My wife uses a Vista PC and it is slow as sh**. My gaming box is XP so I am not too familiar with Vista.

Anyone have a good Tweak Guide for Vista?

Remove #%&*$# apps loading at startup? Make sure you're running SP1...

You haven't really given any specifics, though (specs, what exactly is running poorly, etc.).

@Barkhorn1x,

you can download this free vista tweak guide. pretty good and explains things well not just tell you do this and that with no idea of what you're doing. helped me cut a lot of fat out of vista and run quicker. quite a read.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

hope it helps

Specifics are:

- takes forever to finish loading
- takes a very long time for programs to start

I know that I will need more memory - but I am interested in speeding things sup as much as possible before I get the RAM.

Speaking of memory - I have a dell box w/o much documentation. Any way to tell what exact type of RAM I need?

I did find that tweak guide and will print it out.

Thanks.

You CANNOT solve lack of memory issues with "tweaking". The only solution to lack of memory is more memory.

Here is the only tweak guide you'll ever need.

You can go to http://premiersupport.dell.com/ and select your model of Dell to get the specifications on the system, or go to Kingston.com and run through their manufacture/model guide.

@Barkhorn1x,

Try here for manual/specs info on your dell

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/manuals?~ck=ln&c=us&l=en&lnki=0&s=gen

as for memory on dells, I had a dell 8300 and upgraded the ram from 512mb to 2gb with corsair ram. dells are picky about the ram you can use, just make sure the manufacturers site states its compatible with your dell model number. if it doesnt state so most memory company sites have a forum where you can ask for sure if a particular model of mem is compatible with your dell.

if your dell still has the sticker code still on the case somewhere you can enter that at the above link and it will tell you the exact specs for your dell. if its possible to upgrade cpu you may be able to upgrade that cheap along with memory. my dell 8300 could upgrade the 3ghz p4 to 3.4 p4 but i didn't do that since i got a new gaming rig.

look up the specs from that link and see what kind of video interface you have and buy the best video card you can get and ask for advice on the forum if you're unsure.

dell bios are usually pretty neutered as well and dont offer much in flexibility of changing timings or voltages,etc for tweaking or overclocking

as Rilex stated there is a lot of loadup crap that bloats vista. that guide should help you. read the services section and disable stuff you know you dont need or use and the registry section of the guide has a few things that can help speed things up a bit

That is absolutely NOT what I said. Disabling services is for the ignorant. Disabling services, which often have secondary (or more) unpublished functions, yields 0 benefit in terms of memory or CPU utilization. Guides that otherwise reflect that this is a "good idea" are written by the ignorant, for the ignorant ... by those who lack any knowledge about memory management.

What I was referring to was applications, like the #%&*$# installed by Dell on OEM builds. Nortel, Google, etc. and so forth.

Vista loads quickly and is just as smooth as XP if you are using up to date hardware. A dual core CPU and 2GB of RAM should be fine for Vista. If you're running some old single core CPU with 1GB or less of RAM, you shouldn't be using Vista on it anyways.

As others have said, make sure to disable all programs from start up aside from the ones you really need. In my case it is Windows Live Messenger, AVG and Ad-aware. And that is all I want during start up... I've only had my PC for 8 days, and I've had to disable around 10 things from start up that were put there by certain programs (Real One Player, gamespy comrade by Crysis ect.). Whenever you install any program, make sure it does not run a process at start up, and if it does, disable it. You can do this by going to Start, and type "MSconfig" in Start search.

Or, just don't reboot

And get rid of all those damn toolbars stop being lazy

As another poster mentioned.

"Disabling services is for the ignorant. Disabling services, which often have secondary (or more) unpublished functions, yields 0 benefit in terms of memory or CPU utilization. "

There are no absolutes. It depends on the capabilities of system in question and exactly what you are shutting off and for what reasons. Security being one of them, performance boost is a benifit if it's a lower end system, every bit of memory and cpu cycles helps.
Again depending on what you're doing with the system (say like setting up a dedicated gaming server on XP), it can help.

I ran a dedicated ARMA server on a P3 laptop by shutting the majority of services down, without doing that it wouldn't fly. I would agree that for the average PC, end user today, going to that extreme isn't the norm. However wouldn't shutting down some services make sense from a security perspective, like remote registry, wireless zero configuration (no wireless cards in the system), server/workstation (assuming no need for M$ networking) amongst others?

Doing the msconfig and killing the startup junk seems to help most people out the moste, but service management can help too, at least in my experience with older systems.


Black Viper is back with his services site if anyone's interested in reading up on services.
Looks like he's dissecting the Windows 7 beta now too.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

BV is an ignorant fsck-wit. His "write-up" is so full of holes and falicies, nor does he understand memory management. Do you know what happens to un-used code in Windows? Hint: it doesn't stay in physical memory.

And inbox services have pretty much 0 impact on CPU usage.

LOL.

Well I like that he's at least documented the default services on the various M$ OS and their default startup states. If for anything, that allows you to put a system back into a normal state.
I've used his information for just that purpose, fixing PCs people that have hosed their services.


Maybe you should go over there Rilex and spread some of your charm! ;-)

LOLOL

I think Rilex just got offered the PR spot in M$ new retail venture......nahhh.

All;

Thanks for the advice - I got the 2 Gigs of RAM installed and that did wonders.

He hasn't done complete documentation because he lacks said documentation.

Hint: The Printer Spooler service doesn't just provide printing facilities.

It's the only way to be sure.