC is preventing it if its on. Anyone???
     
  6. sleey0

    sleey0 R.I.P. AW Side Topics

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    Yeah, I get the same problem as noxxle. Will post back if I can fix it...
     
  7. ERL

    ERL Notebook Guru

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    I had it too, Noxxle99 and sleey0.....I think mine was on page 26 or so. :)
     
  8. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Has anyone solved it yet? the only thing i can figure is because UAC was on or you turned it off and then turned indexing off before your reboot to clear UAC.
     
  9. Synthesia

    Synthesia Notebook Evangelist

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    What do you mean clear UAC? When you turn it off you don't delete the settings that programs have created upon install (or save game, etc.) no?

    ...I'm thinking of reinstalling Vista later and immediately turning UAC off and then starting from there...
     
  10. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Thats the best option. From what Ive learned from my two experts here, if you have been gaming and turn UAC off, the game files saved remain ijn the virtual folder which is now not visible to Vista and, therefore, inaccessible.

    If you turn it on, its possible access is there but also possible that the file has been fragmented and is unusable.
     
  11. brucele

    brucele Notebook Enthusiast

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    from cold boot ~30 secs to desktop screen. ~55 secs to load up IE and start browsing. This is on a laptop.

    thanks for the tips!
     
  12. Darigaaz

    Darigaaz Notebook Enthusiast

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    I followed all your steps for the Defraging and I cannot see the Defrag files in Processes, even when clicking "Show processes from all users". It says tunexp.exe is running..what am I doing wrong?
     
  13. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    If you follow the tweak exactly and pull up task manager, go to processes/click on Image name to make them alhabetical...defrag.exe and ntfsdfrg.exe will be there. You only shut the computer down when they are done.

    I dont know what to say except this is what happens for all.
     
  14. Darigaaz

    Darigaaz Notebook Enthusiast

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    I reinstalled it and it is working now...thanks :)
     
  15. Raven322

    Raven322 Notebook Evangelist

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    with ready boost usb, if i use a 2GB flashdrive, will i gain basically
     
  16. Thomas

    Thomas McLovin

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    2GB of RAM yes.
    Hey , why not put a ''frequently asked questions section?''
    REP to you raven you gave me the idea because alot of people dont know exactly what ready boost gives you in RAM the added size of the USB drive or partialy.
     
  17. odin243

    odin243 Notebook Prophet

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    Nope, it is not anything like adding 2GB of RAM, sorry. It's like adding a 2GB flash cache to your HDD.
     
  18. Darigaaz

    Darigaaz Notebook Enthusiast

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    For the defrag tweak, mine has been going on for over 2 hours now I think..

    Defrag.exe and DfrgNtfs.exe are still running by the looks of it..clearly this has gone on much longer than it is suppose to..anyone have any suggestions?
     
  19. Thomas

    Thomas McLovin

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    hypothetically it is but your right its like turbo memory basically but we use the term ''RAM'' so we dont have to type this out.
    J/K
     
  20. odin243

    odin243 Notebook Prophet

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    No, it's not even hypothetically like adding 2GB of RAM. The ready boost memory (whether turbo memory or flash memory) does not act as system memory.
     
  21. Thomas

    Thomas McLovin

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    but the system can store data from programs on it....like RAM
    thats agreed right
     
  22. Raven322

    Raven322 Notebook Evangelist

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    would doing this benefit game playing
     
  23. Thomas

    Thomas McLovin

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    No i doubt it Raven
     
  24. odin243

    odin243 Notebook Prophet

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    Nope, ready boost (like hard drive speed) will only affect load times, not the actual 3d performance of the game.
     
  25. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    We better check into this then.. My reading has shown that the ReadyBoost will take excess files that would have been used in pagefile.sys. So lets say you have 2Gb of ram and, for some reason the system requires 1Gb of pagefile. With ReadyBoost, that pagefile is lessened and the ram taken from the flash drive which of course has a much faster access speed.
    I dont believe it will give you a gain in gaming applications however.

    As much as Im not a Wikipedia lover, a supporting article is best explained here...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost
     
  26. odin243

    odin243 Notebook Prophet

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    The kind of data stored on it is the data usually stored in a page file, which 99.9% of the time resides on your hard drive, so no, not like RAM. If you got an additional 2GB of RAM, you could use it to store your page file, but if you got 2GB of readyboost you couldn't use it for data like you could with the RAM.

    ReadyBoost essentially acts like a secondary hard drive cache. And don't believe everything on that wiki article, as it has some definite inaccuracies.
     
  27. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    My reading is not just Wiki though. Until you, I had never heard anyone state that Readyboost would only affect start times and not the system during operation. In fact, I had never heard that before and wonder about it because, essentially when you shut your system down, the flash ReadyBoost cache is cleared which wouldnt provide for speeding up start time at all.

    And I have read many of your posts and enjoyed them, thus I respect your view; just hoping to clarify is all.

    This is probably the best explanation and I think I will throw this on the first page:

    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx
     
  28. odin243

    odin243 Notebook Prophet

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    Sorry, if I implied that it would only affect start times, that's not what I meant (as it's not true). I meant it would only really affect load times, when you're reading something off the hard drive, not system startup times.
     
  29. lkingsvs

    lkingsvs Notebook Guru

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    edited 09-15-07
     
  30. davron

    davron Notebook Evangelist

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    One thing I found very helpful: the snipping tool :D

    thanks
     
  31. trebuin

    trebuin Notebook Evangelist

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    Readyboost is a spinup delay reducer for the hard drive. This means you're trying to gain the performance of a .8ms delay (about) from a disk that has a 5ms delay. I see an improvement on loading of files, but that is about all that it will do. Flamenko will see no improvement due to the fact that his steady state drive does not have a 5ms delay, unlike spinning disks.
     
  32. Raven322

    Raven322 Notebook Evangelist

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    so load times could improve, thank you!
     
  33. trebuin

    trebuin Notebook Evangelist

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    No Prob. Readyboost is supposed to help boot time as well, but I have never seen this improvement...probably because the drivers don't load soon enough and the drive doesn't recognize soon enough to help.
     
  34. LIVEFRMNYC

    LIVEFRMNYC Blah Blah Blah!!!

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    Why can they just invent External RAM?
     
  35. Valkyrie

    Valkyrie Notebook Consultant

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    There's a function within Readyboost, called Readyboot. It's the one that will improve the boot time.
    I used to disable readyboost as I'm not using any external flash drive, and my boot time was 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Once I enabled readyboost back, my boot time is 2 minutes. I could not remember if the improvement occured instantly, but there's an article that mentions Readyboot would trace and optimize the boot process using several traces (so based on several boots) every few days.
    I also left the computer idle for several nights as the optimizisation is an idle process, and occurs every few days.
    I no longer leave my laptop idle though as I already got 2 minutes boot time.
     
  36. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Thanks Valkyrie for the input. I am going to do a bit of background on this. Repped ya buddy!!
     
  37. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    Two slight corrections:
    1. "game files saved remain ijn the virtual folder which is now not visible to Vista". They are not visible to the GAME. Vista can still find them.

    2. The second sentence is wrong. Once you turn UAC back on the files will be usable. They will be no less and no more fragmented than when they were initially created.

    Gary
     
  38. niGht kiD

    niGht kiD .. beach boy ♫

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    U're welcomed flamenko, this is a great post ^^
     
  39. baia

    baia Notebook Consultant

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    Nice thread. Disabeling services really helps speeding up your computer.
    I'm not sure about boot times though. I had boot times of around 40 seconds and they didn't really change after the tweaks. RAM usage lowered of course.
     
  40. TheInfoaddict

    TheInfoaddict Newbie

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    This is a very long nice thread ... (newbie post warning) ... lots of information.

    I was looking at removing the Internet Print Client as something else to uninstall. Thoughts? I print via the LAN but use TCP/IP Network. I suppose I could experiment (the whole week ...

    TIA for your thoughts.
     
  41. Samuel613

    Samuel613 Notebook Evangelist

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    Flamenko, "OEM04Mon.exe" is part of the Creative webcam utility (the webcam built-in to your LED monitor).
     
  42. Samuel613

    Samuel613 Notebook Evangelist

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    "If you are comfortable with computers...turn UAC off as it is probably the worst thing in Vista. Press Start, click on your picture...turn UAC off and restart."

    I strongly disagree. I am quite comfortable with computers, but it's nice to know that no drive-by can infect my system. It is certainly not "the worst thing in Vista", IMHO, and if you generally run your office apps all day, you will likely not be bothered by UAC prompts; only when you tinker or install/uninstall apps do you come across them. Honestly, if it irks you so much, turn it off when you do your initial install, then, once you're up and running, turn it back on to stay safe. That's my 2 cents.
     
  43. Samuel613

    Samuel613 Notebook Evangelist

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    Are you sure that it it's a 20 second delay? My shutdown time prior to this tweak, is probably right in that ballpark, and that's without any add-on hardware.

    I though that IF there was a stuck process, this time limit is the max amount to allow itself before forcibly terminating the processes and shut the computer. If all of your processes unload in good time (under 1 second), then there would be no need for this tweak.


    Also, Readyboost does not allow you to "literally add RAM" as you claim. Just because it may use the fast cache RAM instead of the slower HDD-bsaed pagefile, does not mean that it is equivalent to adding RAM into the system. For one simple reason, as an example, to use Readyboost, Windows still must manage the overhead of "What do I clear out into from M swap/RB" and what do I leave in RAM. Whereas if you had actual RAM, Windows would just use it, no swapping necessary.


    Thanks for the tips.
     
  44. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Regarding OEM04Mon.exe, thank you.

    Regarding UAC, it is the most annoying feature that Vista has implemented and the view has been supported by several sources since the release of Vista. It is also a substantial performance decrease for the average user that does more than just turn a program on or off... To think, you need to give yourself permission to access a feature in your own Vista...lol

    And regarding the adding of RAM in ReadyBoost, we all know its not RAM or everyone would just go and grab 4Gb for that extra boost. The term is used as the easiest description for the laymen as, in essence, it is correct in theory of what it does.

    Thanks anyway...any tweaks you would like to contribute that would assist the forum?
     
  45. D.S.

    D.S. Notebook Geek

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    Excellent work Flamenko. The first one is just one of those perfect tweaks : it makes a great difference with simply no loss (for those who don't have or manually start an external monitor). Thanks!
     
  46. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Thank you...

    I use a 22" Dell widescreen and, as long as I shut my system down while using it, it reboots exactly the same.

    If I come back and reattach it after being down stairs, I just hit Fn-F8 once and Im back to my 22" with an extended screen.

    For the most part, TMM is for an automatic identification of the screen on plug in. For some reason, I could never get that working properly in any case with NVidia.

    Tx Again!!
     
  47. ScuderiaConchiglia

    ScuderiaConchiglia NBR Vaio Team Curmudgeon

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    Actually even with RAM, Windows still has to manage the overhead. It has to decide what can be paged out to the pagefile. But you are absolutely correct in pointing out that folks need to understand that Readyboost is not the same thing as adding RAM. Readyboost does not directly interact with the pagefile system either. It is used as a disk cache. I am not certain if the pagefile I/O will go through that disk cache or not. I have yet to see any definitive info on that.

    It might be the easiest description, but it is wrong. It is most assuredly NOT correct in theory because ReadyBoost has nothing to do with RAM at all. This does a disservice to users by further confusing the issue. To really help "the laymen" you should give them an accurate description otherwise they get the wrong impression of what Readyboost REALLY is. Readyboost is a disk cache. It improves the APPARENT performance of the disk drive. From wikipedia:

    Gary
     
  48. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Fixed....changed RAM to memory and pretty much mimicked the MS explanation.

    I guess I can see the point on how it may be misconstrued, to an extent.

    And Thanks!!
     
  49. System64

    System64 Windows 7 x64

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    Is turning off unneccessary services mentioned?

    services.msc, disable offline files and stuffs etc.
     
  50. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Tweak 6 and or 8, depending on which you mean exactly.
     
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