Category: UAC

Ways to improve Battery Life in Vista

Paul


Turn off Sidebar:
Turning of the windows Sidebar helps with performance and reliability of Vista. Some people tell me it is nice to have that up. I say this, it’s using system resources and isn’t going to help you out when you’re running on a battery. Here is how you do this:
Control Panel>Classic View>Windows Sidebar Properties


[ad]Check your Power Plan when you are on battery:
Doing this will help you with your battery power. By making sure your got your CPU on power Saver when on battery power you will save battery life and will give you more time to use the laptop.

Control Panel>Classic View>Power Options


Change windows for Performance:

By changing Windows Aero to look like basic you can boost your battery life by not using any unneeded video acceleration. Doing this will save your battery and will give you 30 more minutes on your battery. It’s 4% to 5% battery increase but all this will make your battery last longer.
Control Panel>Classic View>Performance Information and Tools>Adjust Visual Effects

As you can see, if you like some of the effects, you can customize it to your liking, but keep in mind the more you use the less your have on battery life. It also affects your system speed, so you may want the computer speed so keep the appearance to a minimum.

Turn off UAC:
UAC has been nothing but trouble for me so I’ve just turned it off, I suspect it is also helping my battery but I am not going to hazard a guess on how much.
Start Menu>type>Msconfig on the Search bar. run the Msconfig and then you go to: Select Tools Tab, then find Disable UAC and double click it. Reboot and you no longer have UAC.

Download Battery Saver:

Downloading Battery Saver will let you pick when and how to deactivate some of these things when you unplug your power cable. This little Utility comes with a lot of possibilities. It allows you to decide when to deactivate Windows Aero and Sidebar which helps on battery life.

There are several other things to consider when you’re trying to save battery power:

Turn off all unnecessary programs in the background.

Dim your LCD by hitting the Function Key + Left Arrow several times.

This also will improve battery life by not draining it. It will dim it to the lowest setting and will extend the battery.

[ad]

These tips will improve your battery life in Vista but I do not know by how much time will be extended. I hope these tips will help you out when it comes to using your laptop out in the wild and not wanting to worry about time. Let me know what you think and I’d like to hear all the comments. Enjoy

UAC Discussions and Tips

Paul

As many of you know, if you bought Windows Vista you’ve had this annoying little pop up for User Account Control. It darken}s the screen and only allows you to continue if you select OK or you can always Cancel. I find it waste CPU cycles, and Resources. I’ve been reading about a program called:

[TweakUAC] — TweakUAC(TM) is a free software tool that you can use to quickly turn UAC (User Account Control of Windows Vista) on or off, or to make UAC operate in the quiet mode.

This little program lets you make it quite, I’ve found that quite mode doesn’t do me any good because it makes you still have to click ‘OK’ on a lot of system level programs. Like Regedit.exe, and MsConfig.exe. This can get annoying if you are using you system for more than just day to day routines. I also find that if you use common sense you won’t have to have UAC on at all. That’s right I have turned my UAC off on windows and have no viruses or problems yet that have been associated with turning it off. I find most of the time people ignore the UAC and gets to used to it to prevent Viruses or Spyware. It’s all about getting to used to the UAC and ignoring all the warnings.

If you’re like me and want to disable UAC without downloading any programs check out my previous post on how to do it at:

Ways to improve Battery Life in Vista

People also say don’t use an Administrator account, Well I’ve been using an Administrator account for the past year and half. I’ve had no problems doing it, it’s all about how you use your account.

Now if you want to know about security and how to protect yourself you should read my other post:

Some Important programs to prevent yourself from having viruses and Malware!!

This little post talks about ways to prevent viruses and Malware a.k.a. Spyware. I have had great response on that little post. I will be later on this weekend posting ways to use Vista safely. If you have any ideas or want to help provide avenues of discussion please leave a comment.

How to Gain Access to a Windows User Account

Paul

At some point or another in a PC technicians career, a client is going to forget their Windows password and its up to the computer technician to fix it. Essentially, we have to break into the clients computer for them. This is how we do it.

Note: These steps are designed for advanced computer users, and are not fluffed out explaining how to do simple computer tasks. These steps are also intended for breaking into a computer that you have permission to do so on. It is a offense to break into a computer if you are unauthorized. Besides, karma will get you if you do.. it always does.

How to Gain Access to a Windows User Account using Safe Mode:
The easiest way to gain access to a Windows based machine is to go into Safe mode. To get into Safe mode do the following steps:
While the computer is powering up, before the Windows logo screen, keep pressing F8 and you will be presented with some choices on how you want to boot. Choose Safe Mode.

Goto Start > Run and type: control userpasswords2

This will bring up a User Accounts screen. Select the user account you want access to and press the “Reset Password” button.

Resetting a User Account Password. Click Reset Password

If the above didnt work for you. Try this step again but instead untick “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” and click Apply.

No Passwords to Logon

The system will then ask you what username you want the system to logon as by default, you can just leave the password blank or put something in if you want.

I found this and thought I’d blog about it. I know people might not want to know how to but it is a very useful tool when you have to reset someones password. Check the full article out at technibble.

SUMMARY: Vista – a 50/50 proposition.

Paul

Many readers remember when Prescott came out – basically Intel hit the wall with Prescott, with cooling issues severe enough to render this CPU as a problem. Fast forward and now we see CPUs where raw speed is not the paramount issue and cooling is not as severe a challenge as with Preshott – a decided marketing shift from the horsepower race.

I think it’s fair to ask if Microsoft has in fact hit the wall with Vista – an operating system that has garnered decidedly mixed reviews with users. There are a number of factors cited:

* The need for LOTS of RAM
* UAC (User Account Control)
* Lack of driver support (improving over time)
* Problems with legacy devices
* Cost of hardware upgrades to make Vista run well
* Minimal performance difference between Vista and XP

I say we know how this turns out mostly people don’t like Vista and would like XP a whole lot better. I actually agree to Vista not being totally up to the challenge. I say XP has a lot on it’s side!!