Vista Basics, Tweaks and Tips
 

Here are a few basics, tweaks and tips for vista users, these come from other sources and my own experience so far with vista, feel free to add your own to the thread. :kiss:

Please remember that these may vary slightly from edition to edition, the following where done on Business edition.

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Speeding up program search

This registry tweak stops vista searching for all indexed files on your system while you search for programs in your program menu, please remember to make a backup of your registry before you take any action to alter registry keys, just incase the worst case senario happens.

1. Open Registry Editor (regedit).

2. Navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer and finally Advanced.

3. Find and right click on Start_SearchFiles and select Modify.

4. Set the Value to 0.

5. reboot your computer.

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Disable the sidebar

Although his feature is somewhat handy (which is debatable in my opinion), considering it includes realtime weather reports, up to date news from various sources and other tools such as computer monitoring, and an over sized clock. It takes up valuable memory, clutters up your desktop, considering the limited information it gives you, if you want the weather in your area, look out your nearest window :confused: , here is how to disable it:

1. Open Control Panel

2. Navigate to and open Appearance and Personalization

3. At this point open Windows Sidebar Properties, here a pop up window appears, uncheck the box which says "Start sidebar when Windows Starts"

4. If you currently have Sidebar running, right click on the Sidebar icon, situated in the taskbar and select exit

5. Reboot and you're set.

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Setting your colour theme

1. Right click anywhere on desktop

2. Select Personalize

3. Select Window colour and appearance

4. Select the colour you wish to have, and using the slider choose how transparent you want windows to be. If you do not wish your windows to be transparent, uncheck the tick box for window transparency.

5. You can also use the the colour mixer to finely choose the specific colour you would like. All done!

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I'll add more soon, it would be helpful if an admin stickied this thread so that others can easily find it, and contribute to it, thanks!

is this for the beta or gold?

This is for the final (Retail) Edition (I'm using Business Edition)

Hey ironaces -- thanks for this info.

Question: Can you specifically set a different theme? Like in windows xp, you have the windows classic theme, is that still around?

Hmm, not as yet, you can only change the things mentioned above, im sure in future there will be different themes

If you are dual booting Vista and say XP, and want XP to be the default O/S (Since xp is installed first then VISTA, VISTA makes itself the default system) and you will end up with (in my case)

Older Operating System
Windows Vista

You can change this, I changed mine to Windows XP Professional SP2 by doing the following

XP used the boot.ini file to manage booting, VISTA does not it uses a Boot Manager.

START | ALL PROGRAMS | ACCESSORIES | Command Prompt (supposedly the only way to get there), although I just put command prompt on the start menu. Also Start| Run does not get it.

At the command prompt, in my case was d:\user\murf

I type the following:

bcdedit (<enter>)

Looked at where my XP pro was as it said "Older Operating Systems". it was under {ntdlr} so I typed the following:

bcdedit /set {ntdlr} description "Windows XP Professional SP2"

That was it.

You can also change the time it displays and which one displays first.


bcdedit has taken the place of boot.ini in XP.

if you type bcdedit /? you get the help menu showing what cammands can be used, brought me back to the old DOS days.

Great information Murf!

I was bugged out when I went for the dual boot and saw boot.ini mysteriously vanished!

Now, all I need to do is to find a way to remove IE7/WMP11/windows firewall/windows blocker/windows whatever-else-there-is.

0.o

I use Norton Corporate edition Anti-Virus. It is not compatible with VISTA so I installed AVG for VISTA.

Update from AVG site:

GRISOFT is announcing a new version of the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. This new 7.5 version with improved performance and full compatibility with the latest Windows Vista version is available. Users that are using AVG Free 7.1 will be provided with a specific dialog, within the next few weeks, with the opportunity to choose the right option fulfilling their needs. AVG Free 7.1 version will be discontinued on 18th of Feb 2007.

Works great.

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Also I use Adobe acrobat professional 6.0, which was not compatible with VISTA. I installed it anyways and it works.

I found that my cmedia XP driver (CMI8738) works with VISTA.

Had to install the latest ATI Catalyst (version 1.2.2314.20337)for my graphics and dual monitor's. Requires NetFrameworks 1.1.4322.2232. Had problems with dual monitor support untill I installed this version.

I am running VISTA Business Edition (final release).

Went ahead and made this thread a "STICKY"

Thanks for the tips guys!

I'm installing Vista Business (MSDN) just now on my laptop to sit alongside XP Home and will use your boot order tips to set XP as the default

I'm getting "Access is denied"

My account is the administrator type

Did you activate? Access denied when you try to type? Or access denied trying to open bcdedit?

eh haven't activated (yet) - I want to see if its going to run well enough on my laptop before I commit to using my license on my laptop

it spits out that message after I hit enter

You will need to configure your user account. Initial install, even the administrator has limited authority until it is envoked.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window....mspx?mfr=true

About 1/2 way down the page, shows you how to open secpol.msc , to make the changes.

"The boot configuration data store could not be opened
"Access is denied."

Still happening :(


Fixed!

Right click the command prompt and selected Run As Administrator ;)


also find a GUI way to change the boot order (similar in XP) - right click my computer > properties
then "Advanced System Settings" under Tasks
Then Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery then simply select from the drop down list :)

"also find a GUI way to change the boot order (similar in XP) - right click my computer > properties then "Advanced System Settings" under Tasks
Then Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery then simply select from the drop down list "

Good tip but you can't change the wording that shows on the screen and I am picky picky.....so bcdedit does that.