Official Windows Vista MEGATHREAD

[Kodilynn]

Windows Vista Megathread

Gonna keep this stickied for only a little bit (either time frame or until interest dies out).

*Clears Throat*

Only post construvtive criticism and information. All other off-topic posts will be removed.

Welcome to the Vista thread! We have had tons of people ask questions and give feedback over several different threads, so I figured I would make a place for feedback.

What I don't want to see are posts like "It sucks!" "It's teh gay!" "Kodi's a homo!" or "XP4LF" type shit. It will be removed as soon as a mod/admin sees it.

Post your well thought out opinion (if you have one), recommendations, and tweaks to enhance performance of the OS.

This thread will be heavily moderated. Keep it on track.

[Crippie]

Vista works great for me, Think the problem a lot of people are having with it is using older hardware. 1 thing for sure need a beefy PC to run it smoothly. Be sure to disable that annoying UAP, and get the ultimate edition ..the animated desktop is sweet.
Anyway on with the tweaks

Use ReadyBoost.

There’s been a lot of talk about Vista’s ability to use Flash drives to “boost” system performance. Traditionally, Windows will cache files both to system memory and to your hard drive. The cached files on your hard drive reside in the Page File, which is also known as “virtual memory.” The problem with this approach is that even the fastest hard drives are sluggish when compared to flash drives, at least when it comes to seek times, which are nearly instantaneous on solid-state memory. Readyboost tries to address this situation by allowing Vista to use the Flash drive for its Page File, rather than the slow hard drive. It’s important to note that the actual Page File is still cached on the hard drive, but is being accessed from the Flash drive - which means that you're not at risk for losing your data.

So, how do you enable it? Simply insert a “Readyboost capable” Flash drive that is 1GB or larger in capacity into one of your system’s USB ports, and when the pop-up box appears asking what you want to do, scroll down to find the option, “Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost.” You can then specify how much space to make available on the device.

This is a hotly-contested feature in Vista as some users claim a decent performance gain (mostly people with less than 1GB of RAM), but others say the benefit is negligible. If you’ve got a spare USB drive laying around, why not give it a shot? We didn't notice a profound difference in performance, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't.

Turn off unneeded Windows features.

Click Start, Control Panel, then under Programs at the bottom click “Uninstall a Program.” In the left-hand pane you’ll see “Turn Windows Features on or off.” Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. Uncheck whatever you don’t need.

Customize the size of desktop and file icons.

For some time, it has been possible to adjust font size in office documents and Web browsers simply by holding down the CTRL key while rolling your mouse wheel up and down. In Vista, the same action lets you tweak the size of your desktop icons. Just click on an empty area of the desktop, hold down CTRL, and spin your mouse wheel until the icons are the size you want. You can also adjust the size of your file or folder icons in Windows Explorer by doing the same thing. This is extremely handy for viewing thumbnails of images.

Increase SATA drive performance.

This tip “enhances” drive performance by allowing the drive in question to perform more write caching to system memory. The danger is if your system loses power and you do not have a backup power source (UPS), whatever data is cached to system memory will be lost. If you’re the adventurous type and want a bit more responsiveness out of your system, click Start, type Device Manager in the Search box, click the Device Manager, open up the Disk drives tree, right-click a drive, and select Properties. Go to the Policies tab and check “Enable Advanced Performance.” Click OK.

also visit -http://www.tweakvista.com/

-http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1065219

[kryologik]

In device manager, go to your hdd and click properties. In the "Policies" tab, click [Enabled advanced performance].

Also, remove the slideshow gadget that Vista loads by default -- it seems like it makes your HD chug like crazy when it's on..

[Terin01]

I love vista as an os, my only problem with it is.. i run a 2.66ghz 2gig 160HD 256video card. I play everquest in windowed mode. One on this i cant figure out how to get rid of the tool bar unless I auto hide the tool bar. Also when zoning on vista its duel core processor i have already installed the amd processor thing to make it run off of single instead of both, and it will still give me everquest is not responding black screen. If i click on that it goes white and eventually finishes the zone. But this causes increased zone times. Anyone know how to correct this or if it is at all possible to fix?

[DoiNkk]

Some issues I ran into, and resolved, with a family member's vista machine because these things were driving me fucking nuts-

Delete Confirmation box
When ever you delete a file in windows vista you will get a dialog box it is better as it offers a safety issue when you may accidentally delete the file.But sometimes in cases this “delete confirmation box” becomes so irritating.
So i order to avoid any confirmations when ever you delete a fle in windows vista you need to follow the steps listed below…
1. Right Click on the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop go to properties.
2. Uncheck the check box “Display delete comfiration dialog”.
3. Click ok.

Turning off UAC
This is the best link I have found for turning off the UAC Disable User Account Control in Windows Vista
Below is the most common way of turning off the UAC.

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Under User Account and Family settings click on the "Add or remove user account".
3.Click on one of the user accounts, for example you can use the Guest account.
4.Under the user account click on the "Go to the main User Account page" link.
5.Under "Make changes to your user account" click on the "Change security settings" link.
6.In the "Turn on User Account Control (UAC) to make your computer more secure" click to unselect the "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer". Click on the Ok button.
7.You will be prompted to reboot your computer. Do so when ready.

*In order to re-enable UAC just select the above checkbox and reboot.

[sparky13]

Originally Posted by kryologik

In device manager, go to your hdd and click properties. In the "Policies" tab, click [Enabled advanced performance].

You have to first "Enable Write Caching" on the disk, then you can set the Enable Advanced Performance. However, my laptop says "This device does not allow it's write cache setting to be modified".

Was reading the notes on this and it mentions possibility of data loss/corruption with power loss.

On a laptop with a power supply that's battery protected, I'm guessing this isn't such an issue, is it?

Also, what kind of performance boost can you expect on this?

[sparky13]

One note for running EQ on Vista (at least so far on 64-bit Ultimate version) was that I had to reinstal the April 2006 full dist copy of DX9c in order for EQ to run.

Take note, it fixed my problem immediately.

However, even when I do a dxdiag, it still shows DX 10 for some reason LOL.

[Frequency]

Originally Posted by sparky13

One note for running EQ on Vista (at least so far on 64-bit Ultimate version) was that I had to reinstal the April 2006 full dist copy of DX9c in order for EQ to run.

Take note, it fixed my problem immediately.

However, even when I do a dxdiag, it still shows DX 10 for some reason LOL.

more than likely dx9 just installed a few files eq relies on, DX can not be overwritten or even uninstalled so that is why you still have dx10

[Buddha]

So, I overall love windows vista, but I seem to be having an issue on my laptop with it. There are several keys on my keyboard that just don't work while playing eq. I thought it was just eq but im having the same problem with two worlds now. The ^ button and the ~ don't work, i can type just the number but the shift commands for those button just don't work. Don't know if anyone else has/had this problem or knows A solution, its not a huge problem but its kind of annoying...

[Pepper]

This might not have a thing to do with vista but I got to ask and see if anyone knows.

I just got a new vista OS computer and is running fine (Except the Nvida card issue with Alero but thats known), the problem is with the internet not updating cookies/pages correctly.

For instance: I come to MMOBugs website. The website will show my last activity from a day before still and showing I have like 80 unread posts yet I just read them all. The only way for me to update this is litterally click refresh the browser.

Is this something set like this on purpose with Vista for security or am I just being dumb atm?