vista tweaks

[Baz]

does any one have any useful tweaks for this. any thing they've come across which is good.

I ask because my wife is starting to ask about how to do this and that on vista and I dont know myself yet, one of the main ones is that UAC pop up. can you turn it off. is it advisable to turn it off.

[Rik]

The best tweak for Vista is to upgrade to XP, Baz.

You can turn UAC off, there is some risk in doing so, but it's no worse than running XP and earlier OS (or Windows 7). Provided you are careful about AV and malware software, and don't do anything silly, it shouldn't be an issue.

[Noreen]

Try here, may not be right up-to-date though. http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-vista/
also here http://www.vistax64.com/tags.php?tag=performance+%26+maintenance

Ignore Rik, Baz, he hasn't got Vista.

[Ray]

The best tweak for Vista is to upgrade to XP, Baz.

 

[Glenn]

http://www.tweakguides.com/VA_1.html

[Baz]

The best tweak for Vista is to upgrade to XP, Baz.

 yes I forgot about that one


Noreen, Thanks will take a look. If only we could ignore Rik  . one day he'll crack and get Vista.

[Rik]

I've got it, MS sent me a copy. It's still gathering dust.

[Baz]

I've got it, MS sent me a copy. It's still gathering dust.

sounds similar to my Norton discs........except that its now a coaster

[Rik]

This one's in such a pretty box.

[Baz]

This one's in such a pretty box.

  didnt get a box with mine

[David]

Ignore Rik, Baz, he hasn't got Vista

Noreen.


Of course your right 








Edit: Smiley markup sorted

[Noreen]

  didnt get a box with mine

I haven't even got a "proper" Vista disk but only the reinstall thing supplied by the computer manufacturer.

[Baz]

I haven't even got a "proper" Vista disk but only the reinstall thing supplied by the computer manufacturer.

see Rik Noreen 

[Rik]

Is that like 'See Naples and die'?

[David]

I would rather see Belfast and live 

[Rik]

I went there once, in the middle of the troubles. Quite an uncomfortable experience.

[Sebby]

The best tweaks for Vista, in my experience, are to disable some of the scheduled tasks, such as the constant System Restore, defrag, and Windows Defender scans. Indexing is another one - you don't need to necessary disable it, but just customise it so that it only indexes what you consider necessary.

[David]

I have never been to be honest,from what I see on the TV its changed and a really nice place to be   I have never had the urge to see Ireland like many I know have  

[Rik]

It was strange when I went, David. Bricked up windows and people sitting out in the street to get the sun. I wouldn't want to have wandered about on my own.

[David]

I only saw it on TV and it was never balanced but what I did see,barbed wire and whole area sealed off at ends of streets etc seemed very strange what it was like living there must have been very frightening and odd no normality and think if you were a child and this was the only thing you would have known,once it was over it must have been odd if not an uncomfortable experience

[Glenn]

A large car bomb was found in County Down yesterday http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7862438.stm

[Rik]

I only saw it on TV and it was never balanced but what I did see,barbed wire and whole area sealed off at ends of streets etc seemed very strange what it was like living there must have been very frightening and odd no normality and think if you were a child and this was the only thing you would have known,once it was over it must have been odd if not an uncomfortable experience

It really was a war zone, David. Quite scary as a visitor.

[Rik]

A large car bomb was found in County Down yesterday http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7862438.stm

Nice to know that we are at peace, isn't it. 

[David]

It really was a war zone, David. Quite scary as a visitor.

I cannot imagine what it is like to either live in these conditions or as in your case visit,you would I imagine have to be on your guard all the time,car bombs and snipers......I think one would have to actually have to experience such an existence to fully understand what it was like and by the looks of it still is in some place 

[Noreen]

It was strange when I went, David. Bricked up windows and people sitting out in the street to get the sun. I wouldn't want to have wandered about on my own.

The Belfast branch of the firm that I worked for (prior to retiring) ended up as a heap of bricks.

[Rik]

I was working next to the Old Bailey when the bomb went off there - it was quite salutary.

[Noreen]

I remember that, Rik. I was working in an office near St. Paul's. It really shook us up, luckily the windows were all taped or I think that they would have blown in. There was a huge column of of dust or smoke at the Old Bailey.

[Rik]

It was truly terrible, Noreen. The building I was in shook. I had to phone Sue as fast as I could to tell her I was OK. I lost track of the number of times we were delayed getting home by hoax calls...

[David]

I live very close to Canary Wharf and when that went up I can remember I was talking to my mother on the telephone and ended up on the floor.I have never heard or felt anything so powerful.I recall checking to see if I was OK and then running to the front door and there was a seemingly never ending procession of emergency services FirePolice Ambulances the noise and the blind panic was an eye opener.....too close for comfort

[Noreen]

During my working life in the City I heard 13 IRA bombs explode.

[Noreen]

deleted

[David]

Rather you than me Noreen I learned that what you see on the TV was nothing to actually being there on these horrible occasions   

[Rik]

It wasn't a comfortable time to be there, was it. Mind you, compared to Beirut, Belfast or Gaza, it was nothing.

[Noreen]

I lived through WWII, David, the IRA didn't compare.

[David]

If I may ask,are you talking the Blitz and London Noreen ?

[Noreen]

Not quite, David. I was evacuated to the "safety" of Surrey (where we watched the dogfights overhead  ) for the first part of the War but came back to live with my grandparents in the Medway Towns (major port and ship-building) for the second half. Still had air-raids and then V1 and V2 rockets. We got chased by machine gun fire on our way to our air raid shelter once, we spent most nights there. My grandparents' house had already been badly damaged by a land-mine dropping next door.

My home where my parents still lived nearer London had also been fire-bombed, in fact the whole street had.  

[David]

Its interesting the accounts I have heard over the years some are lets call them rather romantic in that they tell of watching the dogfights and air raids and going to dance halls and yet enjoying them all.they make it sound more like a film than the war.

Others who fire watched at the docks in the east End never spoke about it let alone put any spin on it.then there are almost no stories from my grand father who fought in both wars and had shrapnel in his body to the day he passed away.

I have many books on this subject and they do confirm all these stories and I often thank whatever i did not go through all of this but it highlights personal perceptions of the whole thing.

It interesting.I think I would have been scared out of my skin,but then again I'm taking this view as I have no experience of this horror and thankfully lived in a different era .

Like you then you compared it with ww2 and some how there is a cushion there as though almost shrugs the matter off,where as I thought the world was going to end and expected the roof of my house to fall in..........I think you are better equipped metally to deal with this sort of thing.

I am probably making no sense......it not an easy point to make

[Baz]

The best tweaks for Vista, in my experience, are to disable some of the scheduled tasks, such as the constant System Restore, defrag, and Windows Defender scans. Indexing is another one - you don't need to necessary disable it, but just customise it so that it only indexes what you consider necessary.

How do you do these Sebby. Constant sys restore,how constant is that? I have noticed every so often a bit of HD activity on the wifes laptop when its seemingly doing nothing. defrag .....is that an ongoing task too

[cavillas]

I have no problem with UAC it is not  intrusive in normal everyday use only when installing applications and such like.  I have not disabled anything with Vista and it works very efficiently and quickly.  I have noticed no difference to my tweaked and adjusted XP pro, even then using 2Gb.  The more Vista is used the more it adjusts itself to your useage.  Windows 7 will be a step backwards.

[Rik]

Others who fire watched at the docks in the east End never spoke about it let alone put any spin on it.

This might interest you, David.

[David]

 

[sebt]

The best tweak for Vista is to upgrade to XP, Baz.

Or Linux. Virus and malware headaches gone, along with all the other Microsoft BS. Endless tweakability to run fast on almost any hardware spec. Rediscover the fun of computing. And put some ££ back in your pocket.

Seb

[Sebby]

How do you do these Sebby. Constant sys restore,how constant is that? I have noticed every so often a bit of HD activity on the wifes laptop when its seemingly doing nothing. defrag .....is that an ongoing task too

I couldn't tell you how regular they are, but it's daily. If you go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Task Scheduler (I think, as it's from memory!) you'll be able to disable some of the tasks. I only found out that it was System Restore causing the constant HD acitivity by using the Reliability and Performance Monitor. I really don't think it's necessary for it to create restore points constantly when Windows will still create a point before installing software or drivers anyway.

[Noreen]

Its interesting the accounts I have heard over the years some are lets call them rather romantic in that they tell of watching the dogfights and air raids and going to dance halls and yet enjoying them all.they make it sound more like a film than the war.

Others who fire watched at the docks in the east End never spoke about it let alone put any spin on it.then there are almost no stories from my grand father who fought in both wars and had shrapnel in his body to the day he passed away.

I have many books on this subject and they do confirm all these stories and I often thank whatever i did not go through all of this but it highlights personal perceptions of the whole thing.

It interesting.I think I would have been scared out of my skin,but then again I'm taking this view as I have no experience of this horror and thankfully lived in a different era .

Like you then you compared it with ww2 and some how there is a cushion there as though almost shrugs the matter off,where as I thought the world was going to end and expected the roof of my house to fall in..........I think you are better equipped metally to deal with this sort of thing.

I am probably making no sense......it not an easy point to make

I was very frightened a lot of the time however for many adults it was the most exciting thing that had ever and would ever happen to them.

[David]

Should start a thread Noreen I bet there are some stories here

[Rik]

I was very frightened a lot of the time however for many adults it was the most exciting thing that had ever and would ever happen to them.

It was also a significant social leveller from what I've read, and introduced people to a range of experiences (other than bombs) which they wouldn't otherwise have had.

[David]

Thank you Rik.......thats what I was getting to 

[Noreen]

It was also a significant social leveller from what I've read, and introduced people to a range of experiences (other than bombs) which they wouldn't otherwise have had.

The Polish soldiers camped near my parents' home were VERY popular with the ladies.  

[Rik]

Same happened with the Yanks and the Italian POWs, from what I've read.

[Noreen]

The Italian PoWs used to walk quite freely around our town, they had no intention of trying to escape.

[David]

Who could blame them........hope nothing untoward went on 

[Rik]

They knew when they were well off.

[David]

http://www.smokie.co.uk/

I do not beleeeeve it 

[Baz]

I couldn't tell you how regular they are, but it's daily. If you go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Task Scheduler (I think, as it's from memory!) you'll be able to disable some of the tasks. I only found out that it was System Restore causing the constant HD acitivity by using the Reliability and Performance Monitor. I really don't think it's necessary for it to create restore points constantly when Windows will still create a point before installing software or drivers anyway.

havent had a look at this yet but can you disable the Sys restore point task. Does that mean it will not make any and you need to do manual ones.

[Steve]

havent had a look at this yet but can you disable the Sys restore point task. Does that mean it will not make any and you need to do manual ones.

Correct on all points. To be honest as a Vista users apart from when it does a manual restore point prior to a software change I wouldn't know it was there.

[Sebby]

I don't believe that is correct. Vista will still create a restore point when it installs a driver or software; it just won't do it every single minute of the day like it tends to by default, which is unnecessary, imho.

[Noreen]

I may be wrong about this now but I believe that Windows Defender used to make a restore point whenever it installed new definitions which could be daily. That was the reason that I stopped using it. I mostly only have manual and program installation restore points now.

[Baz]

just had a look at this and Sys restore was set to Daily at 00.00 every day and At Startup. Now Ive disabled these so will any points still be made or do I need to make a new task.

defrag was set to every wed at 01.00 

[Lance]

You'll still get the restore points made when you install some software, Baz. It just won't be doing them when there is no real need for it to be doing so.

[Baz]

thanks Lance so its ok to leave those tasks disabled

[Lance]

Yep. They are both disabled on mine but I still get system restore points automatically when I install windows updates (including defender).

[Sebby]

This is why I can't understand Microsoft's reasoning for setting Vista to make continuous restore points by default. It just slows things down terribly. Turning that off, as well as tweaking indexing, actually makes it quite a usable OS. Now there's something I never thought I'd say...

[greenfedora]

I turned UAC off. I soon got fed up with confirming everything about 3 times. I've no idea why it would do that in the first place when I had administrator rights. I figured that would be equivalent to root on a Linux system. Alas no.

I hate Vista with a passion. I had a really stable XP set up on my machines and I've had nothing but problems since going to Vista.

I would love to go Linux. Something like Ubuntu. But it's still not there for the desktop as far as I'm concerned, particularly on laptops (I do keep trying the various Linux desktop distros from time to time).

My next computers will be Apple Mac's. I'm done with Microsoft since Vista (although that's not entirely true - I'll have to run parallels or somesuch and have some sort of Windows partition for the apps I need that won't run in native Mac).

[Baz]

This is why I can't understand Microsoft's reasoning for setting Vista to make continuous restore points by default. It just slows things down terribly. Turning that off, as well as tweaking indexing, actually makes it quite a usable OS. Now there's something I never thought I'd say...

tweaking indexing eh?, tell me more. whats all that about.

[Sebby]

Well, I noticed that Vista is set by default to index a whole load of places on your computer. Thinking about it, I only want it to index my mail and documents. Have a look at the Indexing options in Control Panel and you'll see what I mean.

[Lance]

I agree Sebby. I found it was indexing all my music and pictures as well which, at over 10,000 files, was slowing the indexing down a bit.

[Baz]

what exactly is indexing supposed to do.

[Rik]

Speed up finding things on the HD, Baz.

[Baz]

right, so does it speed it up or slow it down 

good old windoze. is it just a vista thing

[Rik]

In XP, I found it made no difference, Baz, but then I guess it depends on how you use the system.

[Sebby]

right, so does it speed it up or slow it down 

good old windoze. is it just a vista thing

It makes searches quicker, but the indexing process slows down the general performance!

[Rik]

So, if you rarely search...

[Baz]

wheres the option in XP

[Sebby]

Windows XP doesn't have an indexing feature, afaik. You have to install Windows Search to add it.

[Rik]

Right-click a drive in Explorer, Properties, there's a checkbox at the bottom, Baz.

[Baz]

Right-click a drive in Explorer, Properties, there's a checkbox at the bottom, Baz.

  so it is. how quickly I forget these things. I dont have the option ticked, must have seen the tip elsewhere and unticked it

[Lance]

I think the indexing helps when you are searching from the start menu in Vista but I do as Sebby recommends and only let it index the areas in which I think I would want to search from that menu!

[Sebby]

It does indeed, Lance. It just depends what you want access to quickly.