How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Tolerate Vista

Great tips for making Vista work for you.

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Tolerate Vista

By STEPHEN WILLIAMS

AFTER nearly two years, I’m really tired of reading about other people’s problems with Microsoft’s Vista operating system.

I mean, I’ve got my own problems. Teenagers living in my house and eating my food, a wife training to be an oral surgeon routinely working 36-hour shifts, a van that devours gas.

Oh, and then there’s Vista.

Consumers have had issues with Vista since its release in January 2007, although the latest figures indicate that most holdouts have accepted, if not embraced, the system. Despite Apple’s snarky ad campaigns promoting its Macs, more than 140 million copies of Vista have been sold; Windows remains a money magnet for Microsoft, accounting for more than a quarter of the company’s $60.4 billion in annual revenue.

Taming Vista on my Intel chip-equipped Sony Vaio laptop became, after a while, a measure of maintaining patience, never mind sanity. Sure, there was a day recently when I could’ve thrown the thing out of the window and into the backyard, and then made tracks to the Mac Pro desktop in the basement.

Instead, I turned on a football game. And there was Jerry Seinfeld helping Bill Gates try on shoes in an ad for Vista — I think.

Whatever that was about, the truth is, Vista doesn’t have to be as bad as the competing Apple ads say it is. Here are some ways to make your Vista experience more livable, and perhaps even more lovable.

Say Farewell to the U.A.C.

It’s not just me: Among the features that many users found most annoying early on in Vista’s life cycle was the user account control feature.

The U.A.C. in Vista was to save newbie Web surfers from spyware and viruses that might otherwise install themselves on the hard drive. This is a good thing, of course, as Windows machines attract viruses like candy apples draw flies.

A warning box pops up on the screen every time a program or application is about to be installed: “Windows needs your permission to continue.” The options are to click on “continue” or “cancel.”

“Almost every other question I get was how to get rid of the U.A.C.,” said Karl L. Gechlik, a systems administrator in Manhattan who fields such questions as a hobby on his Web site, www.asktheadmin.com.

Microsoft now allows you to turn off the U.A.C. permanently if you have a newer version of the operating system or have downloaded the Service Pack 1 release. (If you haven’t downloaded Service Pack 1 yet, do it now at www.tinyurl.com/55k8a4; the upgrade fixes a host of bugs with Vista).

Add Memory

Vista is a memory hog.

Microsoft says a computer running Vista needs 512 megabytes or more of random access memory. In the real world a gigabyte of RAM is a more realistic minimum. Two gigabytes is better.

Mr. Gechlik says his systems have been upgraded to three gigabytes of RAM. “You need twice the memory for Vista that XP needed,” he said. “You need a lot more oomph to do what you want.”

Adding RAM isn’t brain surgery nor is it outrageously expensive, but depending on the computer, installation is best left to an expert. D.I.Y. types can search Google for “Installing more RAM” — there are plenty of how-to articles and videos available.

Give Vista a Boost

With a flash memory device — a USB flash drive, CompactFlash or SD card — of at least 256 megabytes, you can make the PC use data faster. Plugged into a USB port or media reader, the memory device serves as an additional memory cache. (The more memory the better, up to 4 gigabytes.) After the device is inserted, Vista asks you if you want to use it to improve performance. You can choose to allocate part of the card or drive’s memory to what Microsoft calls ReadyBoost and use the remainder to store files.

Don’t laugh. This works. And, unlike RAM, you don’t have to mess with the computer’s insides. And because the price of flash memory has dropped drastically — a 2-gigabyte device is only about $25 on sale — it’s a no-brainer. I bet the Mac Guy wishes he had one of these.

Use Only What You Need

You may think you have only the Firefox browser running, but Vista starts a host of programs every time you start it. There is no reason for most of them to be running and using the computer’s memory.

So, back to Control Panel. Click Uninstall a Program and in the Tasks pane on the left, click Turn Windows Features On or Off. You should see a checklist of the programs. Most are incomprehensible. What is “Windows DFS Replication Service”? Hover the cursor over each entry and a pop-up box tries to explain what it is. Uncheck the ones you do not need. This does not remove them from your PC; it just turns them off.

Lose Even More

If you are really serious about tweaking Vista, you can do more to limit what is running in the background — and there is a surprising amount of activity when you think that all you are doing is playing Solitaire.

This is a bit more intimidating process. The easy part: Click the Start button, type in services.msc and hit Enter. A window pops up with a table of “services” running. And it’s a long list. Look at the entries that are labeled Automatic. These run whether you want them to or not. But which ones are necessary? TweakHound.com is an invaluable site for figuring this out.

To change a service from Automatic to Manual, right-click on the name of the service. Click Properties. Click the Stop button and change Startup Type to Manual.

Make Vista Uglier

One virtue of Vista is that it makes your PC’s desktop prettier. But it uses a lot of memory to throw those widgets on the side of the screen and make icons transparent. Yep, go back to Control Panel, this time to Personalization. Disable the transparency feature by removing the checkmark on Enable Transparency. Click the Performance and System Tools tab, and click Adjust Visual Effects. Click Adjust For Best Performance.

The system will also run a little faster if you revert to the classic Windows look instead of the Aero look. The easiest way is to right-click on the desktop, click Personalize and click Windows Color and Appearance. Click Open Classic Appearance Properties, choose a theme in the Color Scheme list box and click O.K.

There are more ways to make Vista run faster. Microsoft has other tricks at www.tinyurl.com/5a439r.

These tips should help until the next operating system upgrade (tentatively code-named Vienna) comes along, and then all of this will happen all over again.

Basics - How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Tolerate Vista - NYTimes.com