Vista Supercharged ??

[Cov]

Hi volks

I have collected a list of customizations for my Windows Vista.
Since it has grown to a few pages now, I thought I could share with you.

Before you download the 78 kb PDF file, please be aware about the significance of tweaking an OS.
My guide doesn't explain much, but only points to the settings. For example of how to disable System Restore or Hibernation, ect.
If you're like me and decide to switch off the indexing service to make the HHD calm down, then every search performed would take considerably longer of course.

Also please be clear that the opinions about changing settings is very diverse among enthusiasts.
For some people the UAC is like their life support - not for me.
I'm sure some of you wouldn't approve to switch off System Restore for obvious reasons - but performance is more important than security to me.

See, it's a personal customization which is still evolving.

Windows Vista Supercharged - Collected by Cov



You will notice under step No 3, Adjust unneeded services, it only highlights the existance of services in your OS.

These can be set to:

• Automatic
• Automatic Delayed
• Manual
• Disabled

It doesn't explain what each service does. For that you have to research on your own.

Here you can download a list in PDF format (19 kb) of the services and their default settings:

The Services

The internet really is an incredibly, huge source.
When going into this subject, you need to be prepared to find contradicting information and even a lot of rubbish.
But applying common sense and digging through tons of explanations and experiences of other poeple, this way you can distinguish the rubbish from what you're looking for.
Personally I often need different sources to confirm each other before I develop confidence in it.

Having read about what every setting does, more often than not I still don't look through the way I would like to.
There's a great potential to improve transparency for us PC user !


I'd be very curious about your feedback please.

[b0redom]

Disable UAC !?

[Cov]

Disable UAC !?

I've been a computer tech for years and it really doesn't matter if you prompt people to install stuff or not because most of the time the average user does not know if they "are" or "are not" supposed to install something and they just click to install it anyways.
That is why techs find so much crap like toolbars and such installed on computers.
People think they need it or it must be ok to install because it's already prechecked in an application install program.
I use Vista and the only prompt (warning) I find handy is when something new is trying to run during startup.
That is the only time I like to be "annoyed".

I have found a fix for the adminsitrator access without turning off UAC.

Open the Run Command and type secpol.msc
This will open the Local Security Policy.
Browse through the Local Policy to the Security Policy. Click on the Security Policy folder. In the window to the right locate:
User Account Control: Behavior of the Elevation prompt for administrator's in Admin Approval Mode.
Change it to: Elevate without Prompting.
Then reboot. This has gotten rid of a lot of problems for me.

I think UAC should be off no matter what. You didnt need it in XP so why Vista. My sister tried her hardest to get used to UAC and ended up allowing a virus into her comp because she got so used to clicking allow to every little damn thing she did. If you have antivirus and antispyware then why do you need UAC. Even regular users like myself dont need it.

Why don't Macs and Linux users need UAC?
Where the hell is the "exceptions" tab like for firewall? Or perhaps "Permit Always" option on the popup.
If someone really wants to turn it off, they will use Google and find a way to do it.

Typical users should not be running all of the time in an admin account in the first place and MS should be trying much harder to get that message across rather than creating an app that nags you incessently.
Users should login in as admin to install an app, then log back into the limited account.
If they did that, the deeply annoying UAC prompts wouldnt be needed.
On the other side of things, Admins techs should be able to disable the prompts without also having to see the red x in the sys tray that indicates elevated permissions.

ect, ect ...

[Hawker1986]

I think thats a nice little set of tweaks cov, ive implemented some of the HDD ones and noticed some performance improvement, thanks very much. Some of the others I already knew about and did anyhow, but thats not unexpected.

Hawker

[moogle]

Quite nice Cov. All the tweaks I do on my Vista

[CaptainCrash]

I'm not convinced... I'm not saying that none of these tweaks will work in any circumstances, but I wonder how much of any perceived improvement is down to placebo effect rather than anything measurable: "my PC feels snappier" etc.

Vista seems to do a pretty good job of looking after itself most of the time, and I reckon by trying to second-guess what's going on you're at least as likely to make things worse rather than better. Still, no harm in experimenting I suppose, as long as you know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

[Hawker1986]

Well ive I ran HDtune and im now running about 20mb/s faster across the board, so sounds like some improvement to me :S.

Hawker

[CaptainCrash]

Well ive I ran HDtune and im now running about 20mb/s faster across the board, so sounds like some improvement to me :S.

Hawker

I know I talked about measurements, but that's not a good example - all the tweaking in the world won't increase your HDD's physical STR capability, although you may see (apparently) better HDTune figures by switching off services which might try to access the drive while the benchmark is running. It won't necessarily transfer into noticeable real-life performance boosts though, as those processes are mostly designed to run at a low priority and not get in the way of day-to-day usage.

Whatever floats your boat though - as I said, I'm not saying all the tweaks are completely worthless, I'm just not convinced they're worth bothering with for most people, most of the time.

[Cov]

Interesting article from March 8th 2009

Windows Vista 64-bit computing

By the way, have changed to NO PAGING FILE (switched virtual memory off) and according to everest, my RAM usage has since then risen from approx 25/35% to approx 65/75%.
Looks like finally my RAM has been assigned a purpose to and having switched off the indexing service, my HDD was already much calmer. But turning paging file off ... I cannot hear my hard drive working anymore cool.