[Kevin]

Here are a few basics, tweaks and tips for vista users, these come from other sources and my own experience with vista, feel free to add your own to the thread.

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Speeding up program search

This registry tweak stops vista searching for all indexed files on your system while you search for programs in your program menu, please remember to make a backup of your registry before you take any action to alter registry keys, just incase the worst case scenario happens.

1. Open Registry Editor (regedit). {To open regedit go to Start->Run and type in regedit and it ok.}

2. Navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer and finally Advanced.

3. Find and right click on Start_SearchFiles and select Modify.

4. Set the Value to 0.

5. reboot your computer, and your done.

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Disable the sidebar

Although his feature is somewhat handy, considering it includes real time weather reports, up to date news from various sources and other tools such as computer monitoring, and a really over sized clock. It takes up valuable memory, clutters up your desktop, considering the limited information it gives you, if you want the weather in your area, look out your nearest window ,here is how to disable it:

1. Open Control Panel

2. Navigate to and open Appearance and Personalization

3. At this point open Windows Sidebar Properties, here a pop up window appears, uncheck the box which says "Start sidebar when Windows Starts"

4. If you currently have Sidebar running, right click on the Sidebar icon, situated in the taskbar and select exit

5. Reboot and you're set.

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Setting your color theme

1. Right click anywhere on desktop

2. Select Personalize

3. Select Window color and appearance

4. Select the color you wish to have, and using the slider choose how transparent you want windows to be. If you do not wish your windows to be transparent, uncheck the tick box for window transparency.

5. You can also use the the color mixer to finely choose the specific color you would like. All done!

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[Wolphie]

Vista doesn't really need speeding up at all. It's already faster than most Windows releases. Although i do agree about the sidebar, i kinda find it redundant. Some of the gadgets are cool and it's cool you can make your own. But none the less, it's still in the way.

Another recommended thing to do would be to turn UAC off through the control panel (User account control) - Microsoft, being as stupid as they are thought it'd be funny to have a pop-up confirming EVERY action and then another pop-up.

I recommend using "Tune-Up Utilities" to boost your computers performace and clean it regulary.

[Borg]

I love the auto defrag feature in Vista.