Vista..what an abomination..anyway to tone it down?

[MadSkillzMan]

so, my friend brings me her brand new Hp laptop teling me, well, it sucks.

And i get my first taste of vista. Microsoft. What the hell?

I mean theres the dreaded microsoft protection center i recall from XP Sp2..what do you guys suggest i do with it? im afraid turning it off is gonna screw it up more, but at the same time im certain its just taking up resources..

And how do i tell it shut up once and for all? EVERY DAMN THING I DO! it asks me am i sure! YES IM SURE thats why i did it in the first place!

Is there a tutorial somewhere? You know how they used to teach you to strip down windows 2k3 and such..cause the only impression i got was its slow, buggy and unusable. Heck if she had XP64 id throw it on here!

Lets not even get into how she cant get photoshop CS3 to work, or many other expensive apps.

Just an FYI, in the computer world, im still in the ages of Windows XP SP1, which is when i left..and after seeing vista, god im glad i did. Gotta tell ya im thinking of getting linux on there and seeing if CS3 can run under cedega or something..

sorry for the rant guys. Im sure its what youd expect from a longtime mac user, just wanting stuff to work! But for her yea, id like to get this working like oh say, a normal computer. Boots up in under say 10minutes?

thanks in advance

 

[aja]

Haha I am in exactly the same boat as you, except that I have two laptops to cure!

The boot time thing seems to get better though. I think it has to index everything or something. Leave the lappy on for a few days should help...

 

[vixro]

vlite vlite vlite!

The question and answer for every step is UAC, easy to disable!

Also feel free to disable whatever you want in the security center. There is an option on the left hand side that allows you to change how it alerts you, you can set it to never alert you.



Stop by the vista reference thread. It has answers to many Vista questions and many many tips and tricks to make it better:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=499694

 

[phantasm]

The laptop takes 10 minutes to boot? What are the system specs? I just installed Vista on my desktop (rig in my sig) and it boots quicker than XP sp2 did.

 

[mblue]

You disable security item just the same way you did in XP, the UAC has already been mentioned. Also, not to be an ***, but if you look at adobe support it takes and 20 seconds to find solutions for it and Vista.

Frankly, I've had my share of issues with Vista and had to get a different AV program, but all in all it was less painfull than 98se to XP Pro.

I will admit that my hp laptop that has Vista on it worked better after I formatted it and install Vista HP without all of the HP extras. Of if you use the id number provided by you will have to call MS, but if you explain what you did they will allow you to activate it.

 

[Captain Newbie]

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Oh, but seriously...

I wouldn't turn off UAC. Apparently that's the new cornerstone of Windows security, which is the -only- -real- reason to buy Vista. Turning off security center notices is good (I think I do that on my Windows box too), but leave UAC and the firewall switched on.

 

[aja]

http://www.ubuntu.com/

A very large +1 hehe

 

[funnyperson1]

If it doesn't have a discrete video card, turn off Glass, or some of the animation effects.

Get 2GB of ram if she doesn't have it already.

The real problem with UAC is that the programs and users are still doing things the old way. For example programs will try to save config files to their Program Files directory instead of a hidden file in your user directory. Users will try to save files to places outside of their userspace.

UAC in and of itself isn't broken, in fact it does exactly what Linux does, except it asks you to click instead of asking for a password. The difference is that Linux applications are smart enough to save their internal files in your home directory, and the users have gotten used to the idea of saving everything to their home directory. There are many apps like Outlook and Firefox that save their crap to the Application Data folder, but the majority of Windows applications don't.

Turning off UAC and the Security Center warnings is fine, assuming your friend isn't dumb enough to open the "heyhotty.exe" files she gets in her email. Both antivirus and spyware protection are unnecessary if the user is semi-intelligent and lets their webbrowser/os auto-updates do their thing. It also helps if you have a software firewall and a hardware firewall (at least a router).

A quick search should get CS3 working.

 

[Automata]

Oh, but seriously...

I wouldn't turn off UAC. Apparently that's the new cornerstone of Windows security, which is the -only- -real- reason to buy Vista. Turning off security center notices is good (I think I do that on my Windows box too), but leave UAC and the firewall switched on.

Serious????

I find it the most annoying part of vista...

do you want to create this folder? ...yes
do you want to rename this folder? ....yes, I just created it...
do you want to create this folder? ....yes!!
do you want to rename this folder .....why are you asking me???
do you want to run "internet explorer", it may cause harm to your computer ....WTF???...yes
update.microsoft.com has been blocked for attempting to install an activex controller ....is this a hint from MS? Blocking themselves ON THEIR ON OS??

STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS

For the "normal" user (computer illiterate), UAC is priceless. It will be very hard to mess it up. But for "power users" (read: ocf), it is the dumbest thing they could have done

It has its place, but not on my computer.

 

[Captain Newbie]

The real problem with UAC is that the programs and users are still doing things the old way. For example programs will try to save config files to their Program Files directory instead of a hidden file in your user directory. Users will try to save files to places outside of their userspace.

Believe it or not...strongly agree

UAC in and of itself isn't broken, in fact it does exactly what Linux does, except it asks you to click instead of asking for a password. The difference is that Linux applications are smart enough to save their internal files in your home directory, and the users have gotten used to the idea of saving everything to their home directory. There are many apps like Outlook and Firefox that save their crap to the Application Data folder, but the majority of Windows applications don't.

Oh, and Linux apps -don't- require administrator access to do everything...I actually think most of Windows insecurity is the result of a few things:
- stupid OS design (lack of effective privilege separation)
- stupid app design because of stupid OS design

For the "normal" user (computer illiterate), UAC is priceless. It will be very hard to mess it up. But for "power users" (read: ocf), it is the dumbest thing they could have done

It has its place, but not on my computer.

"Power users" are actually the most unsafe kind.

 

[MadSkillzMan]

its a brand new HP Pavillion DV6500

She hasnt even done anyting on it! she just totally got discouraged when she tried to install something and it decided to play 20 questions.

 

[Automata]

"Power users" are actually the most unsafe kind.

Hey....

I'm a power user and my computer is more secure because I know what I'm doing

 

[Captain Newbie]

Hey....

I'm a power user and my computer is more secure because I know what I'm doing

Suuuuuure...

 

[vixro]

Disable UAC +1 if you know anything about computers. It's just a massive annoyance.

 

[dfonda]

Geez I thought I might try Vista out in preparation for Crysis, but I think I might just give up the DX10 for another 6 months or so.

 

[jimmsch]

V Lite will do away with any unwanted resource hogs that install with Vista. I tried it out as an experiment and it seemed to work rather well. I didn't get even one UAC question. From the above link you can access all tutorials and even a forum to ask questions.

They also have a similar tool for XP.

 

[e6600]

and try www.tweakhound.com
the best tweaks around for vista

 

[funnyperson1]

Believe it or not...strongly agree

Oh, and Linux apps -don't- require administrator access to do everything...I actually think most of Windows insecurity is the result of a few things:
- stupid OS design (lack of effective privilege separation)
- stupid app design because of stupid OS design


"Power users" are actually the most unsafe kind.

Well Linux currently gives an entire application root access when it is needed. Vista's UAC gives admin acess for specified actions (as I understand it). This is probably another reason why UAC pops up far more often than sudo requests. However from what I understand Linux, is moving towards this model (at least Fedora is) by implementing PolicyKit instead of gksudo.

http://people.freedesktop.org/~david/polkit-spec.html

It seems like a more secure model to ask for each administrator task, but is also more annoying.

Ultimate I feel the "Stupid OS design" doesn't apply to Vista's UAC, the stupid os design is that of previous MS operating systems that fostered this ecosystem where every program expects to have full access to the file system and registry. However, MS is expected to maintain backwards compatibility with these apps, and that has caused this mess.

Under the circumstances I feel that UAC is about as good as it could be. The only changes I would make is perhaps to elevate the entire program for a couple minutes like sudo does (I'm not going to lose my trust in a program in 4 minutes), and by default ask for a password (this is a setting that can be configured).

 

[WildMonkey]

I see vista as a HUGE scam! It's like charging everybody $200-$500 (more if it's a business) to upgrade to XP Pro SP3.

I don't like it one bit. Not really worth it.

 

[shadin]

I'm trying out vLite on another box, and it's fantastic. Got rid of Windows Defender, Movie Maker, UAC, Security Center, WMP, Sidebar Gadget, all the random crap that I don't want and/or need.