Windows Vista Tweaks/Performance FAQ Thread *LONG*

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Doom Machine
i ran alot of benchmarking before, vanilla vista ultimate both tweaked or default had same results, but i have a higher end rig.
even with dreamscene running in background i get exact same fps scores in games, maybe it pauses the video when game is on

the only problem i had is shadow copies doesnt work regardless of how many system restores i create and yes system protection is on.

Well, like I said - most of this isnt going to raise your fps, especially if you have a high end rig. It will save some ram, and work out some of the kinks, but you can always solve any problem with more hardware.

As far as shadow copies go, I havent actually used the feature myself either, but I am pretty sure it only does documents etc - not system files.

 

[Darkstar757]

BD2003


I for one would like to thank you for this well written thread. It has provided me with a great deal of insight on my soon to be move to windows vista ultimate. Right now I am in limbo as to if I should run the 32bit or the 64bit version of this OS. I also am not sure if my Areca 1220 raid card will work under vista. Can you give me any insight here?


Thanks,
Darkstar

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Darkstar757
BD2003

I for one would like to thank you for this well written thread. It has provided me with a great deal of insight on my soon to be move to windows vista ultimate. Right now I am in limbo as to if I should run the 32bit or the 64bit version of this OS. I also am not sure if my Areca 1220 raid card will work under vista. Can you give me any insight here?

Thanks,
Darkstar

Can't say anything about the raid card, but unless you have a really good reason to go 64-bit, I'd stick with 32-bit for the time being.

 

[simms]

Problem with your script.. everything I have runs just fine, but the rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState seems to run RIGHT after all the other programs, not giving a time for any of the previous programs (AV, CCleaner, etc) to do ANYTHING.

How do I introduce a delay so that it runs after everything is completed? And it seems that powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState goes to hibernate.. is it possible to sleep instead?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: simms
Problem with your script.. everything I have runs just fine, but the rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState seems to run RIGHT after all the other programs, not giving a time for any of the previous programs (AV, CCleaner, etc) to do ANYTHING.

Well, that depends on the programs themselves. I have it set up this way because it *usually* does not cause any problems, although sometimes, inexplicably, it does. Synctoy, ccleaner, nod32 and defrag seem to work well with the chaining. Defender does not, and other virus scanners may not. There's no way that I know of to set a delay...I've looked, but maybe not hard enough.

How do I introduce a delay so that it runs after everything is completed? And it seems that powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState goes to hibernate.. is it possible to sleep instead?

Vista makes no distinction between them. All it knows is sleep. Sleep is dual function, combining the quick access that the old suspend modes had, alongside the protection of the hibernate hard drive backup. If you don't want it to hibernate, you can turn that part of it off (read eariler in the guide). If it doesnt suspend properly, and always defaults to pure hibernation (ALWAYS loads completely off the disk when awaking), you might have a problem with your configuration..something isnt working right. I personally have hibernate turned off, and every morning I just fire it back up in a second or two by pressing a key.

 

[simms]

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: simms
Problem with your script.. everything I have runs just fine, but the rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState seems to run RIGHT after all the other programs, not giving a time for any of the previous programs (AV, CCleaner, etc) to do ANYTHING.

Well, that depends on the programs themselves. I have it set up this way because it *usually* does not cause any problems, although sometimes, inexplicably, it does. Synctoy, ccleaner, nod32 and defrag seem to work well with the chaining. Defender does not, and other virus scanners may not. There's no way that I know of to set a delay...I've looked, but maybe not hard enough.

How do I introduce a delay so that it runs after everything is completed? And it seems that powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState goes to hibernate.. is it possible to sleep instead?

Vista makes no distinction between them. All it knows is sleep. Sleep is dual function, combining the quick access that the old suspend modes had, alongside the protection of the hibernate hard drive backup. If you don't want it to hibernate, you can turn that part of it off (read eariler in the guide). If it doesnt suspend properly, and always defaults to pure hibernation (ALWAYS loads completely off the disk when awaking), you might have a problem with your configuration..something isnt working right. I personally have hibernate turned off, and every morning I just fire it back up in a second or two by pressing a key.

What if you chained two task schedulers together? Can that be done?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: simms

Originally posted by: BD2003

Originally posted by: simms
Problem with your script.. everything I have runs just fine, but the rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState seems to run RIGHT after all the other programs, not giving a time for any of the previous programs (AV, CCleaner, etc) to do ANYTHING.

Well, that depends on the programs themselves. I have it set up this way because it *usually* does not cause any problems, although sometimes, inexplicably, it does. Synctoy, ccleaner, nod32 and defrag seem to work well with the chaining. Defender does not, and other virus scanners may not. There's no way that I know of to set a delay...I've looked, but maybe not hard enough.

How do I introduce a delay so that it runs after everything is completed? And it seems that powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState goes to hibernate.. is it possible to sleep instead?

Vista makes no distinction between them. All it knows is sleep. Sleep is dual function, combining the quick access that the old suspend modes had, alongside the protection of the hibernate hard drive backup. If you don't want it to hibernate, you can turn that part of it off (read eariler in the guide). If it doesnt suspend properly, and always defaults to pure hibernation (ALWAYS loads completely off the disk when awaking), you might have a problem with your configuration..something isnt working right. I personally have hibernate turned off, and every morning I just fire it back up in a second or two by pressing a key.

What if you chained two task schedulers together? Can that be done?

I thought of that...it's damn near impossible in practice. You can't add tasks within tasks in a simple way, and I'm don't think it could even be done in a complicated way.

 

[dedwards]

Concerning the moving of the user folders -

I did this the way you described, moving one folder at a time by changing the setting on the Folder tab. But according to this article - here - you can do them all at once just by dragging and dropping them. Much faster.

I will try to confirm that this works on my machine.

DE

 

[ausearch]

Great thread...and I hope I'm on the right one when I ask about the Vista Search function. It's supposed to be great at searching your whole computer, using indexing etc.

But for people like me, who have to search a particular folder (and subfolders), for files with a certain extension, created between two dates, Vista appears to be a BIG step backwards!

Am I missing something here? For what I want to do, it appears that I can't even use Vista Search - gonna have to look for 3rd party software.

1) Am I wrong about this, and if so, what is a solution?

2) If I'm right, can anyone recommend 3rd party file search software to run under Vista (Business)?

Thanks...

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: ausearch
Great thread...and I hope I'm on the right one when I ask about the Vista Search function. It's supposed to be great at searching your whole computer, using indexing etc.

But for people like me, who have to search a particular folder (and subfolders), for files with a certain extension, created between two dates, Vista appears to be a BIG step backwards!

Am I missing something here? For what I want to do, it appears that I can't even use Vista Search - gonna have to look for 3rd party software.

1) Am I wrong about this, and if so, what is a solution?

2) If I'm right, can anyone recommend 3rd party file search software to run under Vista (Business)?

Thanks...

Looks like vista search wont work for you then...however, if you go into the actual folder youre trying to find, you can group or stack it by date. Although it wont be exact, (yesterday, last week, last month, etc) itll probably help you find the files you're looking for.

 

[Knightendo]

Issue Resolved

Thanks

 

[Johnnybling]

Thanks for the great thread! My opinion:

Vista can be a great operating system, yet, Microsoft needs to listen to the people not force the people. There are some bugs with my Vista Ultimate, I will accept them and hope for a patch soon. Ohhhhhh... the growing pains of technology.

$$$ JohnnyBling $$$

 

[QuietRiot]

BD2003, thanks for the great thread!

One thing to add: Adobe Acrobat Reader installer requires that UAC be running. Or, at least, when it was off it would give me an error, when on it would install. There's probably a way around it with UAC off, but I only had the ability of trial and error so... *shrug*

Originally posted by: dedwards
Concerning the moving of the user folders -

I did this the way you described, moving one folder at a time by changing the setting on the Folder tab. But according to this article - here - you can do them all at once just by dragging and dropping them. Much faster.

I will try to confirm that this works on my machine.

DE

It worked for me. It did not, however, move *all* the folders. AppData and Desktop still stayed behind.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: QuietRiot
BD2003, thanks for the great thread!

One thing to add: Adobe Acrobat Reader installer requires that UAC be running. Or, at least, when it was off it would give me an error, when on it would install. There's probably a way around it with UAC off, but I only had the ability of trial and error so... *shrug*

Id be surprised to hear that any app has trouble loading *without* UAC, but with bloatware like acrobat reader, I'm not entirely surprised.

Use foxit reader instead. Its freeware, bloat-free, small, and fast.

 

[QuietRiot]

Indeed, Foxit Reader is a much better choice and what I use normally. I had to install Acrobat because I needed to complete an online form that was not working properly with Foxit.

 

[ginfest]

Another :thumbsup: for Foxit Reader, one of the best little utilities out there. I use it mainly to read and create PDFs and haven't run into any problems with it. IMHO it beats the Adobe bloatware at it's own game

 

[ginfest]

oops, sry DP too quick on the draw lol

 

[TallBill]

Great thread. I'm using Vista Ultimate on my laptop, mostly just to test it out, but lots of useful information. I'll probably be getting Vista when I get home and build a new desktop. I'm eager to try out the readyboost feature as well.

 

[MrWizard6600]

Language help!

So, Im in Grade 11, and I decided french sucks (french being the default as I'm a Canadian... eh), so I opted for japanese.

Sooo with vista rubbing both its "ease of use" and it's "get your Ultimate Vista extras now" constantly in my face i decided to install the japanese language pack... well at the time i was also installing Visual Studios 2005 so the installation was choppy, windows explorer died on me, but the language package seemd to have installed just fine. So here I am trying to get the damn thing setup...

WTF? could it BEE more complicated? I think not... I have word 2007 (yeah I really really went all out on the software for this sucker) and I just cant figure it out. I've been round and round the help guide, the language bar, the translate (in word) option, help in word, round and round, and I Still cant figure it out.

Heres what I want: When I'm In word, I want to be able to enter stuff in Romagi, and have it come out in Hiragana or perhalps even a few Kanji characters (although i dont know too many so perhalps we should just stick to Hiragana.

For those who dont know:
Romaji is using english letters to create the sound of japanese. So I guess its best discribed as the pronounciation.
Hiraganna is the most simplistic form of Japanese that can really be considered Japanese. Its like spelling each word out individually. and via a simple google search, you can catch my drift by clicking this link.
Kanji are the thousands of complex characters that are sometimes shared with chinese. Herewould be the Kanji character for Spirit.
Katakana are characters for words that are not japanese in origon, and are imported from other languages. Forign names would be in Katakana in Japan.

so what i want to be able to do is enter the characters in english and ahve it come out with what i need in japanese. I dont really care how it gets around the Katakana just so long as I can put in Romaji and have it spit out japanese.

If anyone has any experiance with language packs please help me out. This would save me a world of time and effort (as typing it out on a keyboard will be a whole lot easier then drawing each character out individually).

 

[InlineFive]

Just want to remind everyone who has an Intel Wireless adapter to upgrade drivers to the latest March release. It appears to have fixed some sleep/hibernate/resume issues when connected to a wireless network.

 

[gizbug]

Originally posted by: InlineFive
Just want to remind everyone who has an Intel Wireless adapter to upgrade drivers to the latest March release. It appears to have fixed some sleep/hibernate/resume issues when connected to a wireless network.

link?

 

[bigi]

Hey,

Can anyone point me to help how to link/chain tasks together?
I don't wanna rely only on time schedule. Starting one task after another has finished is what I am looking for.
Thanks

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: bigi
Hey,

Can anyone point me to help how to link/chain tasks together?
I don't wanna rely only on time schedule. Starting one task after another has finished is what I am looking for.
Thanks

Just add them as actions into the task...one wont start until the last is finished.

 

[ScythedBlade]

[Note to FoxIt Reader]

I may have been using an older version, but this is what I found from FoxIt Reader:

Although, when Adobe Acrobat was first pretty slow and badly, it was easy to choose FoxIt Reader.

Unfortunately, Adobe Acrobat now has speed launch, which makes it just as fast, if not faster than FoxIt Reader on almost every launching everything.

Now here's my beef with FoxIt Reader: Printing.
FoxIt prints 2 pages by sending 2 MB of information to printer, while it takes 100 KB for Adobe Acrobat? Something is seriously wrong, don't you agree?

So yea, get Adobe Acrobat, if FoxIt is still horrendeously bad at converting to printing format.

 

[korgan844]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Hey BD2003, could you add "fully enable your Data Execution Prevention" as a tip? From the Vista blog, it appears that even Vista doesn't come with DEP fully enabled out of the box.

It's a useful tip