Windows Vista Advanced User Help and Guidance - Tweaking the Windows Vista Registry

Windows Vista Advanced User Help and Guidance - Tweaking the Windows Vista Registry
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Some more Remedies for Windows Vista

If you feel that copying files in Windows Vista network is slow, then follow these tips to give a surprising boost to your file transfers. Go to the Start menu and type OptionalFeatures.exe in the search box and press Enter. Untick on Remote Differential Compression and click OK.

Now reboot your system and try copying your files again. Still if you feel that the transfers are slow then try the following trick. Launch REGEDIT, the registry editor by typing REGED­IT in the search box and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE → SOFTWARE → Microsoft → WindowsNT → CurrentVersion → Multimedia → Systemprofile.

Set NetworkThrottlinglndex and SystemResponsiveness to a much higher value, perhaps 50 or 60. Now reboot your system and you will find that the data transfer in Vista has become much faster than before.

Take notes in your recorded voice with a little-known tool called as Sticky Notes, all you need is a microphone and a system installed with Windows Vista. Type Sticky in the Start menu search box, then click the Sticky Notes link to display a blank note. If you have problems and the Sticky Notes link doesn’t appear when you do this, click Start, type optional features and press Enter on your key­board, then tick Tablet PC Optional Components and click OK. Now your sticky notes are set and next time you have an idea switch back to the note and click Record to make a voice note.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 delivered much updated Operating system and many bugs were fixed, but it also removed the Search option from almost every window. SP1 also got rid of the right-click Search option from folders and drives. If you want to retrieve this option you can use the following trick. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT → CompressedFolder → shell → find. Look in the right-hand pane for a LegacyDisable key, right-click it and select Delete. Repeat the same procedure with HKEY_CURRENT_USER → Directory → shell →find and HKEY _ CURRENT _ USER → Drive → shell → find. This will bring your right­ click search options back as it was in Windows XP.

You can modify the Start Menu in Windows Vista so that it displays more programs rather than just a handful of recently used applications, every time you click on it. To do this, right-click on the Start menu and select properties and then click on the Customize button in the dialogue box that appears. This will open the Customize Start Menu dialogue box. Now scroll down the list of options until you get to the last one and untick the option use large icons. Now type a higher number into the dialogue box Number of recent programs to display. I recommend that you enter 20, but it’s possible to change this value if you don’t find it suitable. Now Click OK to finish.

This post is part of the series: Taming Windows Vista

There is an old saying that nothing is born perfect. Same goes with Vista too, as this new Windows isn’t perfect at all. Some drawbacks are easier to spot and can be fixed to provide ultimate perfection. In this series, I have tried to find out what Windows Vista lacks and how to fill these spaces.

  1. Taming Windows Vista - Poor Performance Tweaks
  2. Taming Windows Vista - Optimize Your Windows Interface
  3. Taming Windows Vista - Security Options
  4. Taming Windows Vista - Backup & Recovery Solutions
  5. Taming Windows Vista - Bundled Applications & Add-ons
  6. Taming Windows Vista - User Access Control
  7. Taming Windows Vista - Installing the Latest Windows Updates
  8. Taming Windows Vista - Restore, Monitor Management & More
  9. Taming Windows Vista - Media Burning, Remote Access & More
  10. Taming Windows Vista - Sample Registry Tweaks & More