Windows Vista Forum / Vista Technical / Performance & Tweaks

Disk Cleanup...What Files Can Be Safely Deleted?

Fred44 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:11:12 GMT

I was just doing a disk cleanup in Vista Home Premium and noticed that many of the boxes are not ticked. I was wondering what is best to leave alone. I know that you can delete the Hibernation File cleaner, but then cannot use that option. Since I never use the Hybrid Seep or Hibernation (or whatever it's called) I was wondering if it would be OK to delete that file. It's almost 3 GB and would free up a lot of space. I just turn my computer on in the morning and have the screen saver set to kick in after 10 minutes, but never on the sleep setting. Also the other files (Downloadable Program Files, temp. Internet files, Setup Log files, thumbnails, Per User Windows error Reporting, etc.)....Which of these can be deleted and which should be left alone? I read in the TweakGuides Tweaking Companion for Vista, that you shouldn't delete your Temp. Internet files too often as it would slow down your web browsing. BTW, has anyone else seen this book by Koroush Ghazi? It was recommended by someone on one of the forums and I've used it to set up Media Player and a few other things. It has a lot of suggestions for tweaking IE, which I did , but have since done a system recovery so everything's back to default...but I digress.. any suggestions on Disk Cleanup?

Fred

Stop vista eating RAM

UzY3L — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:50:33 GMT

Hello
I know, I know.
You've probably seen this a million times : how do I stop vista eating all of my frikkin' RAM? I just don't understand where it's going!
ReadyBoost, Volume Shadow Copy and Superfecth services are all disabled and prevented from running.
My system has 3GB of RAM and I never have more than 8MB of free RAM left after just 20 minutes of using my PC. The largest RAM eater I have is Firefox, eating from 200 to 1024MB when using a lot of tabs. But where's the rest?
Please help me as this is really annoying!
Thanks in advance
Love&Peace!

vista constantly stops responding

hoffies — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:06:51 GMT

Hi all, from newbie to the forum

I would like some advice please.

Even while typing this message, I have to wait 15 - 60 seconds for Vista to respond to keystrokes and clicks.

This is random, no specific program is running, even when there is only one application open, still, vista will get stuck. This is becoming really annoying.

System:
Acer Travelmater 7320 Laptop
Intel Celeron 550 2.0Ghz 533MHz FSB
2GB DDR2
160GB HDD

Windows Vista Business SP2

I HAVE A BIIIIIG PROBLEM!!!!!

Arxya — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:59:48 GMT

Hi guys.

As I said in the subject of my post I have big problem and I need a solution for it.
Look: I have the ATi Radeon HD 4350 graphic card and when I start any game i have transparent horizontal lines all over my screen. They are about 1 inch wide. I know that that is the refresh rate but I don`t know how to make it disapeare. I can only run my desktop in the 1280:1024 resolution and I don`t know why is that hapening too. If it means something i have ASUS VW193D-B monitor. I don`t have an idea is this a problem in Vista or anything but I know that I reinstaledVista a couple of times; downloaded newer drivers, and it still didn`t work.

Please help friends.

:w00t:

Run startup folder at wake up?

rogerthecat — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:25:56 GMT

I want to certain programs/shortcuts to run automatically when my computer wakes up from sleep

Vista`s BIIIG problem

Arxya — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:02:51 GMT

Can somebody please help me? Vista is a great OS and everything. I love using it but all those questions it makes are a big problem to me: I insert a CD and it askes me do I want to run autorun ( OFCOURCE I WANT !!!!!!!!!!!! ), I want to run a program and it askes me to confirm to launch ( OFCOURSE I WANT!!!!!!!!!!!! ), I can`t even run some games before I confirm. PLEASE HELLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPP.

Thanx in advance

Arxya

cant open msconfig, cmd, or regedit

marrittm — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:54:23 GMT

hello first post here so appologies if in wrong place. my proble is every time i type something into start/search it keeps taking me to ''search results in indexed locations'' folder. no matter what i search for it just goes to this folder. please help its driving me nuts.

thank you

Vista`s questions......

Arxya — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:02:28 GMT

can somebody please tell me how to turn of all those questions on vista!?!?!?!....... I launch a program...... it askes me do I want to launch that program...... OFCOURSE I WANT...... plz HELP

Arxya

problem with vista

karthik_talasu@rediffmail.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:57:55 GMT

Hi All,

From last 2 days my pc is going sleep automatically, in the Event Viewer this are the things which i found before going to sleep state.

EventId -------- Source
---------------------------------

8033 ----------- BROWSER
4001 ----------- WLAN-AutoConfig
10029 --------- DistributedCOM
Is this a virus? or is there any solution to get rid of this.

Regards,
Kartik

Apply VistaGlazz to login screen?

rogerthecat — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:21:30 GMT

I simply want the text fields on "switch user screen" to be glassed the same as the address bar in Windows explorer. I think it should be possible since during "fast user switching" VistaGlazz is actually running in the background. Any ideas?

I'm working on a fantastic glass theme and I've only to figure out how to glass those text fields and it'll be finished.

Automatically switch user when locked? Or switch user instead of lock

rogerthecat — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:52:36 GMT

My goal is for vista to only ever display one standard 'logon screen' that contains two fields for a username and a password and never hints at what user name(s) are available. I have accomplished this at the welcome screen and logon screen by turning on DontDisplayLastUsername. However the "lock screen" still displays the last user. Obviously I don't want to simply DisableLockWorkstation since the goal here is security.

Can it be done? My ideas:

(1) a registry edit that tells LockWorkstation to not display last username

(2) a registry edit that tells vista to "switch user" on wake up instead of "locking"

(3) disabling LockWorkstation completely and telling vista to run the contents of the "startup" folder upon wake up

How to edit .mui files?

rogerthecat — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:40:52 GMT

authui.dll.mui specifically

I edited a few text strings using reshacker, but the changes don't show up at all. I even moved the file from its directory to make sure vista even refers to it at all in the first place and it crashed. So for sure vista reads this particular file, however when you edit it, vista still reads the original version of the file somehow.. I'm so confused!?

Removing all unnecessary programs from VISTA 64 Ultimate

fcpsound — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:13:09 GMT

I am desperately trying to streamline my new laptop for audio recording work and am trying to remove or disable all unnecessary programs and drivers and bells and whistles from my Vista Ultimate 64 OS.

My work requires the fastest throughput thru the hard drives and CPU. Is there a comprehensive guide or what I can remove safely and also is there a good, safe registry cleaner for Vista 64?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

plz help me, friends........

sureshabhi — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:00:53 GMT

;)I unfortunately applied window-7 toolkit v1.7 for enabling full frame transparency in windows vista & then I lost windows aero theme in vista .Even after I applied window-7 toolkit v1.7 for disabling full frame transparency. But I coudn't restore windows aero theme in vista. plz help..........

thanx in advance & any should be appreciated..................;)

CPU bogging down for no apparent reason -Vista Home Premium

Thetooz — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:27:31 GMT

I've had my Dell Inspiron 9400 with Vista Home Premium for a couple years and it's worked great, until a few days ago. All of a sudden the CPU fan turns on and I look to see 80-100% CPU usage, with no programs running. A while into troubleshooting the problem my hard drive crashes ... After putting in a brand new HD the original problem persists, even with a clean install of Vista, and no startup programs running. The startup diagnostic shows no failures, Windows is up to date, and the vents are clean/free of dust. This CPU bog down seems to happen randomly, sometimes before the windows load screen is even done, sometimes a few minutes into operation, and -always- when I try to load any kind of memory intensive program such as a game, and it is always accompanied by the fan going at full speed. Process explorer shows System Idle Process at about 70% CPU, and nothing else substantial. Being a brand new hard drive it couldn't be a virus, right? After countless hours of troubleshooting I'm at wit's end, please help!

somehow my administrator account turned into a standard account

tinylea27 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:20:21 GMT

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 that runs Vista Home Basic 32bt.

When I first got my laptop a couple of years ago, the built in administrator account was disabled. Last year I was having problems with my computer so I enabled the administrator account. This morning i was cleaning up my laptop and getting rid of programs that I have previously installed but do not use anymore. I disabled the administrator account because I never used it. Since the separate account I used was an administrator account, I figured there wouldn't be any problems. After I disabled the built in administrator account I started having problems installing things and changing my settings. Whenever the User Account Control window pops up with the "windows needs your permission to continue" box. I used to be able to hit OK and continue with whatever I was working on, but now I can't. I checked my account info and it was somehow changed to Standard permissions instead of Administrator. How can I change it back to an Administrator account? Do I have to do a system restore? if so, how do i do that?

System start and stop time

karthik_talasu@rediffmail.com — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:01:56 GMT

Hi All,

My system is restarting almost every night at some time, so I just want to know where can I see the last system startup time and stopped time. Happening only when connected to internet.

Using : Vista home edition

IE 8 Beta

sidds — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:21:56 GMT

hi Vista Experts,

I have this problem with IE8 Beta.Downloaded it last year sometime but now after its official release i want to download and install...but unable to do so.I tried to go to the installed updates but couldnt find IE8.Now the issue is when i try to install the new version it asks me to uninstall the previous version which iam not able to.

2ndly there are 6updates...which keep coming back everytime i install them...these 6 updates are happening since 14th oct 08.

Pls let me know what to do.

Many Thanks Inadvance

you can email me on tiwarisiddharth@yhaoo.com if possible.

Sidds

Vista RAM Problem, now with 8 Gigs

zaZ00M — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:30:06 GMT

Hi,

I recently purchased a new motherboard (P5Q-E) and some new RAM to go with it (2 Mushkin Ascent eXtreme Performance 2X2GB for a total of 8 gigabytes).

My BIOS recognizes that I have gigs. My system properties in Vista also state that I have 8 gigs.

Also interesting to note is that I believe both sets of RAM to be working fine. I put each set individually on the mobo and both booted fine and reported 3326 MB in task manager (BIOS and System Properties said 4--also, I had each set in different slots on the Mobo).

The problem now is that in task manager, my physical memory is still on 3326 MB, the exact same as before. It is reporting that 50% of my memory is used. I am highly puzzled by this. Any suggestions?

I am running Vista Ultimate 64 as well.

Thanks.

Vista tweaks that work

quasar — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:36:32 GMT

Tweaking Vista is necessary, but you've got to do it right. Doing it wrong is risky and wastes time. This list does not include foolish registry hacks, randomly messing around with Services, or other poorly conceived "tweaks." It only includes tweaks that actually give some benefit.

Each tweak on this list has a rationale attached. The tweaks assume you are starting with a vanilla Vista installation.

[b]Apply SP1[/b] - download and put it on, unless it is already. Rationale: improved performance, stability, security, and compatibility.

[b]Turn on 16-bit color[/b] - Graphics cards and monitors have different standards for how many bits of colors translate to how many colors displayed. To optimize efficiency, match the number of colors displayed by your video card to the number of colors that your monitor can display.

A graphics adapter displaying 16 bits of color can display 65,536 colors at a time. A graphics adapter at 24 bits can display 16,777,216 colors. A graphics adapter at 32 bits can display the same 24 bits of color plus 8 alpha, transparent bits. Settings the graphics adapter at 24 bits or 32 bits has a performance cost for your entire computer over setting it at 16 bits. Thus, if you want to keep using 24 bits or 32 bits of color, make sure you have a good reason such as that your monitor can actually display 16,777,216 colors at once. In Control Panel (classic view) | Personalize | Display Settings | colors, you can see what your graphics adapter is set at and what your options are, and make changes.

To experiment, pull up a good photograph with lots of colors, taken at a high resolution. View the picture in 32-bit or 24-bit mode, then switch your graphics adapter to 16-bit mode and see if you notice a difference. If you have a normal LCD monitor, chances are that you won't see much of a difference.

If you have an LCD monitor, such as on a laptop or a desktop, your 6-bit monitor can probably only display 262,144 colors at a time, which is comparable to the 65,536 colors displayed by a graphics card set for 16-bit color. Using 24-bits of graphics card color to display on a standard 6-bit LCD monitor is quite wasteful of computing power and gives you little benefit. On the other hand, if you are using an HD television or a CRT (with a tube) as your monitor, that is an 8-bit color monitor which can display 16,777,216 or more colors at a time. With such a monitor, setting the graphics adapter to 24-bit or 32-bit mode actually gives you the lion's share of the benefit, making the performance cost worth it.

If you are willing to sacrifice the alpha mode and transparent effects and Flip 3D, but are not willing to significantly reduce the number of colors displayed on your normal LCD monitor, you can shift your graphics card from 32-bit to 16-bit. The result is a significant performance enhancement with a loss of alpha effects and a few colors that aren't making much of a difference anyway.

Rationale: shifting your graphics card to 16-bit color will noticeably boost performance. It will not significantly reduce the quality of your display, unless you have a CRT, an HD television, a very high end LCD monitor sold to graphics professionals, or other display with 8-bit color. It will also turn off the transparent effects of Aero and Flip 3D. Otherwise, shifting to 16-bit color results in a noticeable performance boost.

[b]Remove visual effects[/b] - In Control Panel (classic view) | Performance Items | Adjust visual effects there is a range of effects that can be dropped if you have a poor graphics card, like most ones from Intel. In a pinch you can try "Adjust for best performance" which removes all the effects. The result is a very fast Vista system that looks more like Windows 2000 than the default Vista look. If you still need more performance, [url=http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-aero-on-windows-vista/]disable Aero[/url]. Rationale: increased performance in underpowered machines.

[b]Readyboost[/b] - [url=http://itsvista.com/2007/03/itsvista-tip-46-let-vista-use-your-flash-drive-for-readyboost/]Set up ReadyBoost[/url]. Use the fastest flash memory available. Flash memory speed is measured differently for reading and writing; both are in megabytes per second. An excellent target would be 10 MB/s writing and 18 MB/s reading. Rationale: increased performance. Try to get at least 2 GB and preferably 4 GB or more of flash memory dedicated to Readyboost. Rationale: increased performance.

[b]Enable write-caching and advanced performance[/b] - For systems with a backup power source (like laptops), enable write caching in Control Panel (classic view) | Device Manager | Policies. Rationale: increased performance.

[b]Enable DEP[/b] - First, enable it in BIOS. Use [url=http://www.grc.com/securable.htm]SecurAble[/url] to make sure it is enabled. Then, in Control Panel (classic view) | System | Advanced System Settings | Advanced: Performance: Settings | Data Execution Prevention, turn DEP on for all programs. Rationale: increased security. Citation: [url=http://www.twit.tv/sn78]Security Now podcast on DEP[/url].

[b]Disable Windows Media Player sharing[/b] - Go to WMP 11 | Library | Media Sharing and uncheck all/both options. Rationale: increased performance.

[b]Increase WMP buffer[/b] - go to WMP 11 | press Alt once | Tools | Options | Performance | Network Buffering. Set to 60 seconds. Rationale: much greater chance for steady playback of streaming content.

[b]Disable UPnP[/b] - Universal Plug n Play is being phased out. It should not be running. Go to Control Panel (classic view) | Administrative Tools | Services. Disable UPnP. If Internet Connection Sharing is not disabled yet, disable it as well, unless you are relying on this service, which you shouldn't be relying on. Rationale: increased performance, and possibly better security.

[b]Download and install driver updates[/b] - from the manufacturer (like HP or Dell or whoever). Rationale: increased performance, reliability, and security.

[b]Eliminate startup junk[/b] - stop everything from starting up automatically, unless it's necessary, using [url=http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx]Autoruns[/url]. Rationale: increased performance.

[b]Boost RAM to 2GB or 3GB[/b] - Less might not be enough. More is overkill as Vista 32-bit cannot make use of a full 4 GB as video memory must be mapped within the 4GB memory limit. If you need more than 2GB or 3GB of RAM, install Vista 64-bit. Make sure that the RAM you install is high in quality, such as that from [url=http://www.crucial.com/]American manufacturer Crucial Technologies[/url], and is the maximum speed for the computer as listed in the manual. Rationale for boosting RAM: increased performance.

[b]Upgrade to 64-bit Vista[/b] - Once you need more than 3GB of RAM, or you have multiple graphics cards, upgrading to [url=http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx]Vista x64[/url] lets you get to all the RAM and devices you need. If you bought Vista in a Microsoft box, you can get a free x64 DVD from Microsoft. Rationale: increased performance and efficiency.

[b]Increase hard drive space[/b] - Delete files, move files to other media, compress files, or upgrade to a bigger hard drive. More hard drive space translates into faster hard drive access. Rationale: increased performance.

[b]Run vsp1cln.exe [/b]- After applying SP1, open a command prompt as administrator and run vsp1cln.exe. Rationale: deletes unnecessary files, freeing up hard drive space, improving performance.

[b]Run as administrative user and leave UAC on[/b] - In Control Panel (classic view) | User Accounts, you can set your user security level to that of an administrative user. This configuration of running not as "Administrator" but as an administrative user coupled with leaving UAC on allows you to make administrative changes like installing a program by only clicking on a confirm button. No password-typing required. On the other hand, if you see a UAC prompt without knowing why, you can deny permission and investigate to see what's going on. Rationale: increased security and more control over your applications.

[b]Have running only one security program of each type[/b] - Have only one firewall, one anti-virus, and one anti-malware program running in the background. If you have installed a third-party firewall, disable Windows Firewall. You should go to Control Panel (classic) | Administrative Tools | Services and make sure Windows Firewall is disabled. If you have a third-party anti-malware scanner installed, such as what might come with a security suite, go to the same place and make sure Windows Defender is disabled. Rationale: Two or more programs of the same type interfere with one another. Have only one to help optimize performance and stability.

[b]Leave basic Vista features alone[/b] - SuperFetch and the page file are autoconfigured by Vista. The prefetch folder doesn't need "cleaning". Don't use memory optimization software not from Microsoft. Let Vista figure out the best settings. Rationale: security and performance.

Changing the Vista Folder Nav GUI

scytheye — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:30:24 GMT

So here's a real challenge for y'all :D , I've been all over the web and haven't been able to find zip :hehe: .

I'm trying to make my desktop, and my folder navigation look like a carousel - almost exactly like this one: [url=http://www.flashcarousel.com/]click to see it animate[/url]

[img]http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg247/scytheye/carouselexample.jpg[/img]

Ideally, I want to change the windows folder GUI to reflect something like this - it doesn't even have to be flash based. If this is ABSOLUTELY not possible with Vista, I could really use some suggestions on how to build a website for simple bookmark navigation using this carousel instead. Email me directly if you have already figured this out: geminisbro@gmail.com

[i]Please: I DO know that Windoze ain't the premier OS. I realize that I may get a lot of responses about how I should switch to Ubuntu, Swahili, Linux, Linus, Snoopy, and Lucy but I have no idea how to use those so if you are willing to walk me through it then by all means suggest an OS switch. [/i]

Upgrading Performance and/or RAM.

swiftymcfeat — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:10:08 GMT

Hey there fellow members,
Ive had my vista computer for about 6 months now and i really feel its time for an upgrade. I just want to really improve how quick its going to run, but im not the best with computer hardware.

At the moment, my specs are-
Processor: Intel Pentium D CPU 2.80GHz 2.79GHz
Memory (RAM): 2.0GB
System Type: 32-bit Operating system

I was thinking about upgrading mainly the RAM to either 4 or 8 GB, but before i went spending money Ive come to seek advice. Will more RAM mean a quicker computer? If so, what would be the best option out of the 4 or 8GB and what might you suggest? 2X2GB 1X4GB? Im really lost, please help! Ive also just bought a second monitor which im about to link up if that means anything. The computer is mainly used for music, movies and gaming (COD4 COD5 WoW) I just want less lag.

Thankyou in advance.
James

Scrolling message

Vorak — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:19:26 GMT

Whever I scroll up and down there is text that pops up in the bottom right corner, is it possible to disable this feature at all?

I have attached a picture of what I mean.

hpste08.exe and hpqtra08.exe are safe to disable?

ocetalo — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:07:52 GMT

As far as I know they bring support for HP Imaging devices. I have Windows Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop, a simple HP Deskjet D1460 printer and no scanners or something alike installed. I want to disable or set to manual but I'm afraid of further consequences. What do you recommend?
Thanks in advance. God bless you.

Transparency blur - Can it be turned off with a simple registry tweak?

Gergy008 — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:55:56 GMT

What do I add/Change/Remove in the registry to get rid of that annoying blur affect!
In the flip 3D view, The windows are [u]completely[/u] transparent.

How do I get that, Maybe with a hint of blue?

Thanks! ;)

Operating Services on my computer

bughaters — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:03:05 GMT

Are there any sites that explain what is needed to run at startup. Everyone knows there are numerous startup programs and services that startup automatically with each boot or login. How would I findout what's needed and whats not. I am a regular home computer user and want to cut down on the startup lag time. I have Windows Vista home basic 32bit. I bought last month an additional 2GB of memory. I uninstalled many applications that I originally installed myself I felt I really didn't need. Looking at all the services list. I see a lot of services that start automatically, manually and some that disabled. Any suggestion.

TweakUAC - Free application to control UAC prompts

Jason — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:47:19 GMT

TweakUAC(TM) is a free software tool that you can use to quickly turn UAC (User Account Control of Windows Vista) on or off, or to make UAC operate in the quiet mode:

[img]http://www.tweak-uac.com/TweakUAC-main-screen.png[/img]

[b] Turn UAC off[/b]

This option turns UAC off completely. If this is what you want, select this option, press OK, restart the computer, and you won’t see the elevation prompts anymore. Windows Vista will operate pretty much like Windows XP does when you login to its administrator’s account.

[b] Switch UAC to the quiet mode[/b]

This option does not turn off UAC; instead, it only makes UAC to operate in the quiet mode. In the quiet mode, UAC does not display the elevation prompts for the administrators. That is, when you attempt to do an administrative task, you will be allowed to proceed automatically, without prompting you to confirm the operation. All other features of UAC would still be enabled: the programs will run with the standard user permissions by default, and the standard users will still see the elevation prompts (the quiet mode applies to the administrator accounts only).

[b] Leave UAC on[/b]

If you have previously turned UAC off or switched it to operate in the quiet mode, you can use this option to restore the original behavior of UAC.

Download here: [url=http://www.tweak-uac.com/TweakUAC.exe]http://www.tweak-uac.com/TweakUAC.exe[/url]

Classic Logon Box

pimpernel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:09:41 GMT

Hi There,

After enabling the Windows 2000/XP style logon box in Vista, I'm left with an empty space where an icon should go. Is there a way to put a picture or any other icon in there?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Windows Explorer Error

mr.yoso.ko — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Hello Experts!

I'm experiencing an error when opening Windows Explorer. The start button and taskbar will be gone. Then I can not access anything. Right click from the desktop will be disable also. My only way to get it back to work it normal is to restart or shut it down and boot it up again and to do that, I have to Ctrl+Alt Del. I don't want to reformat it again. I'm using Windows vista Ultimate SP1.

Thanks for the help!

Vista Annoyances Resolved Tweak Guide

WAW8 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:35:05 GMT

A refreshing change of pace -- a new Tweak Guide that takes a rationale view of Vista, it's weaknesses and its strengths. Well worth reading.

Link to original site:

[b][url] http://www.tweakguides.com/VA_1.html [/url][/b]

Windows Classic Start Button Text

jackie — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:10:02 GMT

Where would I find the resource for the Start button text in the [u]classic style[/u] start menu in windows vista. (It is not located in the explorer.exe as it was in windows XP)... and since that fancy start up orb came along, nobody seems to care about the classic menu lol... thus, there is not info on the subject anywhere! :(

Any help would be appreciated!

Is there a way to turn off the blur in the transparent parts?

lvlln — Wed, 09 May 2007 03:15:26 GMT

Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this in, but this seemed like the most appropriate forum. I was wondering if there existed any tweaks that would turn off the blur on all the translucent effects in Vista. It always seemed pointless to me to have translucent parts of the windows if you couldn't actually read what was behind them. I did use VistaGlazz to turn on translucency all the time, but I'd really like it if I could actually make the translucency useful. I own the Home Premium version.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Super Pi 1.5 MOD XS 32M Test Fails in Vista !!! [Solution Inside]

QuadFusion — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:31:39 GMT

[b]Problem:[/b]
Overclock stable in Prime95 v25.5 for 12+ hours, but fails Super Pi v1.5 32M Test (even at stock settings) in Windows Vista !!!

[b]Solution:[/b]

The windows vista services that affect Super Pi are,

1) Windows Audio Service (this for sure)
2) Themes
3) Aeroglass Interface

By turning these off, I was able to run and complete Super Pi v1.5 32M test.

1) To [b]turn off Windows Audio Service[/b] ( start> run> services.msc, find Windows Audio on the list , double click and stop it ) Turning off "Windows Audio Endpoint Builder" is not necessary unless you encounter problem.

2) To [b]turn off Themes[/b] ( start> run> services.msc, find Themes on the list , double click and stop it ) this will also make you turn off tune up theme extension.

3) [b]Aeroglass automatically turns off [/b]by turning of themes. (you can check it by right clicking on desktop>Personalize>Window Color and Appearance>Color Scheme )

[b]Another way to disable/enable Audio service:[/b]

Create two .bat files on the desktop

SoundOff.bat:
net stop "AudioSrv"

and

SoundOn.bat:
net start "AudioSrv"

I found that it is [b]not necessary to run the program as an administrator or Windows XP SP2 Compatibility mode[/b].

I also found a [b]Super PI front-end[/b] called [b]Hyper PI[/b]
The author claims it is pure Super PI 1.5 MOD XS and it is customized for multi-core CPU's: " Run multiple instances of SPI (one for each processor) and configure the priority of the process easily (without Task Manager). Take a snapshot of all instances at anytime with only one click!"

Download Location http://home.pages.at/virgilioborges/
I personally wasn't able to download it becasue of some server problem.

Here's a Screenshot for the program
Hyper Pi 0.9b http://home.pages.at/virgilioborges/imgs/hyper_pi.png]

[b]Note:
"If you can't get the Hyper Pi program, and want to run multiple instances of Super Pi for your Dual or Quad Core, then run the exe from different folders. For example, if you want four instances of Super Pi to load Quad Core, then make four separate folders, copy the exe into each, and run from each folder. Because if you run the same SuperPI exe to load twice (from the same icon) the initial data is overwritten by the "second running instance." Therefore, what was correct for the first core, or HT in your case, is now being overwritten with the second core's info and it throws out an error "Not convergent in SQR05". There's a little .dat file that's keeping all of the data"[/b]

:smooooth:
QuadFusion

Whats everything a vista owner needs to keep system like you just bought it?

xsubxwooferx — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:35:11 GMT

I am talking about from registry cleaners - defrags? I want my computer like new but I dunno what all to have without putting junk on my labtop?

Overclocking

lolsonjr — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:27:24 GMT

I guess I have made some progress in the past couple of weeks in the overclocking department. Though I suspect there are more things to go yet. Anyway here are my numbers and if you have any comments or suggestions by all means feel free to jump in. First of all I do not have any way of doing overclocking that involves the system bios, at least not that I can tell. I added a PNY 8500GT which at least for now appears to have given me a considerable boost in video capabilities over the Diamond HD2400 Pro.

Using Nvidia System Utilities just out this June, the front side bus is boosted up to 238 mhz. which which translates into 2.380 ghz. The gpu core clock is set at 501 mhz., video memory clock is set to 451 mhz., the shader clock is set to 1022 mhz., and the gpu cooling is set to 44%.

Using Vista's performance update my score now looks like this

Processor 5.3

Memory Ram 5.0

Graphics 5.3

Gaming graphics 5.3

Primary hard disk 5.8

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Using Hmonitor 4.4.2.2 the temperatures look like as follows.

Mainboard 22%c

CPU1 21%c

CPU1 Core 28%c

CPU0 Core 27%c

cooling fans

Chasis 4245 rpm

CPU1 2518 rpm

GPU 57%c

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Lastly using Speedfan 4.3.5 Beta I increased the speed of both shown fans by going to configure and then advanced and selecting the proper chip and setting all fans to software control and then automatic operations.

If I have missed anything please let me know as obviously I would like to do this right in the first place. Thanks.

Show More Details by Default

tomk — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:52:11 GMT

Some dialog windows have a "More Details" expander that you can click to show more details. Is there a way to show details by default so you don't need to click the arrow every time?

windows explorer slow start

docross — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:31:02 GMT

hi i have such a problem: when i unplug the lan cable windows explorer applications take 40-45 sec to start!!!
i have to wait that time to open any kind of file or folder however other external programs are not affect!!
it's very strange but when it's already opened a folder or file and is not closed any other folder or file can be opened without taking these 45 sec, i mean they start normally! and that happens every time the lan cable is unplugged.
i have no idea what to do

Where is my ram! Fixed in SP1

Jason — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:40:13 GMT

All those people who installed 4GB or whatever amount of RAM and come to see that Vista is only reporting 3300 or some random number can finally relax as SP1 now reports the total installed on the system not just what the OS has available...I guess MS took the "instead of educating just hide it" from the user approach to lessen the complaints from customers about their memory.

It is important to understand that not all the physical RAM is available to the operating system. Before SP1, Vista only took into account the system memory that it could use, and ignored the rest, even if it was installed. Because of BIOS and driver reservations of RAM, both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Vista RTM failed to report the full amount of memory on a system. Vista SP1 comes to resolve this problem, and will provide correct information of the hardware configuration even if the operating system has to share the RAM and can use only a portion of it.

"On computers that have a 32-bit operating system, more than 3 GB of system memory, and with a version of Windows that is earlier than Windows Vista SP1, users will see a larger difference in how much memory is reported as available to the operating system compared to how much physical memory is installed. This is because some physical address space must be reserved as I/O regions for memory mapped peripherals. These I/O regions are allocated between the 3 GB physical address and the 4 GB upper physical address limit," Microsoft added.

Problem with Page File Designation

imabuckeye — Sat, 31 May 2008 09:55:52 GMT

A month ago I purchased a new HP Pavilion running Windows Vista Home Premium edition. I created an additional drive and successfully switch paging from C:\ to new logical drive. Now, 4 weeks later, the page file is back to c:\. I have tried to change the page file back to my page file logical drive (using the performance options - virtual memory box. I have unchecked the automatic manage at top of box, click on my page file logical drive, check custom size, and set initial size to 2000 and maximum size to 4400 (which is within size of the drive). Page file for all other drives is "none". I then click set, ok and restart pc. This is the process which I had success with 4 weeks ago. When PC is restarted, the virtual memory box shows no drive is set for page file. Any ideas as to what may be happening would be appreciated!

Vista getting really slow

Xylith — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:23:52 GMT

Hey, i run Vista 64 bit and ive noticed over the past weke or two its started getting even slower then it was with start ups.

Ive also noticed the explorer is crashing more often, ive tried defragging but i literally left my comp all day and it didnt say how far through the defrag it was, if the defrag was indeed even working so i just quit it. Anyone got any suggestions for speeding my beast up? I did try installing some anti spyware software but vista 64bit didnt like it.

Thanks