NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

[FLHX07]

crash,
I have all those updates and am wondering if I need to remove/uninstall all the earlier updates.
As you can see there are quite a few.
Do I keep or remove the earlier ones?

[FLHX07]

does anyone else have these large number of updates and just leave them alone or remove them?
By remove I'm asking removing the earliest dated updates of each.

[Les]

If you just starting...there are several updates on a fresh system, especially if you didn't install all the updates hardware drivers...just let it go.

[Amol]

I don't think there's a need for you to disable Windows Update - even though they add "bloat" to your system, there's a reason why MS deems them necessary. Ignore the "optional" and "extra" ones. And install programs that you are only going to use. I maintain a list of must-have progs in my head, and there's never a need to go beyond them. Registry clutter is partly due to uninstalls and the program information not being completely taken away from the reg (I think Installshield and Windows Installer are the ones to blame for that - someone correct me if I'm wrong).

[crash]

Hey flamenko,

I just realized that by default, Vista is scheduled to defrag my HDD once a week. I hadn't set this schedule up, so it must occur by default (not necessarily a bad thing). Anyways, those wanting the most performance possible would want to turn it off and run it manually (I would assume), so maybe you could include to turn off the scheduled defrag as a tweak under "Speed and Performance"?

Obviously defragging helps, but I do it regularly with Auslogics, and don't need Windows defrag running once a week while I'm in the middle of something.

To turn the scheduled defrag off...
Start>type "Disk Defragmenter"
Uncheck "Run on Schedule"
Click Ok

If you choose to include this, a note at the end along the lines of "If you disable this, make sure you're manually defragging your HDD every once in a while" would be good.

[Calvin]

UPDATED WITH AN ENTIRE NEW SECTION!!!!

I have created a new section entitled 'Regaining Valuable Disk Space at the bottom of the article. Feel free to check it out!

Awesome news flamenko!

[Ladon]

Hi there flamenko,
I've just been directed to this thread, and I'm not sure I want to trawl my way through 102 pages of replys.
Is the 1st post all I need, or are there other bits and pieces I need in the middle of all of this.
Cheers
Andrew

[Les]

First post is all you need. Alot of what is in the middle is our negotiating to make sure the wording is just right on many.

[Leon]

Hey Flamenko,

So, I have 2 GB's of RAM (rest of specs in signature) and I was wondering how much I should put for the max and min of the disk cache. I don't really have the time or patience to test around. Should I set it to about double yours?

Thanks,
Leon

[Les]

Your pagefile should be 1.5 times as large as your total ram and make the initial size the same as the maximum size. For you that allows for a 3Gb (3072) file minimum/maximum.

The reason for making both the same is to eliminate increased disk activity if the pagefile is required to expand.

If you are aware what your normal and high ram usage is (I have a gadget on my Sidebar that helps me with this), you can then reduce the total maximum.

I, for example, never use 4Gb ram in total so, if I had 2Gb ram, I would be comfortable with a pagefile of 1.5-2Gb.