Windows Vista Tips and Tricks

Published: 03/21/2010 by Jorge Calderon

GUI / HOW CAN I DISABLE THE ANNOYING “NEED YOUR PERMISSION TO CONTINUE” PROMPTS?

This annoying message box pops up by default right after you install your Windows Vista OS. To disable just follow the instructions below:

Control Panel (Classic View) - User Account – (check off) “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off” (restart system)

Now, Microsoft highly recommends that you do not do this. To make their point, after you ignore them and do it anyway, a scary little red X shield icon plants itself in your taskbar, visually screaming at you about the security risk.

Control Panel – Security Center - "Change the way Security Center alerts me" -"Don't notify me and don't display the icon (not recommended)"


GUI. AERO / MY COMPUTER MEETS THE MINIMUM RECOMMENDATIONS, BUT I'M STILL NOT GETTING WINDOWS AERO. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I CAN DO?

Yes, Try the following:

* Color -> 32 bit (Display Settings-Colors-32 bit)
* Monitor refresh rate > 10 Hz (Display Settings-Monitor 'tab' refresh date - Apply)
* The theme is set to Windows Vista (Theme Settings-Theme-Windows Vista),
* The color scheme is set to Windows Aero (Appearance Settings - Color Scheme-Windows Aero), and
* Window frame transparency is on (Personalization-Window Color and Appearance-Enable Transparency.


GUI. HOW TO FLIP APPLICATIONS IN 3D?

WinKey + Tab -> Scroll with up/dn arrows
Ctrl + WinKey + Tab -> Scroll with up/dn arrows (sticks)


GUI. HOW TO ENLARGE THE SIZE OF THE START MENU?

With a reasonable number of programs installed, after clicking on All Programs I now have to frequently use the scroll bar on the start menu to get to the item I want. This is both time wasting and annoying, as with a 1600x1200 monitor the start menu occupies less than half the vertical space on the screen, but there doesn't seem to be any way to extend the start menu vertically.

r-click on Start button - Properties – Customize – Number of recent programs to display


EXPLORER. WHAT ARE SOME OF MY SEARCH OPTIONS IN MS WINDOWS EXPLORER?

Let me list some expression examples although, to be honest, searches in MS Windows Explorer under Vista are neither straight forward nor reliable.

Objective: Search all JPG files
Expression to meet objective:
*.jpg
filext:jpg
Use "ext:(*.vbproj OR *.csproj)" instead of "*.vbproj;*.csproj"
(Note that the OR boolean operator must be in all-caps to work.)

Objective:
Find all files dated after Feb 10, 2009
Expression to meet objective:
after:02/10/09

Objective: Find all JPG files dated after Feb 10, 2009
Expression to meet objective:
filext:jpg after:02/10/09

Objective:
Find files by date expressions
Expression to meet objective:
“today”, “tomorrow”, “yesterday”, “this week”, “next month”, “last week”, “past month”, “coming year”, "Sunday", "Monday"
filext:jpg after:last week

Objective:
How do I search for certain strings within a group of files?
Solution:
This is an actual problem that I had months ago. I actually was trying to grep a string within a .php file. I kept getting "NOT FOUND" when in fact I knew the string was included in several of my files. I realized that the .php file extension was not listed in the Index Locations.

To view or modify the list of file extensions the indexer understands, click the Advanced Options button on the Modify Index Locations dialog, then select the File Types tab.

At this time I got so frustrated that the "Add-new extension" button was grayed out and Windows did not give me a way to add it. No help button. FRUSTRATING! Therefore, I just downloaded the (free) "Agent Ransack" application from download.com and moved on.


PERFORMANCE. HOW CAN I IMPROVE REBOOT TIME?

Please do the following if your machine has two or more cores. The example below assumes that your machine has four cores.

Press the "Start" button and enter "msconfig" in the "Start Search" box.

msconfig - Boot(Tab) - Advanced options...(btn) - Number of processors (4) - [chk] Detect HAL - OK

[chk] Make all boot settings permanent

My Quad Core went from 217 seconds to 142 seconds (total shutdown-reboot time)


PERFORMANCE. HOW DO I CLEAN OUT MY TEMP FOLDERS?
Run Cleanmgr.exe

It deletes Downloaded programs, Temp Internet Files, Offline Webpages, Hibernation File Cleaner, Office Setup Files, Recycle bin, Setup log files, temp files, thumbnails.


PERFORMANCE. EXPLORER. HOW TO LAUNCH FOLDER WINDOWS IN A SEPARATE PROCESS?

You can improve your folder browsing so that a single Windows Explorer window does not take the rest of your operating system down you can launch separate folder windows in multi processes.

Open Explorer. Click Organize > Folder & Search Options > View > Advanced Settings > check 'Launch folder windows in a separate process' > Apply > OK