I think everyone who has vista would want to make it just as fast\faster than XP, and it seems that this is possible with some simple tweaks and programs. So I'll share the stuff I use on my vista system.
Faster performance and tweaking:The most important program I would like to recommend is
TuneUP Utilities - it's a all-in-one utility to optimize a windows OS. For those who are unaware of it - it includes many useful utilities that will boost performance, solve system problems and that allow to customize the appearance of windows. Every PC should have that installed. (Note it's
shareware)
CCleaner - probably the best cleaner ever. There is also a
CCleaner Slim available.
Another very effective program is
Diskeeper 2008 - even though it's
shareware too - it boosts the system performance alot. Like it's said in the description of this program "Performance better than a new OS", and indeed the boot is faster, and overall performance too.
WinBubble - probably the most compact tweaking program for vista, I recommend trying it out.
Patternajeke just released a vista optimizer which enhances performance, you can get it here:
[link]Better look and feel:DFX Audio Enhancement and
SRS Sandbox - vista already has enhanced video audio experience, and the music in vista sounds so much better than it would on XP, but you can still make it sound even better with one of these programs. I'm currently using
DFX, though it works only in wmp and windows media center, but
Vathanx recommended me
SRS Sandbox, and it works on the whole system! (both are
shareware)
VistaGlazz - I think everyone knows what it does... it allows to use 3rd party themes on vista.
Style Selector for vista - a small, but very usefull program for changing themes in vista easy and fast. It displays correct titles of the themes (unlike in classic window colors and appearance box)
StyleBuilder for vista (to come soon?) (shareware?)
TuneUP Styler 2 - part of TuneUP utilites - it can change various windows items like icons, bootscreens, logons and themes.
Also most
stardock customization programs work on vista, like
WindowBlinds but i there aren't many good themes for them at the moment, also I think Aero is THE perfect theme...
Tips for better performance:The biggest performance hog I noticed on vista is Windows Sidebar, even though it doesn't take too much RAM it's better to turn it off on older systems.
Aero - for some reason actually enabling aero WILL make windows and programs open faster, so I would recommend enabling it not only for eyecandy, also for performance. (Example: a explorer window in basic opens slower, while in aero it loads almost instantly)
But if you have a older video card which barely supports aero, disabling aero would help.
Disabling some services for better performance:Disabling the
Remote Differential Compression is probably the most effective thing I've done on vista so far, not only it enhanced the performance a little - it also unlocked the networking cap I had on vista for so long, usually it was no more than 1 MB\s on torrent downloads, but today the
torrent download speed was 3.3 MB\s, amazing, faster than on XP SP3 (3 MB\s). You can find the guide here:
[link] (system restore point should be created, do it at your own risk, though it is safe) Thanks to
Kruper11 for mentioning that while we argued
Not long ago i discovered that the more services you disable in msconfig - the SLOWER boot you'll get. So currently I have almost all services enabled and I see no problem with that. This affects XP too, when i re-enabled all services the boot seemed faster (!).
Disabling some normal startup items will make the login faster though.
Vista protection:The best antivirus and security suite I have used so far is
Kaspersky Internet Security 7. The
WORST antivirus I have used so far is ESET SmartSecurity (NOD), it's in fact completely useless as a internet security program, and it missed at least 2 viruses, you can read my topic which i posted on winmatrix regarding this thing:
[link]So if you want good protection against malware, DO NOT USE NOD, if you're using it, and visit potentially dangerous sites like torrents - do a system scan online asap.
If you already have
KIS, vista firewall and windows defender aren't necessary. But they are quite effective if you're using just a simple antivirus.
I recommend
HijackThis program, it doesn't work in the background, you just execute it to see what kind of processes are running on your system. I advise doing a quick system scan from time to time if you're not using a active AVP, or none at all.
User Account control - the new innovative security feature from microsoft to annoy you and pop up a permission dialog for every action you do on vista, microsoft thinks that you don't know what you're clicking and it needs to confirm actions.
You should disable it instantly:
Go to control panel, select control panel home (if you have classic view), then User Accounts and Family Safety \ User Accounts. Click on "Turn User Account Control On or Off" and uncheck the box. Click OK and reboot. Thanks to ~
andyqhw for reminding me
Multimedia alternatives (recommended):KMPlayer - my favorite video player - it has a lot of features, and i personally think it's better than
VLC, WMP,
GOM and others. The only minus is that it doesn't have extended aero like wmp11 does
ACDsee - since Windows Photo Gallery is quite slow to load (it loads all library), and doesn't recognize many formats,
ACDsee is the best alternative, compact, fast and functional. Though it's shareware.
--
You can find much more useful vista tips on
AskVG.comDon't forget to check this:
[link]That's all.
If you know a cool tip for vista, you can share it here
Comments are welcome too!
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