Vista Start menu tweaks.

Remove All Programs from the start menu.

1.Type “gpedit.exe” in the Start menu instant search box and press Enter.
2. Navigate to”UserConfiguration\AdministrativeTemplates\
Start Menu and Taskbar“.
3. Double click on “Remove All Programs Lists from the Start menu“.
4. Select “Enabled” and press Enter.

Remove the list of recently used applications.

To remove the list of recently used applications do the following:
1. Right click on the Start menu and select “Properties“.
2. Now disable “Store and display a list of recently used applications“.
3. To modify the no of items to be displayed in the list click on the “Customize” button and enter a custom value in the Start menu size box and press Enter.

How to pin an item to the Start menu?

There are some applications that are pinned to the Start menu so that you can access them form the Start menu itself. To pin an application to the Start menu right click on the exe file of that application and select “Pin to Start menu“.

Change the Start menu view to Classic view.

To change the Start menu to the old Classic View right click on the Start menu and select properties. Select the “Classic Start menu” option and press Enter.

The new Smart UAC.

UAC is a great feature of Vista.It is intended to protect your PC from malicious software downloads and viruses.But sometimes it is annoying.It ask your permission for even silly tasks like opening a program.So many of you have actually disabled UAC.But the potential of UAC is such that it can protect you from so many malicious threats if you use it wisely. There are so many bugs in UAC.Now an updated version of UAC is released which is a much improved version that didnot ask you so many questions.It has a learning mode so that it can learn and remember your settings.So if a UAC prompt appear when you try to run a program and you allowed it to continue,the next time you start the same program Smart UAC will not ask you again because it has saved your setting in its “memory”.So you are not going get annoying UAC prompts and there is no need to disable it.UAC is such a nice feature that it can really boost your system security. Features of the new Smart UAC.

Features of the new Smart UAC.

1.A constantly updated database of malwares and other security threats.
2.A learning mode.
3.Works with Vista,XP,2000,2003.
4.You can edit security settings that you have created earlier.
To dowload Smart UAC click here.

Move the System Index to another drive.

Another way to improve the system performance is to disable System indexing service.But Indexing the files and folders in our computer helps us to find them easily and quickly.So disabling it is not recommended.Instead you can change the location of the Index from the C drive to another drive.Moving the Index frees a lot of space in the C drive which helps to improve your system performance.To move the search index to another drive do the following:
1.First, type “index” in the Search Box and press Enter.
2.Now you can see the Indexing settings window.Click on “Advanced“.
3.Here,from Index Settings click on “Select New” under the “Index Location” section.
4.Enter a new location for the search index in the textbox and press Enter.

How to stop Scheduled Disc Defragmentation.

A disc defragmentation is scheduled to run in Windows Vista by default.It is scheduled to run at 1am every wednesday.Here is how to stop Scheduled disc defragmentation in Vista.
1.Type “defrag” in the Search Box and press Enter.
2.Now uncheck the “Run on a Schedule” check box and press Enter.

Disable the Automatic Device Driver Update feature.

Windows Vista will Automatically search and download Updates for your device drivers.It is a nice feature but hogs a little of your bandwidth.If you want to disable this feature then do the following.
1.Right click on My Computer and select Properties.
2.Click on the “Advanced System Settings‘ link.
3.Choose the ‘Hardware‘ tab and click on ‘Windows update driver settings‘.
4.Select “Never check for drivers when I connect a device” option and press Enter.

XPS-The new printing format for Vista.

Another great feature in Vista is the XPS file format which is the default format for printing documents in Vista. XPS stands for XML Paper Specification. Let’s look into some of the featuresof this format.

When we print a document there are many differences between the original document and the printed one. XPS is the file format that helps to print documents as seen on the computer screen. This is because an XPS document is an identical copy of the original document and the printed document is an exact copy of the document displayed on the screen. All the properties of the documents like the resolution,fonts, images, page layout are all retained. What makes this possible is that XPS is a vector-based graphics format. It is a resolution independent format. So you can zoom in or zoom out your images the way you like and the quality of the picture or document is not affected. The advantage is high quality prints, fast printing time; more over the document is an exact copy of the original document or image. Whenever you click on the print command in Microsoft Word or Excel 2007, the document is converted automatically by Vista to XPS format and then only the document is printed. But you need a printer that supports XPS format. So make sure that your printer supports XPSformat if you are planning to buy one.

Upgrading XP to Vista.

We can Upgrade XP to Vista. But it is actually not a good idea. This is because both didn’t have nothing in common. They are two different operating systems with contrasting system requirements and functionality. But we can upgrade our XP installation to Vista.
To Upgrade XP to Vista, we need to create a new partition. This partition is where we are going to install Vista. Vista requires at least 15 GB of free disk space. Then some space should be left for installing apps for Vista. So you can install Vista on a partition of your hard drive. Otherwise we can install Vista on a second hard drive, which I think is the best option and is more practical. But be sure not to install Vista on the same partition where XP is installed.
1. First boot from the Vista installation DVD. Then press the Install Now button to start the installation process.
2. After going through the usual steps like updating the installation, agreeing to the license agreement, you are provided with a window which asks “Which type of installation
do you want?”.In this screen select Upgrade instead of Custom install.
3. The setup will scan your computer for system compatibility and then you are provided with a system computability report which is a detailed report of your system’s maximum disk space, memory, audio, video capacity etc. If you got a nice compatibility report there is no problem installing Vista.

4. Now the setup will continue as a clean install. The difference is that we did not need to setup a user name and password, or configure display properties etc. Vista uses the same settings you have configured in XP. When the installation is complete the system reboots and then you have to configure Automatic Updates and other essential options like date, time etc. Now press the Finish button and your system will reboot again with a nice welcome screen and you can enter the Username and password that you have set in XP to login to your system.

Another option is to dual boot XP with Vista.
1. Follow the steps similar in upgrading XP to Vista, instead of clicking on the Upgrade button press Custom install, when you are asked, “Which type of installation do you want?”.
2. Press the Next button. Here you have to select a partition where you need to install Vista. Choose a partition in your first hard drive or use a second hard drive to install Vista.
3. The setup will continue as usual and you have to follow all the steps as in a clean install.
4. When you reboot to log in to your computer you can see a boot menu where you can choose the OS from which you need to boot from.

Boosting the System Performance with ReadyBoost.

Ready Boost is another great feature of Vista. What is Ready boost? When there is not enough RAM in your system or when the processor had to do some intense process then a portion of our hard drive is used to temporarily store the instructions to be executed. This is called Virtual memory. Vista can use a portion of your hard drive as Virtual memory. It can also use an USB flash memory card or an SD card as “Virtual memory”. This is called Ready Boost. Ready Boost supports 256 to 4 GB of flash memory devices. The larger the size of the Flash card the greater the speed. What is the advantage of using a Flash memory device as Virtual memory? When a portion of hard disc is used as virtual memory it takes some time to read and write data from the hard drive. But when a flash memory device is used, it offers faster read and write speed. This can considerably increase the performance of our computer.
To activate Ready Boost do the following:
1. Insert a Flash memory device into the USB drive.
2. Right-click on the device and select Properties.
3. Now select the Ready Boost tab and adjust the slider to set the space in the drive to be used as Virtual memory.
Note: Even if you remove the drive in the middle there is no problem because the data loaded in the flash drive is also written to the hard drive’s virtual memory space as a back-up.
So don’t worry about memory constrains with Vista because if you feel that your system is slow or short of RAM, just insert your flash memory card into the USB drive.

About the new Taskmanager in Vista.

The new task manager in Vista is an amazing tool with lot of features. It has changed a lot from the task manager in XP. With the whole new task manager we need not have to worry about the process running in the background, the network connections to our computer, the bandwidth used etc. Just open the task manager and with a glance we can what’s going on in the background. It gives a detailed report about the current memory usage, which programs are requesting internet access, percentage of CPU usage by each process and so on with separate graphs for CPU usage, memory usage and network monitoring. So we no longer need a bandwidth analyzer or a network monitor. All we need to do is to just go to the ControlPanel>Administrative tools>Reliability and Performance monitor. Otherwise, type something like monitor in the Vista search box.

Use BitLocker Drive Encryption without TPM chip.

One of the security features added to Vista is the new drive encryption feature called BitLocker Drive Encryption.BitLocker helps users to encrypt confidential and sensitive information stored in their computer.BitLocker Drive Encryption by default requires a Trusted Platform Module (TPM Chip) version 1.2 or later installed in your computer.But many of the PCs and Laptops available in market donot come with TPM chips installed in them.Here is how to use BitLocker Drive Encryption even when your PC do not have TPM chips installed in them.

Right-click on the Start menu and type “gpedit.msc” in the search box.This will open the Group Policy window.
Here navigate to Computer Policy > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > BitLocker Drive Encryption.
Right click on Control Panel Setup> Enable advanced startup options and select Properties.
Check Enabled and click OK.