Category: Windows Vista tips

What Makes Vista Worth It?

Paul

vista.pngThe majority of you told us that you prefer XP to Vista and that it’d be best if Microsoft extended its cutoff date for XP, but we can’t help but wonder if there’s something about Vista that’s worth your while. For those of you who have made the switch—or those who have been tempted—we’re curious what Vista features actually make the upgrade worthwhile for you. So let’s hear what you actually like about Windows Vista that you didn’t get from XP in the comments.

[Via LifeHacker]

I am curious as to who thinks Vista has become more stable, I have think it has become more stable and secure. What do people think got right your oppinions there.

Ways to improve Battery Life in Vista

Paul6 Replies


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

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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.

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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.

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

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Organize Your Files in Explorer with Stacks

Paul

We’ve heard plenty about Stacks in the upcoming Mac OS X Leopard, but what you may not know is that Windows Vista users have their own Stacks worth checking out. Weblog CyberNet takes a look at the new groups and stacks features in Vista, highlighting how the new Explorer features can improve your file organization.

If I were to stack files by name, they would appear almost like they would with a group, except none of the file names are actually shown [see screenshot]. Instead you’d double click on the stack that you want and it will open up all of the corresponding files. The more files that correspond with a particular stack, the larger the “stack icon” will be.

Essentially, stacks offer a simple method for grouping similar filetypes so you can quickly narrow down the file you’re looking for by weeding out all the rest. The post describes in more detail how Vista’s new drop-down file organization options bring handy new levels of organization to your Explorer window. If you’ve got your own favorite Explorer view, let’s hear about it in the comments.

Windows Explorer Groups and Stacks in Vista [CyberNet]

Nice tip for Windows Vista, I’ll have to try this out!!