Windows Vista

Tweaking and Customization Guide

The Betas and the Windows Support Teams are proud to present the official PROnetworks Tweaking Guide to improve performance and your overall experience with Microsoft Windows Vista. The Guide also seeks to help improve your general User Experience with Windows Vista.

The Official PROnetworks Vista Installation Guide is HERE.

The PROnetworks Windows Vista Tweaking Guides are a Work In Progress, and will continue to evolve as additional tips are tested.


This PROnetworks Tweaking Guide covers Windows Vista
Please be aware that The PROnetworks Betas Team has determined that in some cases, attempting to tweak Windows Vista can be counterproductive, leading to losses rather than gains in performance.

Before attempting these tweaks please make sure that your computer is considered Vista ready. This can be determined within XP be using the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Available HERE.


For the purposes of this guide, PROnetworks considers a Vista-ready computer is to include the following:

• Modern CPU (AMD 3000+ or better, Intel Pentium @ 3 GHz or better, Opteron, or similar processor whether x86 or x64, single or dual-core).
  
• DirectX 9 capable Graphics Card or better (256 MB of on-card memory would be desirable)
  
• 1 GB of single or dual-channel DDR or DDR2, or better RAM
  
• A good quality PSU, to ensure smooth power supply management for this demanding OS (if you have a DirectX 9 capable Graphics Card or better)
  
• A recent flat screen monitor

The above recommendations are for the best possible Vista Experience.

This Tweaking Guide provides guidelines both for users of Vista-ready hardware and for those with older machines.

Our thanks go to all who have contributed to making us aware of elements of this build for us to test, verify, and make mention of in this guide, and to our team of testers who have ensured this build has been thoroughly put through the mill to ensure your enjoyment.


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Contents

Activation
PROnetworks Tweaking Programs
Tweaking UAC / UAP
Personalization
The Tweaks
BCDEDIT
DWM 3D Effects
Tweaking Explorer
Vista Service Tweaks
Viewing the Graphical Elements of Windows Vista

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There are two methods to Activate Windows Vista:

1. Activation by Internet (Requires working Internet Connection)
   
2. Activation By Phone
   
3. Activating over the Internet (Recommended and Default)
   
4. Hit the Windows Key + Break to open up the system dialog in the control panel.
   
   
   
   
5. Click on the bar that says 30 days (in the below photo, 7 days) left to activate.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click Continue in the Windows Security popup window.
   In the next window you have two options. Click Activate Windows online now.
   
7. You will see a window that says Activating Windows... with a green bar expanding horizontally across the screen as the process evolves.

Phone Activation

Phone Activation requires that your internet connection is not working. Vista will first try to activate by Internet and assuming the connection failed you will get a window with these options:

1. Chose #3, "Show me other ways to activate".
   
2. Another window will appear, saying "How do you want to activate Windows?"
   
3. The next window will prompt you to Activate Windows now, and will provide three steps to receive an Activation ID.
   
4. The following window says "Find available phone numbers for activation", with a pop-up scroll menu to choose the country you live in.
   
5. Choose your country, and then press the Next button.
   
6. The next window says Activate Windows now and has three steps to receive a activation ID.

Changing Product Key

In Windows Vista, the product key may be changed if the product key entered at Installation does not activate.

1. Click Change Product Key (See Picture HERE)
   
2. You will be prompted to enter the product key
   
3. Windows will activate if the product key has been entered.

This should activate your copy of Windows Vista!

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PROnetworks Software Programs

In addition to offering this guide, PROnetworks has been busy at working creating programs to improve your Windows Vista experience. (Click the titles to go to the program website!)

VistaBootPRO

Designed for both beginners and advanced users, VistaBootPRO can be used for to make "cosmetic" changes to the Windows Vista boot Menu such as changing the name of the Operating Systems shown in the boot menu and make advanced "functional" changes like adding an Operating System to the boot menu and repairing the Windows Vista boot configuration data. Advanced settings include backing up and exporting your boot loader configuration and modifying BCD store details.

For those who have used bcdedit.exe in the past, you will be impressed with the ease of use and functionality that VistaBootPRO provides.

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Tweaking UAC / UAP

User Account Control (UAC) (also referred to sometimes as User Account Protection or UAP) is a new security feature of Windows Vista, to prevent malware taking control of your system. This is achieved by the means of running your basic user account as if it were a standard account instead of having administrator privileges. When administrator privileges are necessary, a dialog box pops for your consent.

However, UAC also can be VERY annoying to some users, as it prevents full control of the computer from the default administrator account(s) created during setup, even for such basic tasks as managing data contained outside the user account files.

WARNING: Disabling UAC may put your computer at risk, and leave a back door open for malware (viruses, trojans, etc). Those wishing to leave the higher security in place may wish to just use the standard UAC settings.

After the installation, the UAC settings can be tweaked, so that (with a few exceptions) the user account(s) created during setup can give the exact level of Operating System and data control that is desirable.

UAC can be disabled either temporarily to allow software installation, or permanently to allow full user control of the system and data.

Disable UAC on a program to program basis

To allow a program complete administrator privileges, simply right click on the program, go down to Properties and under Compatibility click Allow Administrator privileges.

Disable the UAC services

Hit Windows Key + R and type msconfig in the run dialog box. UAC will prompt you for approval. Under tools in msconfig, find the tool that says Disable UAC and click OK. A reboot will be necessary to see the changes.

JD’s Quick and Easy Method

1. Go to Start & Click on your account picture, this takes you to User Accounts.
   
2. Click on the "Turn User Account Control on or off" link (at the bottom of the list), to disable/ enable UAC

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Personalization

Many of the Personalization options available under Properties in previous versions of Windows are now arranged differently. All of the old options and several new options are placed in a new dialog box called Personalize. To access the Personalize Dialog Box, right click anywhere on the desktop and go to personalize (where Properties used to be). Upon opening the Personalize Panel, you should be able to access all of you personal settings:




Tagging photos in Photo Gallery

While in Photo Gallery:

1. Select all of the photos that you want to assign a new tag. You can hold
down the control key while clicking on individual photos, or hold down the
shift key and click on two photos to select all of the photos in between
them, or select one photo in a group and hit Ctrl-A to select all of them.
2. Right click on any of the selected photos. Select "Add tags...".
3. The Tagging window will appear on the right side.
4. Type your new tag name into the Add Tags field and hit Enter.


Designing your own fonts

Go to Start> Run> eudcedit


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The Tweaks

Tweaking the other Visual Effects

Right click on Computer, select "Properties" then chose "Advanced System Settings", and, on the "Advanced" tab, click the "Settings" button under the "Performance" section. Go to the "Visual Effects" tab; there you can choose options to enable or disable certain visual effects, very similar to the User Interface of Windows XP.
Significant performance gains in this build have been seen when using the "Adjust for best performance" option, although the benefit of the snappy new interface will be partially lost.

Note: Disabling certain Visual Effects will also disable Aero Glass effects.


Improve the visual aesthetics of the Basic theme

As Basic stands, there is a lot of border padding on each of the windows; the same width if you had Aero is solid blue with basic.
To make this a much better width aesthetically, go to:

Personalization> Window Color and Appearance, Select "Basic" and Click "Advanced". From the Drop Down box, select "Border Padding" and change the value from 4 to 0 or 1.


Virtual Memory

Go to the "Advanced" tab; click the "Settings" button under the "Performance" section. This will open the "Performance Options" dialog. Select the "Advanced" tab there, go to the Virtual Memory section, and click on the Change button; uncheck the box that says "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives", highlight the drive you want your page file to be located on, which is usually the drive you installed Vista on (if you have a secondary drive you may be able to increase performance by putting the page file there but make sure you don't already have a page file from another OS there!), then click the radio button that says "Custom size" and set both the minimum and maximum to the desired size (it is usually recommended this be at least one and one half times the amount of ram you have), then click "Set". This will help reduce fragmentation of the page file and your drive.

A large paging file can also significantly improve performance of Vista, and if possible, where you have more than one physical hard drive, we would recommend putting a large enough paging file on each separate drive (NOT on each partition, but one only per physical drive. If you are unsure what this advice means, then you should NOT follow it, as you may decrease performance instead of increasing it.)

Insufficiently large paging files on the other hand, will hinder the performance of Windows Vista, which uses a technology called SuperFetch to store boot information, Graphic User Interface (GUI) data, and other essentials in the paging file(s) between work sessions. It has been found that an overly small paging file can also cause GUI mishaps, especially at higher screen resolutions.

Ideally, paging files should be located on faster hard drives, for performance gains.

Startup and Recovery

On the "Advanced tab", click the "Settings" button under the "Startup and Recovery" section. In the "Write debugging information" combo box, select "(none)".


Run Command

To put the Run Command back on the start menu:

1. Right click on the Start button, and click "Properties".
   
2. In the Dialog box that opens, make sure the Start Menu tab is selected, and click the "Customize" button next to Start Menu.
   
3. Scroll down the list and check the box next to "Run command next to it.
   
4. Click OK to close the second dialogue, and then OK to close the first.

Run will now show up on your start menu.


The Vista Scripting Host

Is a handy tool to view your licensing & activation information.

To view all the options:

at the command prompt right click and chose "Run as Administrator" then type in "slmgr /?" (without the quotes).


Command line defrag

This will give you the status of the drive plus the results when done.

To view all the options:
at the command prompt right click and chose "Run as Administrator" then type in "defrag /?" (without the quotes).


Place the IE icon on your desktop

Paste this in a reg file and merge it then refresh the desktop (F5):

Note: The code line directly under the Windows Registry Editor Version must all be on one line, including NewStartPanel>. It is split in the code box below to avoid page distortion.


If one just makes a shortcut then you don't get the properties dialogs that one does from the IE icon in XP


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BCDEDIT

Although VistaBootPRO should be enough for your boot-entry modification needs one still may want to edit the Vista Boot Configuration Data manually. Warning: Advanced Users Only

How To: Edit the Windows Vista Boot Menu Options – BCDEDIT
How To: Modify BCD using BCDEDIT when install XP after Vista

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DWM 3D effects

Windows new special effects are handled by DWM (Desktop Window Manager).

In Windows Vista the DWM effects are controlled by the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager Service via dwm.exe.

Performance Note: On video cards that support DWM it has been noted that substantial performance gains relating to 2D and 3D graphics are found if you switch to Classic Mode or turn off DWM effects by disabling the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager Service. In addition performance can also be enhanced when using Aero effects by reducing screen resolution.

Animations Shift Key

This tweak enables you to slow down Windows' new effects by pressing the SHIFT key. Copy and paste this code into Notepad and save it as a .reg file to speed up the process:





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Tweaking Explorer

1. Open Windows Explorer (Start> All Programs> Accessories). From there, press the "Alt" key & the Classic Menus pops up. Once they are displayed select "Tools" > "Folder Options". Then click the "View" tab.
   
2. Uncheck the following:
   
   • Display file size information in folder tips
     
   • Display simple folder view in Explorer's Folder list
     
   • Hide extensions for known files and folders
     
   • Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)
     
   • Use Sharing Wizard (Recommended)
   
   
3. And check the following:
   
   • Hidden Files and Folders - Select Show hidden files and folders
     
   • Launch folder windows in a separate process (on some configurations this can cause performance degradation and system freezes)
     

To have Windows Explorer open in the directory of your choice:

1. Create a shortcut to explorer.exe on your desktop or any convenient location.

2. Right click on the shortcut and from the context menu select "Properties" then click on the "Shortcut" tab.

3. Change the default Target from "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe" to the full path to where you want Explorer to open - i.e., if you want explorer to open on the root of your C: drive, type in:

C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe /n, /e, c:\

(Where "C:\Windows" is the location of Vista's Windows directory, and the "c:\" is the drive or directory where you want Explorer to open at.


4. After you have made your changes click Apply then OK.


To add an "Explore From Here" right click context menu entry for Windows Explorer:

1. Copy and paste the below code into a text file, and save as explorefromhere.reg (or something similar)

2. Double click the above saved file and merge the entries into the registry.


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Vista Services Tweaks

Warning: Disabling certain services can lead to unexpected results on some systems. The disabling of the services as recommended should be done with care and are for the general user. Some users may need to make adjustments depending upon their individual needs. Services tweaking is optional for Vista-ready hardware, providing some performance gains nevertheless.

To Disable Services

1. Hit Windows Key + R and type in "services.msc" (without quotes). This will open up the Services Management Console
   
2. Scroll down the list of services until you find the service you wish to disable then double click on the service, or, alternatively, right click on the service and select Properties.
   
3. In the dropdown for Startup type select "Disabled", click Apply, and click the Stop button to stop the service.
   
4. Once the service shows as being stopped, click OK and go on to the next service.

Note: Some services have dependencies with other services so depending on the order in which you disable them you may get a message that tells you that stopping this service will stop another service.

Tweaks for added Security

Disable the following Services for added Security

1. Peer Networking Grouping
   
2. Peer Networking Identity Manager
   
3. Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
   
4. Remote Access Connection Manager
   
5. Terminal Services --- do not disable if using Infrared monitoring service

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Viewing the graphical elements of Windows Vista

Here are some commands to help you experiment with the graphics capabilities of Windows Vista. These are given "as is", for you to experiment with.

TIP: It has been found that Glass may sometimes be enabled on machines not having the new transparent effects by default in their desktop windows, by using the winSAT aurora command, given below. We can give no guarantees that this will work, if Glass is not otherwise functional, but it's certainly worth a try.

Go to Start and in the Search box at the bottom.

Use one of the following commands and hit "Enter".

D3D


DWM

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The PROnetworks Windows Vista Tweaking and Customization Guide is an ongoing project and is compiled by the PROnetworks Betas and Windows Support Teams. As new tweaks are discovered and tested, and new builds of Windows Vista are released, information to cover these will be added to the guide, so check back here often to see what is new.

If you have found a new tweak, please post it to the Windows Vista Chat and Support Forum for possible inclusion in this guide.

This Guide has been compiled and tested by the PROnetworks Betas and Windows Support Teams.

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Windows Vista Tips & Tricks #1: Start Menu Search Bar

Windows Vista Tips & Tricks: Aero Glass

Windows Vista Tips & Tricks: Sound and Volume Controls