The best way to speed up your PC is to give it more available memory—but freeing up as much of the memory you already have is cheaper and easier than cracking open your case to install a new stick of RAM. It takes a lot of memory to get a modern Windows system up and … well, not doing anything in particular, really. Between cryptic system processes, confusing “helper” applications, and background utilities, a whole lot of who-knows-what gobbles up memory and slows down your work. While a lot of programs claim to optimse memory use and pare down processes, Windows’ built-in Task Manager can do the job just fine, given the right tools and know-how. Today you’ll extend and empower Windows’ Task Manager to speed up your system by cutting out unnecessary memory hogs.
The How-To Geek blog points out a tucked-away trick in Windows Vista that lets you restart Windows Explorer—the file browsing and desktop display aspect of Windows—without hastily killing its process and potentially borking your session. The trick:Open the Start menu. Hold down the Control and Shift keys, and right-click on a blank space in the Start menu. Choose “Exit Explorer.” Open the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), navigate to File->Run, enter “explorer” and hit OK.
Why would you ever want to restart Explorer, you might ask? To try out new system modifications, for one, or try and rescue your desktop from crashing. In any case, the Geek’s method gives Explorer a chance to properly close down and protect against any strange occurrences down the road. Hit the link for details on the “Classic” method of performing this trick. Hidden Trick to Close Windows Explorer in Vista [The How-To Geek]
You may like having Vista’s pretty-fying Aero effects enabled while you’re working, but many modern games can make you want to devote every last bit of memory and power to their 3-D awesomeness. The How-To Geek shows how to easily disable desktop effects by editing (or creating) a shortcut for the game (or other program): Simply right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties, and then the Compatibility tab … Now on the Settings block check the box for “Disable desktop composition” in order to disable Aero the next time you use the shortcut.
I have to guess many people might have never found that tweak, based on its obscure label, but it sure comes in handy.
Easily Disable Vista’s Aero Before Running an Application (Such as a Video Game) [The How-To Geek]If you’ve taken control of your startup applications with the Windows stalwart, msconfig, you may have stumbled onto a new annoyance in Vista. When you block a program’s startup with msconfig, Vista displays a “Windows has blocked some startup programs” message whenever you restart the computer. The How-To Geek weblog details how to disable the annoying pop-up with a simple tweaking of the System Configuration Utility. Just right-click the blocked programs system tray icon, choose Run blocked program -> System Configuration Utility, and then tick the “Don’t show this message…” checkbox. Annoyance solved.
Stop the Annoying “Windows Has Blocked Some Startup Programs” Balloon [the How-To Geek]For the average Windows Vista session, the “Needs your permission to continue” prompts are just momentary, occasional annoyances which can be disabled or by-passed. But if you’re planning to do a lot of tweaking or installations, having a dedicated Administrator account—like the kind available in XP—can be mighty helpful. The How-To Geek blog shows how to enable (and disable) the account from the log-in screen:
Windows Vista only: I’ve recently engaged on a more serious foray back into the world of Windows Vista (turns out it’s not that bad), and one of the first sources of major confusion for me came the first time I tried to access the menu bar in the new Windows Explorer. Why? Because it’s not there. Luckily, if you’re big on the functionality therein, it’s not all that difficult to get it back. First, if you prefer the clean look without the menu bar, you can just tap the Alt key whenever you want to access the menu bar and it’ll pop up until you click elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want it back permanently, just click the new Organize button, then go to Layout, select Menu Bar, and voilà! Similarly, in Internet Explorer you can bring it back by going to Tools -> Menu Bar. Simple, but it was a major source of confusion to begin with. Thanks Adam!
Even with the specialised “files” sticking out of them, the folder icons on a Windows Vista desktop can be pretty hard to tell apart, and there’s no built-in OS X-like colouring application to aid quick location. The Dumb Little Man blog posts a dead-simple guide to overcoming look-alikes with custom icons. It’s fairly similar to how you do the same in Windows XP, but worth revisiting for a more navigable desktop.
Customize Folder Icons in Vista for Extra Fast Location Of Your Files [Dumb Little Man]If you’re familiar with putting your PC in Standby or Hibernate mode (and hopefully you know the difference), you probably know that both are anything but a sure bet. Dennis O’Reilly, blogger at CNET, runs through a few checks any Windows user should go through to make sure their computer slumbers when they want it to. Among the fixes are disabling the “Wake on LAN” setting in BIOS, pruning down scheduled tasks and modifying the properties of your mouse and keyboard. Not all of these tweaks are feasible for every system, especially business machines, but the post is worth a read for anyone struggling with their machine’s sleep disorders. Photo by Goldring.
Fixes for Windows standby and sleep problems [CNET Blogs]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 organisation. 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.
