Polarman's Vista Post Install Guide.

[Polarman]

Polarman's Vista Post Install Guide.

In this little guide, I'll show you what I do for my own PC when I'm done installing Vista.

WARNING!

Even if this guide is meant for the general public, you have be careful what you do and don't blame me if you screwed up your PC. Please note that I do use a Laptop nor do I have a fancy Network.

I will assume that you are not a rookie and have at least some decent experience in using Windows. You should have everything at your disposal like drivers, patches and such on a backup media and you should already have installed the latest Service pack for Vista.

SECTION 1

The very first thing I do, is to get the INTERNET working. So if windows did not load your Ethernet drivers, your going to have to put them in yourself via the Device Manager. With that out of the way, it's time do get all those critical updates from “Windows Update”. This can take a while and you may have to reboot a couple of time too.

SECTION 2

I install Net Framework 3.5 SP1(Full Package) with all relevant updates that come with it. Installing Net Framework first is pretty much required for a lot of other things that you'll end up installing anyway.
You can get that here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/e/20e90413-712f-438c-988e-fdaa79a8ac3d/dotnetfx35.exe

SECTION 3

Time to install drivers now. I always reboot after each driver is installed. In the following order:

Chipset → Video Card → Sound → Mouse & Keyboard → Etc...

Just make sure that you get the right drivers for your specific hardware.

SECTION 4

With all the drivers installed, I usually install the newest release of DirectX redistributable (full package) that you can get here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...e5-5ce1-4032-a207-c693d210f616&displaylang=en


SECTION 5

Now the fun part. Customization! Making Windows a bit faster and a bit slimmer too.

Lets start with the slimming part to regain back some lost space after a fresh Vista installation.

Reclaim lost disk space if you have Vista SP1/SP2 installed.

Installing Windows Vista SP1 increases the amount of disk space that is used by the operating system. This space is used to archive files so that SP1 can be uninstalled. Typically, you should run VSP1CLN.exe if you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1.

1. Press WINKEY+R.
2. Type vsp1cln.exe and hit enter.
3. When prompted, type Y and hit enter.

Note: You will have to use “Compcln.exe” if you have Vista Service Pack 2.

Other useless files that are safe to delete to reclaim space.

“C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper
“C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\Sample Media”
“C:\Users\Public\Public Music\Sample Music”
“C:\Users\Public\Public Pictures\Sample Pictures”
“C:\Users\Public\Public Videos\Sample Videos”

I you fell confident that your system has no problems, then I suggest disabling System Restore to save a lot of disk space. If not, then skip ahead.

Disable System Restore in Vista

1. Open Control Panel (Classic View)
2. Click System icon.
3. Click Advanced system settings.(upper left corner)
4. Click System Protection tab.
5. Uncheck your Available Disks.
6. You will get a pop up window.
7. Click the Turn System Restore Off button.
8. Click Ok.

The next option is to turn off Hibernation. Again, If you don't use this feature, why not shut it off to get even more disk space back.

Turning OFF Hibernation

Click Start, type CMD in the Start Search box, right-click Command Prompt in the Programs list, and then click Run as administrator.

At the command prompt, type powercfg /hibernate off and hit enter.

Remove unnecessary Windows Vista features

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Select “Program and Features”
3. In the sidebar, click 'turn windows features on and off'.
4. Uncheck the boxes to remove items.

Good options for removal include:

Games
Remote Differential Compression
DFS file replication service
Windows meeting space
Tablet tools

There are more things that you can erase inside Windows to save even more space, but this is a good start and should be sufficient and a lot safer too.

SECTION 6

Now comes the speeding up part in two sections. Part one involves getting around Windows while part two is only registry tweaks.

Increase Hard Drive Performance in Vista

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Goto Device Manager.
3. Click open Disk Drives section.
4. Right click on each of your hard drive device listing and click Properties.
5. Click Policies tab.
6. Check Enable Advanced performance.
7. Click OK to apply.

Boot Vista with all available processors

1. Right click on the “start” menu and type “msconfig” Hit Enter.
2. Go to the “boot” tab and click “advanced options”.
3. Place a check next to the “number of processors” option and change the dropdown box to reflect the number of discrete processor cores in your computer. (Dual core = 2, Quad core = 4)
4. Hit “ok” to save.

Disable 'GUI boot' to speed startup

1. Right click on the “start' menu and type “msconfig” Hit Enter.
2. Navigate to the 'boot' tab.
3. Place a checkmark next to the “No GUI boot” option.
4. Click “ok”.

Indexing is a small program often make you hard drive trash around endlessly. This process indexes and updates lists of the files on your system, so you can search for them quickly, but it's completely unnecessary.

Disable Indexing for Hard Drives

1. Open Start Menu.
2. Click on Computer.
3. Right click the indexed hard drive and click Properties.
4. To Disable, uncheck Index this drive for faster searching.
5. Click Apply.
6. Click Apply changes to drive, subfolders, and files.
7. Click Ok.
8. Click Continue for Access Denied window.
9. Click Ignore All button for Error Applying Attributes window.
10. When finished, click OK to close drive properties window.

You do need to Defrag you drives once in a while, but not everyday and not wile your gaming.

Change the Schedule for Disk Defragmenter in Vista

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Click on All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then Disk Defragmenter.
3. Click Continue button for UAC prompt.
4. To Turn off the Schedule :
5. Uncheck Run on a Schedule.
6. Click OK.

This won't make Windows faster, but it will tell you if something is wrong. I'd rather have a BSOD then just the computer restarting by itself.

Disable Automatically Restart in case of System Failure

1. Open Control Panel (Classic View)
2. Click System icon.
3. Click Advanced system settings.(upper left corner)
4. Click Advanced tab.
5. Under “Startup and recovery”, click “Settings”.
6. Uncheck “Automatically restart”.
7. Click Ok.

If your like me and you really do not have any use for this memory hogging gadget, then get rid of it!

Turn Off Windows Sidebar in Vista

1. Right click the Windows Sidebar tray icon.
2. Click Properties.
3. Uncheck Start Sidebar when Windows starts.
4. Click OK.
5. Right click the Windows Sidebar tray icon.
6. Click Exit.

Set Automatic Updates to download only

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Click Windows Update icon.
3. Click Change settings in the left pane.
4. Select the 'Download updates but let me choose whether to install them' option.
5. Click OK to apply.

Check Settings in Power Plan Options

1. Open Control Panel. (Classic View)
2. Click Power Options icon.
3. Click Change plan settings under your power plan.
4. Click Change advanced power settings.
5. Check for incorrect settings and make changes as needed.
6. Click OK to apply.

NOTE: Power settings control the computer’s ability to go into and come out of sleep/standby mode.

Recommended Settings To Check:

A) Under Hard Disk settings, set to Never
B) Under Multimedia settings, have them set to Allow the computer to sleep.
C) Under USB settings, have it set to Disabled.
D) Under Sleep Set to Never (No Sleep Mode)

Disable transient multi-monitor manager to speed up boot times

1. Open the 'start' menu and right click on 'computer.
2. Choose 'manage.'
3. In the computer management window, expand “Task scheduler\Task scheduler library\Microsoft\Windows\MobilePC”.
4. Right-click on “TMM” and choose 'disable.'

The Page File... So many people screw around with the page file and get problems. This is what I do.

1. Open Control Panel (Classic View)
2. Click System icon.
3. Click Advanced system settings.(upper left corner)
4. Click Advanced tab.
5. Under “Performance”, click “settings”.
6. Click Advance Tab.
7. Click “Change” button.

One hard drive:

1 - Leave it alone. (recommended)
2 - Make it static. 1.5X the amount of your ram (Min & Max). Less fragmentation this way.

Two hard drives (If you really want to):

1. One static page file on the OS hard drive “C:”
2. Another static page file on the first partition of the second drive.

Note: The sizes should be at least the size of the amount of memory you have. Example: if you have 2 GB of RAM then 2 page files of 2048 MB. This allows for plenty of space and Vista can choose the drive that is least busy when it needs to access the page file.

SECTION 7

The following is my own customized registry file that I made especially for ME. It has some processes disabled. It should be safe for anyone who wants to use it.

It seems that my REG is not being displayed correctly. You can download my REG file here.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

;Speedup Shutdown and Automatically close non responding programs
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"
"HungAppTimeout"="1000"
"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="3000"
"LowLevelHooksTimeout"="1000"

;Disable Automatic Folder Type Discovery
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

;Disable Windows Mail Splash Screen
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Mail\]
"NoSplash"="1"

;Disable Transparency
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
"ColorizationOpaqueBlend"=dword:00000001

; Disable Low disk space checks
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"=dword:00000001

; Disable Ballon Tips
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000
"StartButtonBalloonTip"=dword:00000000
"FolderContentsInfoTip"=dword:00000000

;Disable Paging of Kernel
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001

;Speedup NTFS file access and Disable Short Filenames
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Filesystem]
"NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001
"NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation"=dword:00000001

;Shutdown Time for Services to Close Properly
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="10000"

;SpeedUp folder browsing
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer]

;Show Hidden Devices In Device Manager
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]
"DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES"="1"

;Resolve Negative DNS Cache
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"MaxNegativeCacheTtl"="0"
"MaxCacheTtl"="10800"

;Enable Exception Handling Overwrite Protection
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\kernel\DisableExceptionChainValidation]
"DisableExceptionChainValidation"=dword:00000000

;Set AutoPlay on All drives off
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:0x000000FF

;Disable IPV6 in Windows Vista
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters]
"DisabledComponents"=dword:000000ff

;Disable Remote Registry Service
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RemoteRegistry]
"Start"=dword:00000004

;Disable Tablet PC Input Service
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TabletInputService]
"Start"=dword:00000004

;Turn Off Remote Assistance
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Remote Assistance]
"fAllowToGetHelp"=dword:00000000

;Enable more simultaneous downloads for IE to 10 (default is 2)
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
"MaxConnectionsPerServer"=dword:0000000a
"MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=dword:0000000a

;END OF FILE

SECTION 8

Phew! Now Vista should be nice and smooth. After you install all your of software and games, make sure that that you use “Ccleaner” or an alternative to cleanup unwanted leftovers. You should also Defragment all your drives.

I did not post a “Services Section” because I only have a few services disable and I don't want to risk of having booboo's on my PC. You can consult Black Vipers Site if you feel like screwing around disabling services left and right.

In the mean time, have fun with your newly optimized Vista Installation.

Regards, Polarman.

 

[DrPepper]

Nice

I was thinking about doing something like this but yours is way better than mines would have been.

 

[Darknova]

You might want to explain a few things, like the "Disable transient multi-monitor manager to speed up boot times" and the "Reclaim lost disk space if you have Vista SP1/SP2 installed." bit, and what each one does exactly.

I don't know what either do, but I have a feeling the first one would be bad for me as I use 2 monitors, and from running the program in the second one it's telling me I'll never be able to remove SP2, which is currently a RC is it not? So that would be a bad thing.

 

[Polarman]

Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) is a Microsoft Windows Vista operating system feature targeted at improving the user experience of connecting and disconnecting displays, particularly for the mobile user. This is the 2-3 second delay followed by a blank black screen as Vista searches for monitor changes when you startup Vista.


The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Files Removal Tool (VSP1CLN.exe) can be used to remove the files that are archived after Windows Vista SP1 is applied. Running this tool is optional.

Installing Windows Vista SP1 increases the amount of disk space that is used by the operating system. This space is used to archive files so that SP1 can be uninstalled. Typically, you should run VSP1CLN.exe if you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1.

 

[Darknova]

Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) is a Microsoft Windows Vista operating system feature targeted at improving the user experience of connecting and disconnecting displays, particularly for the mobile user. This is the 2-3 second delay followed by a blank black screen as Vista searches for monitor changes when you startup Vista.


The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Files Removal Tool (VSP1CLN.exe) can be used to remove the files that are archived after Windows Vista SP1 is applied. Running this tool is optional.

Installing Windows Vista SP1 increases the amount of disk space that is used by the operating system. This space is used to archive files so that SP1 can be uninstalled. Typically, you should run VSP1CLN.exe if you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1.

So would disabling TMM affect someone such as me who always uses 2 monitors?

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Love the registry edits. I will be applying those to my mom's laptop and my Windows 7 desktop.

 

[Easy Rhino]

good job

 

[Lillebror]

Boot Vista with all available processors

1. Right click on the “start” menu and type “msconfig” Hit Enter.
2. Go to the “boot” tab and click “advanced options”.
3. Place a check next to the “number of processors” option and change the dropdown box to reflect the number of discrete processor cores in your computer. (Dual core = 2, Quad core = 4)
4. Hit “ok” to save.

Dont! Its ben proven loads of times, that it creates more problems than it helps. Vista isnt XP and vista knows how many cores\processors you got. Only use it, if your having problems with your other cores are acting weird, not getting anything to do, even if the program is writtin with more cores in mind and such.

 

[DrPepper]

Boot Vista with all available processors

1. Right click on the “start” menu and type “msconfig” Hit Enter.
2. Go to the “boot” tab and click “advanced options”.
3. Place a check next to the “number of processors” option and change the dropdown box to reflect the number of discrete processor cores in your computer. (Dual core = 2, Quad core = 4)
4. Hit “ok” to save.

I found that vista detects how many cores you have by default and this is only useful for creating unused cores. For example if you set it to 1 core the OS will only see 1 cpu.

 

[Darknova]

I found that vista detects how many cores you have by default and this is only useful for creating unused cores. For example if you set it to 1 core the OS will only see 1 cpu.

It's mainly for debugging, any "performance increase" has been proven to be a placebo effect.

 

[DrPepper]

It's mainly for debugging, any "performance increase" has been proven to be a placebo effect.

I was never sure of the purpose. I imagined it was for if you were running vmware you allocate that os one core.

 

[Darknova]

I was never sure of the purpose. I imagined it was for if you were running vmware you allocate that os one core.

It's for if you have problems with the OS not seeing cores, or in odd occasions seeing more cores than you should have. So you tell it you have a certain number of cores. It does nothing for performance at all.

 

[will]

Really good guide, thanks a lot.
For some reason though there is a space in your registry section in most the registry locations, i'm guessing that's not intentional! Here's an example (there's a space in CurrentVersion).

;SpeedUp folder browsing
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer]

Do you reckon you could upload the REG file or paste it in again please? Would probably be a lot quicker than me (and everyone else who uses it) going through and deleting the spaces! I'm asssuming those entries won't add to the registry because of the space in the path...

 

[Polarman]

Thx, But somehow they are fine when i use "Edit" Will upload REG file.

 

[kid41212003]

Good for laptop users with Vista .

 

[Darknova]

So would disabling TMM affect someone such as me who always uses 2 monitors?

Please answer me Polarman.

 

[Polarman]

Please answer me Polarman.

Try it out, see if it does anything to your dual monitor setup. If something goes wrong, re enable it.

Not a lot of people work with 2 monitors.

 

[Kursah]

I'm was actually kind of curious what I was going to see here, but Polarman, nice work. It's clean, easy to read and understand, get's straight to the point. I don't do all of those...I do a lot less in fact. Reason being, I've learned that the more you mess around with junk in the OS the more issues you have. Not saying any of the tweaks you have here are anything that will cause bad issues, I've noticed little to no difference and a an increase in stability by doing the following:

Install Vista x64 SP1, install drivers, get all updates, install Vista Manager, run file cleaner, reg cleaner, reg defrag (more on these later), and disable UAC and UAC notification, I know I can do these in Vista, but I do like the Vista Manager program, it works pretty well overall.

Reason I run the Reg cleaner and defrag was simple, i was getitng some random CTD's in games, some stupid app crashes, horridly long shudown/restart times, I ran these just for the hell of it, and voila, it was fast as heck. Event viewer no longer showed excessive app hangs, long shutdown times, startup times. I set defrag to run once a week on non 24/7 pc's or every day at 3am on 24/7 rigs. Though I do like your guide, this is by no way against it, I think you have done a good job sorting through a lot of the bullshit out there, though I would like to see a simpler run through...like I said that's a lot of stuff to do, and really a lot of it won't make a huge difference, but it could help later on if issues arise. Nice work.

 

[francis511]

Great guide. Blackviper`s site is down (think it has been for a while)

 

[Random Murderer]

*subscribed*
nice work!

 

[will]

Great guide. Blackviper`s site is down (think it has been for a while)

Really? It seems to be working for me...

 

[francis511]

Really? It seems to be working for me...

Just click the above link ?

 

[will]

Just click the above link ?

What http://www.blackviper.com/ ? It's working fine for me. Very useful site really!

 

[francis511]

Must be my browser or something.

 

[allen337]

Good post dont see a problem with any tweaks you use. ALLEN