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Here are some tweaks that I find useful for Windows Vista SP1

Tweak-to change slightly, esp. in order to make something more effective or correct.
-get the most out of, make optimal.

Optimize-modify to achieve maximum efficiency in storage capacity or time or cost.

Tweaking Windows Vista SP1

Important Notes On Tweaking & This Guide

1)Tweaking is best done on a fresh install.

2)Get as much memory (RAM) as you can afford. RAM is fast and Vista will take advantage of it.

3)Use 2 or more hard drives. This will speed up access to files and provide a good backup
location

4)Proper Hard Drive Configuration, Properly setting up your hard drive(s) allows for both increased performance and reliable backups.

5)Maintain Your Computer. Disk cleanup and defrag is the fastest and easiest way to speed up your computer.

Vista SP1 Cleanup

Once you’ve installed SP1 and everything is running well, AND you are absolutely 100% sure you do not want to uninstall it, AND you have backed up your system… You can run this command vsp1cln.exe.

This will allow you to reclaim significant disk space. To do this press the Windows + R keys and type vsp1cln.exe in the run box. or if you prefer using the command line: press the Windows + R keys and type cmd then type vsp1cln.exe.

“Windows Vista SP1 File Removal tool (Vsp1cln.exe). Vsp1cln.exe is an optional tool that you can run after you install SP1. This tool removes older versions of components that have been updated in SP1, which are stored during the installation in case you need to uninstall SP1 later. Saving these older components increases the amount of disk space that is used. 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. Note, however, that you cannot uninstall SP1 after you run this tool. You can use this tool both online and offline, but you must have SP1 installed and you must use the correct version of the tool. If you are running this file on an offline image, you should use the Vsp1cln.exe included in the Windows OPK or AIK. However, if you are running this file online (on a computer that you are booted into), you should use the Vsp1cln.exe file located at %windir%\system32\vsp1cln.exe.”

Auto Login

Redundant warning #1…Having a machine set to automatically login is a serious security risk, especially for laptops. You’re on your own…

Press the Windows + R keys > type netplwiz > uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer. > in the resulting screen pick the appropriate User and type in the password and click Apply.

The Sidebar

This can use a significant amount of memory and some gadgets eat RAM wholesale. I have a couple of gadgets installed and often I use the Sidebar. But I don’t want it to start automatically. If you want to keep it from autostarting:

Right-click in the Sidebar area and choose Properties > uncheck Start Sidebar when Windows starts.

You can start it any time from the run box. Press the Windows + R keys and type sidebar.

Turn Off System Sounds

What this does is disable the Sound Scheme. The sound scheme contains things like the sound you hear when you click on something. I’m really not concerned so much with the resources it uses but I just find the sounds to be annoying. Either way…
Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel (or Start > Control Panel) > Sound . Click on the Sounds tab. First save your current scheme, click on the Save As… button, enter a name, I used “1″, and click OK. Next, in the upper most box, click on the arrow on the right side and choose No Sounds and click Apply at the bottom, right.

Visual Effects

Press the Windows + Pause Break keys > in the left pane click on Advanced system settings.
In the resulting window, in the Performance section click the Settings… button.
In the Visual Effects pane check your options. I uncheck all except:
-Enable desktop composition
-Smooth edges of screen fonts
-Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop
-Use Visual Styles on windows and buttons
Click Apply

Disable Transparency

This can make Aero a little “snappier”. Right-click in an empty space on your desktop, choose Personalize > click on Window Color and Appearance > uncheck Enable transparency. While you’re there you can change the look of Aero by choosing a color, I use Graphite.

Disable Aero

While most of you know the key to tweaking a machine for performance involves the culmination of numerous tweaks I feel I should inform you that many benchmarks have shown no real correlation between disabling Aero altogether and increased performance. I do not disable Aero.

Right-click in an empty space on your desktop, choose Personalize > click on Window Color and Appearance > click on Open classic appearance properties for more color options > under Color scheme: choose Windows Vista Basic > click Apply and OK.

Turn Off Indexing or Configure which drives you want indexed

Warning - One of the touted features of Vista is its Search feature, messing with Indexing will hinder this ability.

I must confess I’ve never understood the fascination with searching or search tools. The better solution is to organize your data from the start.

Once organized you can tell each program where to put files (via preferences). i.e. - All pics go in the Pictures folder, all mp3’s go in the Music folder, etc.

A couple of notes:

1 - Many people have noticed a lot of “disk activity” or “disk thrashing” in Vista. Disabling this will stop SOME of this activity but NOT all. Other Vista services like Prefetch and ReadyBoost account for some of this

2 - Disabling Indexing does not mean you can’t use Windows Search but it does mean searches will take more time.

The fast way to disable all:

Disable the Windows Search service (Start > Run > type services.msc)

Disable Indexing on selected drives:

Click on Computer. Right-click on any drives/partition you do not want Indexed.

In the General pane uncheck Index this drive for faster searching, click Apply,

In the resulting window choose Apply changes to drive X:\, subfolders and files, click OK

Click OK or Continue for any pop-ups, and ignore all for any error messages.

I did this for every drive.

Make Sure Your SATA Drives Are configured For Max Speed

Vista doesn’t always set all the performance options to maximum for your SATA drives.

To set all the options to max, open device manager. Press the Windows + R keys and type devmgmt.msc > expand the Disk drives section by clicking on the plus sign > double-click on the drive you want to configure the click the Policies tab > Check the Optimize for performance button > Check both the Enable write caching on the disk and the Enable advanced performance boxes. See the warnings about power loss? They are there for a reason.

Make Sure Your External Drives Are configured For Max Speed

This tweak isn’t as important unless you are constantly writing/reading to/from an external drive.

Press the Windows + R keys and type devmgmt.msc > expand the Disk drives section by clicking on the plus sign > double-click on the drive you want to configure the click the Policies tab > Check the Optimize for performance button.

Move Print Spool Directory

For most people this tweak works on the machine that the printer is physically attached to.
This tweak is most effective if you move it to a separate drive from your OS, preferably the first partition on that disk or the second partition on that disk if you are using the first for your page file.

from the classic style menu:
Create a new folder on that partition called PrintSpool > now go to START > Printers > click on File at the top left of the window >

scroll down and click Server Properties > click on the Advanced tab >
type the COMPLETE path to the PrintSpool folder you just created (i.e. - D:\\PrintSpool)

from the default style menu:

Create a new folder on that partition called PrintSpool > now go to START > Control Panel > Printers > click on File at the top left of the window >
scroll down and click Server Properties > click on the Advanced tab >
type the COMPLETE path to the PrintSpool folder you just created (i.e. - D:\\PrintSpool)

Stop Security Notifications

In the Notification Area (bottom-right where the time is), right-click on the Security Shield and choose Open Security Center.
In the left pane of the resulting window choose Change the way Security Center alerts me,
choose Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon

Don’t Monitor Specific Events

Must be done from regedit

Reg Values:

; 00000000, or 0 = On, 00000001 or 1 = Off, Off means do not monitor

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Svc]
“AntiVirusOverride”=dword:00000001
“AntiSpywareOverride”=dword:00000001
“FirewallOverride”=dword:00000001

Disable Windows Defender

Go to Start > Programs > Windows Defender > Tools > Options > Uncheck everything, especially Use Windows Defender.
Click Save.

You need to do this before you disable the service or else you’ll generate an error.

Reg Value:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender]
“DisableAntiSpyware”=dword:00000001

Turn Off System Restore

Be sure you have another backup/restore option BEFORE you do this. Disabling System Restore means that you will not be able to use Shadow Copies or Driver Rollback. See Windows Vista Backup Strategies For Home Users for more info.

Press the Windows + Pause Break keys > in the left pane click on Advanced system settings.
In the resulting window, switch to the System Protection pane.

Uncheck all drives.

A pop-up will happen asking “Are you sure…”,click Turn System Restore Off, the click Apply.

Turn Off or Configure Automatic Updates

There is no sense in having Windows incessantly checking for updates. Microsoft releases their updates on Tuesdays and usually once a month.

If you are a Geek and hit the tech sites often you’ll know when updates are released and you can update manually. Non-Geeks should use the second option.

The Page File

1. The average user is best served by LEAVING THE PAGE FILE ALONE. Vista does an excellent job of managing the page file settings for most people.

2. For 99.999% of the configurations on the planet you need a page file. Vista itself wants one and a number of programs out there do too. If you think you can run your machine optimally without a page file you do not understand how Vista (or any NT based OS works).

3. The recommendations below are not designed to give you the highest scores on a synthetic benchmark but to give you the best overall performance for your system (including stability). The size of hard drives today are huge and making the page file a little larger than it “needs” to be hurts nothing and you’re covered if you’re ever doing something that requires more.

One hard drive:

If you only have one hard drive or your other drives are significantly slower than your OS drive.

1 - Leave it alone. (recommended)

2 - Make it static. Vista has the ability to resize the page file on the fly if need be (usually it isn’t). If the page file is resized and then later returned to normal your disk may become fragmented. (please note I said “disk” not “page file” and “may” not “will”) If you have the disk space and you’re anal about such things you can adjust the minimum and max to the same setting. The size (min and max) should be whatever the Recommended: size is in the Virtual Memory window.

Two hard drives:

The second drive should be near as fast or faster than the OS drive or there is no reason to do this.

Make 2 page files, one on the OS drive, one on the first partition of the second drive. The sizes should be at least the size of the amount of memory you have. For 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.

CFW 5.00 M33-3 changes:

• A bug was introduced in 5.00 M33-2 that made some games and homebrew not to work.
• PSN version check is now automatically bypassed without need of touching any setting.

If under various circumstances you had to install a second Windows OS on the same system, you should have already met the dual boot option. For those who do not know, the dual boot option appears when two or more Windows systems reside on the same computer at the same time. It will pop up before booting the system permitting the user to select which OS will boot.

This option is very useful for those who own computers with older mainboards that do not provide a quick boot selection option. Newer motherboards have this option by default and whenever two or more operating systems are available, you can simply press an F key which will determine a Bios window to emerge offering you the possibility to select the desired drive to boot.

I must confess that I am a fan of the quick boot option provided by these motherboards. In case I want to format the second HDD that stores the second Window, I can do it without needing to edit the dual boot option. Just removing the second OS won’t determine the dual

boot option to disappear.

It will be still shown before booting although there is just one OS available. Very unpleasant I can say.

My advice, in case you want to use only the quick boot option (not the dual boot), is that when you install the second OS, make sure you remove the IDE/SATA cable for the HDD that holds the primary Windows. Because of this, the installation won’t detect that you already have a primary OS installed and won’t enable the dual boot option. Otherwise, the cables plugged into the primary HDD will automatically enable it.

Boot.ini, the house of the dual boot option

Boot.ini is a system file found in the system root. Because it has a major importance for the booting process, Windows developers gave it hidden, system and read-only attributes. Don’t worry though, you can easily view it and even change the attributes by yourself. Just go to My Computer/Windows Explorer > Folder Options > View and check “Show hidden files and folders”.

How to edit Boot.ini

Let’s assume that you have the dual boot option enabled and because your second HDD broke down or you simply formatted it losing the second operating system, you want to get rid of the dual boot option. To do it, you need to edit the Boot.ini which can be done in multiple ways.

Manual edit using the notepad or any other text editor

Being a plain text file editor isn’t a big deal, as all it takes is a simple text editor. Therefore, the common Notepad provided by my Windows would be more than enough. First of all, remove the read-only attribute because you need to save the file after you have edited it. Because we are dealing with an important system file and any mistake would lead to the impossibility of booting the system, be smart and make a backup copy. In case something happens, you can copy back the file from another source such a floppy, USB flashpen or other HDD.

Comfortable method to change the “timeout”

When the dual boot option works, you are provided with a timeout in order to select the desired OS. By default, this timeout is 30 sec. If no OS is selected, after 30 seconds, the primary Windows will boot. In case you consider the timeout too high, you can lower it.

Go to Start > Run and type msconfig. Once the system configuration window pops up, you will notice that Boot.ini has its own tab. Select that tab and where you see “timeout,” set it to a lower or higher value.

Remove/Add Operating Systems in the dual boot menu

This is the main issue. How to remove a dual boot option from the menu? Right click on My Computer icon and select Properties. From the properties window go to Advantage > Startup and Recovery > Settings. Here, you can both edit the timeout value and modify the Boot.ini file by clicking Edit. If you remove the second operating system from Boot.ini, the dual boot option won’t appear before booting.

Don’t forget to backup the file in any situation. It will keep you out of trouble!

Source :http://news.softpedia.com/news/Manage-Remove-Multi-Boot-Option-45811.shtml

Sony Releases Firmware 4.01…
4.00M33 Custom Firmware by Dark-Alex end of this Week…

You can now grab firmware 4.01 via Network Update

Whats on this firmware?

- Display of search results under Internet Search has been
improved for certain languages.

- Playback of video content under Video has been improved for
certain file types.

Source : www.dark-alex.org

Digitalmasacre can help you solve just about any technical issue. We’re also pretty good at being a shoulder to cry on and lending a friendly ear.

So give us a call,send us email,send us txt msg,we’re ready when and where are you: at your office,in your home,or in any other location as long as its reachable to us.

Surprise, surprise… this is Digitalmasacre’s number-one area of expertise. We do it all. Here’s a small smattering of how we can be of service.

* Computer and peripheral setup
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* Advice on the best system for your needs and much, much more…

Click computer services tab for more info. Thanks…

some of my works are posted below check it out!

Click here for our support forum or click on tesda tech forum under blogroll.

Just posting my old video card
its a Leadtek A6600gt with Jetart vc2600 copper installed
and Arctic silver 5 thermal compound applied.
lots of memories with this card. rock solid!
this one beats the hell out of the old ATi 9800Xt!

Hello all!!!, I Assembled Cari’s mid range gaming pc
last night for a cheap price :). It took me some time to wire the thing,PSU cables are
long. Components on this pc are available locally if you know where to find them. Well here are the specs

Worth- 28k service fee not included

AMD Athlon X2 6000+ 3.0Ghz
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Mainboard
Inno 3d 8600GT 256mb DDR3(no other brands available)
Corsair XmS2 DHX DDR2 800 2×1gb dual channel mode
Silverstone ST56F 560watt PSU
LG 22x DVD burner
seagate 250gb 7200rpm barracuda
seagate 80gb 7200rpm barracuda
Generic(orient brand) Casing

Thanks Cari,
Another Happy Customer!!!
Happy Gaming….

Here are the pics:
Camera used:Canon Eos 350D Digital @high settings 8mp
due to server space limitation I resized the pics to 800x..

DigitalM

Tired of getting viruses from USB external drives?
well just download this program here from microsoft
called tweak UI and disable the “Auto play feature” of
all drives available from A to Z.

How to get rid of the virus?
since autoplay is already disabled,you can
open My Computer and look for the drive
and scan with you antivirus software manually
and delete whatever malware,virus etc..
is in there.Hope this helps.

Mozilla Firefox seems to be bloated that it has become slower. Maybe it’s because of all those themes and plugins we all install. My Firefox have over a dozen active add-ons already and perhaps these 3rd party extensions are the ones making the browser a little buggy than ever.

However, I heard that Firefox was built with the intention to be optimized for slow systems and even slower internet connection.

So, instead of tweaking the browser configs manually (by typing about:config in the address bar), here’s my recommendation:

DOWNLOAD HERE!

FireTune for Mozilla Firefox v1.x / 2.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts. Usually you have to optimize Firefox manually, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune helps you here - it includes all the performance optimizations. The only thing you must do is: make your selection. FireTune does the work for you.

According to your specific computer speed and internet connection speed, FireTune will optimize several internal settings of Firefox for better performance. FireTune does NOT modify the Firefox executable, or any other Firefox binary file. Everything can be undone easily provided you saved your original profile configuration file with FireTune’s profile backup feature before.

This is our work/playstation.This is the place where we usually spend our time when we’re at home.