NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide

[ScuderiaConchiglia]

Not to be rude, but if you do not understand what that tweak is about you should not attempt it. Having someone just tell you which ones to disable is not enough. You really ought to understand WHY you should disable certain ones and what is actually going to happen as a result of your disabling them.

Gary

K, then I won't even attempt then thanks.

Rocky,

That was not the point of my reply. The point was you should try to learn what these services do. Take a look at the list, pick one or two that the poster disabled or set to manual and look to you like you might not need them. Then spend some time and investigate. Do some google searches. Do some searches here. Then if you are still confused or not sure ask here. Something like, "I have been reading about service XYZ and it appears to do abc, and since I don't need abc, would I be better off setting it to manual or disabled". That sort of question will garner you much more of an informative response than just asking someone to tell you which services to turn off.

Happy hunting!

Gary

[WilliamKing]

I purchased a Hp pav dv9700t with the t9300 4gig ram 240gig 7200rpm HD nvidia 8400m gs 512mb graphics blueray an so on, it comes with windows ultimate on. Is there any real advantage to staying with windows ultimate 64 or should i reformat to windows xp pro 64 instead. Thanks for all the tips here an the reading has helped alot.
Thanks

[darthsat]

William, that all depends on how you find Vista Ultimate to be. Both Vista Ultimate 64 and XP Pro 64 will allow you to use all 4GB of RAM you have. If you find Vista itself to be too bloated for your taste, then XP Pro maybe worthwhile for you. So this is more of a personal taste decision.

[McGrady]

In regards to this post.
Some time ago I posted a long message in this thread explaining what was REALLY going on behind the scenes when TweakXP was being used to optimize the boot files under Vista.

I mentioned that I wanted to create an app or some way for folks to do the same thing on their own without the need for TweakXP. (Especially since it was NEVER designed for Vista in the first place and some of its other options might be detrimental to Vista's health.) I have been swampped since then, but yesterday this issue came up again in the Sony forum here. So, after helping someone there with this issue I am copying it here as well.

------------Quoted from the Sony Forum here---------------------------------
Have you allowed Vista to defrag and reorder the boot files? Most laptop users never get a chance for this to be done, because they don't leave their machines idle long enough for the automatic process to kick in. There is a whole series of messages about this in the "top tweaks" thread. The tweak recommended is to use an app called TuneXP, which was designed for XP and use it to do some "magical" trick to defrag and reorder the bootfiles. I did a complete expose' of exactly what it does and it comes down to two simple commands.

Open notepad and paste these two lines in it:

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks
defrag -b %SystemDrive%

Next save the file on your desktop with an extention of .BAT. (DO NOT NAME THE FILE DEFRAG.BAT) Or better yet I'll include an attachment right here!

It is a zip file but just open it and move the file to your desktop. Close ALL running applications.

Then right click on it and select run as administrator. The first line just tells Vista that all applications are idle and it can start a background task that is just sitting there waiting for this event to occur. That task analyzes the bootfile history that Vista maintains and creates a file with the optimum order for these files. The second line starts a specialized defrag process that uses that ordering information and puts these bootfiles into the proper sequence!

It will popup a command window and look like it is just sitting there hung on the first line. It's not, trust me. If you open Task Manager and view all running processes you will see Defrag and DfrgNtfs running. When they are done the command window will disappear. Be patient give it some time. It can take anywhere from a few seconds to an hour even. Just depends on how fragmented your files are. I just ran it and it took about seven minutes. Your disk drive light will show LOTS of activity.

Sit back, have a cup of coffee or whatever. Just wait until the command window disappears. That cannot be stressed highly enough! DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW! BE PATIENT! LET IT FINISH! Now reboot and see if it made any difference in boot time.

I am in the middle of trying this. I did as you said, it opened up a cmd box and its just sitting there with C:/windowsblahblahProcessIdleTasks and a blinking cursor under it. Am i supposed to press anything or leave it like that?
I checked task manager and defrag and the other thing you said isn't running

EDIT: Ok its finally starting lol. it just took awile.
2xEDIT:This slowed my startup more and when i do start it up, my desktop is black for like 5-10 seconds then it finally loads up ;[

[ScuderiaConchiglia]

I am in the middle of trying this. I did as you said, it opened up a cmd box and its just sitting there with C:/windowsblahblahProcessIdleTasks and a blinking cursor under it. Am i supposed to press anything or leave it like that?
I checked task manager and defrag and the other thing you said isn't running

EDIT: Ok its finally starting lol. it just took awile.
2xEDIT:This slowed my startup more and when i do start it up, my desktop is black for like 5-10 seconds then it finally loads up ;[

Did you let it run uninterrupted until the command box disappeared? I guarantee you there is no way this will EVER make the boot time longer. All this "tweak" does is start up the bootfile defrag process bulit into Vista. What was your boot time before and after the process?

Try it again. This time make sure you shut down all other programs and don't do ANYTHING with the machine while it is processing. Let's see if that helps. Do not touch anything until the command box disappears.

Gary

[WLF46WLF]

hope someone can help: I recently installed 4GB on my notebook, under vista ultimate x64. first boot: 5 minutes of boot gui! after it enters in windows it was all ok. but the boot was always very long!
so I selected maximum memory in msconfig (it recognises I have 4096MB). after that the boot was very fast! but now I have another problem: it recognises only 3GB as if my system is a 32bit system! if I deselect maximum memory in msconfig, it recognises 4GB again, but the boot is very long! (about 5 mins on boot gui). any idea?

[McGrady]

Did you let it run uninterrupted until the command box disappeared? I guarantee you there is no way this will EVER make the boot time longer. All this "tweak" does is start up the bootfile defrag process bulit into Vista. What was your boot time before and after the process?

Try it again. This time make sure you shut down all other programs and don't do ANYTHING with the machine while it is processing. Let's see if that helps. Do not touch anything until the command box disappears.

Gary

The first time I did it, I thought it wasn't working so i exited the command window and re-did it. MY boot time before was like 7 green bars, after the defrag was 11 1/2 green bar plus when I get to my desktop, the whole screen is black for about 5 seconds then my desktop loads my BG, taskbar, etc. I had everything closed. I shall try again.

[Calvin]

The first time I did it, I thought it wasn't working so i exited the command window and re-did it. MY boot time before was like 7 green bars, after the defrag was 11 1/2 green bar plus when I get to my desktop, the whole screen is black for about 5 seconds then my desktop loads my BG, taskbar, etc. I had everything closed. I shall try again.

That cannot be stressed highly enough! DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW! BE PATIENT! LET IT FINISH!

There is the problem.

[THAANSA3]

I didn't really know where to put this question and I didn't want to start a thread, so I'm asking it here. I figured it's somewhat related to what's talked about in this thread. Do bootskins and log-in themes affect your boot speed? Also, do they affect PC performance in any way?

[Calvin]

I didn't really know where to put this question and I didn't want to start a thread, so I'm asking it here. I figured it's somewhat related to what's talked about in this thread. Do bootskins and log-in themes affect your boot speed? Also, do they affect PC performance in any way?

As I've replied before (you cross posted). It's probably going to slow you down, but as far as I've tested them and heard, they don't slow you down by much.