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Old January 19th, 2007, 01:09 PM
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IronAces IronAces is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2006
O/S: Windows 7 64-bit
Location: Liverpool
Posts: 127
Smile 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.

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 , 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!
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