A bunch of Vista 64 questions

[pm]

I upgraded to Vista Ultimate x64 and I am generally pleased - especially once Apple released an iPhone 64-bit driver a few weeks ago. It's been stable, seems fast - especially to boot - works well with my hardware and generally hasn't given me much trouble (aside from #2 below).


1. Is there any way to run Aero and change the taskbar color scheme away from the grey-ish black? If I personalize the task bar, I often seem to lose Aero.

2. Is there any way to remove "Favorite Links" from the left-side bar in the Windows browser?

3. About once every 20 minutes or so I get a ~7 second pause in games and apps while my hard disk goes to 100% (HD LED is solid red). The computer essentially freezes solid - I can't do anything at all. Since it's a solid freeze, I can't alt-tab and check Task Manager. So I just wait it out. It's rare - it doesn't happen every 20 minutes like clockwork, and some nights I don't see it at all. I see it in all applications - games, even Explorer and Firefox. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. It will even happen while the machine is essentially idling.

I've never seen anything like this in XP - so it's likely not a hardware issue. I'm not overclocked, I'm using a workstation-grade motherboard and ECC-protected memory. My hard disk is a new Hitachi 750GB with SMART and no issues (I've checked). I have a E6600, 4GB of ECC-protected DDR2, a DFI 975X motherboard. Since Vista is relatively newly installed, there's not many apps running. The only two that I have aside from Vista apps are Avast and 64-bit iTunes helper-stuff. I've not tried disabling them, but aside from trying it without these, does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of this freeze? It's REALLY annoying in games.

4. I frequently use the Root directory (ie. C:\) to save files (it's fast to type). I realize it's a security risk, but is there any way that I can get Vista to avoid asking for permission every time that I add or delete a file to C:\?

5. Lastly, is there any way to download the release candidate of Vista SP1? I checked the obvious. (Google, Microsoft) It looks like MS removed the links. I wanted to see if it fixes #2.


Thanks for any help or advice.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: pm
I upgraded to Vista Ultimate x64 and I am generally pleased - especially once Apple released an iPhone 64-bit driver a few weeks ago. It's been stable, seems fast - especially to boot - works well with my hardware and generally hasn't given me much trouble (aside from #2 below).


1. Is there any way to run Aero and change the taskbar color scheme away from the grey-ish black? If I personalize the task bar, I often seem to lose Aero. Don't know 😛

2. Is there any way to remove "Favorite Links" from the left-side bar in the Windows browser? Right click on the Taskbar, Properties, uncheck Show Quick Launch
EDIT: I guess I misunderstood the question - sorry!

3. About once every 20 minutes or so I get a ~7 second pause in games and apps while my hard disk goes to 100% (HD LED is solid red). The computer essentially freezes solid - I can't do anything at all. Since it's a solid freeze, I can't alt-tab and check Task Manager. So I just wait it out. It's rare - it doesn't happen every 20 minutes like clockwork, and some nights I don't see it at all. I see it in all applications - games, even Explorer and Firefox. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. It will even happen while the machine is essentially idling. Disable Drive Indexing

I've never seen anything like this in XP - so it's likely not a hardware issue. I'm not overclocked, I'm using a workstation-grade motherboard and ECC-protected memory. My hard disk is a new Hitachi 750GB with SMART and no issues (I've checked). I have a E6600, 4GB of ECC-protected DDR2, a DFI 975X motherboard. Since Vista is relatively newly installed, there's not many apps running. The only two that I have aside from Vista apps are Avast and 64-bit iTunes helper-stuff. I've not tried disabling them, but aside from trying it without these, does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of this freeze? It's REALLY annoying in games.

4. I frequently use the Root directory (ie. C:\) to save files (it's fast to type). I realize it's a security risk, but is there any way that I can get Vista to avoid asking for permission every time that I add or delete a file to C:\? Disable UAC, get a solid AntiVirus/Internet Security like Norton 2008

5. Lastly, is there any way to download the release candidate of Vista SP1? I checked the obvious. (Google, Microsoft) It looks like MS removed the links. I wanted to see if it fixes #2. Wait until February 27th - I am...


Thanks for any help or advice.

Hope this helps a little...

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: pm


1. Is there any way to run Aero and change the taskbar color scheme away from the grey-ish black? If I personalize the task bar, I often seem to lose Aero.

Not that I know of out of the box, though you might want to try WindowsBlinds, version 6.0 of which is Vista Compatible and will allow you to tweak the way the OS looks to your heart's content.

2. Is there any way to remove "Favorite Links" from the left-side bar in the Windows browser?

In any Windows explorer window, click on 'Organize > Design (or maybe Layout? My version of Vista is not in English 🙂 )' and then de-select the 'Navigation Panel' option. This screenshot should give you a clue. 🙂

3. About once every 20 minutes or so I get a ~7 second pause in games and apps while my hard disk goes to 100% (HD LED is solid red). The computer essentially freezes solid - I can't do anything at all. Since it's a solid freeze, I can't alt-tab and check Task Manager. So I just wait it out. It's rare - it doesn't happen every 20 minutes like clockwork, and some nights I don't see it at all. I see it in all applications - games, even Explorer and Firefox. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. It will even happen while the machine is essentially idling.

This is odd; I've been gaming for over 8 months on Vista 64 exclusively and have never encountered this. How long have you been using Vista for? If your install is fresh, it might just be the indexing that's hogging the I/O, but even then, it should be a low priority task which shouldn't affect your usage. It might be a crap driver or even a hardware issue that hasn't popped up in XP yet. In my experience Vista is much more sensitive to bad hardware than XP, and that includes overclocking. I really had to tweak my OC after upgrading to Vista.

4. I frequently use the Root directory (ie. C:\) to save files (it's fast to type). I realize it's a security risk, but is there any way that I can get Vista to avoid asking for permission every time that I add or delete a file to C:\?

My suggestion would be not using C: to save files. I normally use the desktop to dump all my files and then organize at the end of the day. In my opinion UAC is better left activated. It's not as intrusive as one would think and SP1 makes it even less so.

5. Lastly, is there any way to download the release candidate of Vista SP1? I checked the obvious. (Google, Microsoft) It looks like MS removed the links. I wanted to see if it fixes #2.

You know, just earlier today I installed the latest refresh from here, but now the site is unavailable...my guess is that they just pulled it today since RTM is ready.

 

[apoppin]

You want to change the color scheme? ... just choose a background picture
type in "personalization" into search

oh ... the Task Bar 😱
... letsee, right click on it, properties, Task bar - how do i customize the taskbar?

You can customize the taskbar so it is automatically hidden when you're not using it. You can also move it, resize it, or put shortcuts to your favorite programs on the Quick Launch toolbar, which is located on the taskbar.

nope 😛


as to your errors .. could be a HW problem ... did you look to see all your drivers are *signed*?

.. Windows has some really advanced diagnostics ... you might try MS tech support

and you don't have to pretend you like Vista64 to get help here
😀

HOLD THE PHONE ... i was RIGHT ... personalization

i have a BLUE taskbar

"Color and appearance"

now it is bright Red ... you can even adjust the "intensity" and enable transparency ... and aero works fine
:roll:

sorry ... i get a little carried away with these ... little things

 

[Mem]

About once every 20 minutes or so I get a ~7 second pause in games and apps while my hard disk goes to 100% (HD LED is solid red). The computer essentially freezes solid - I can't do anything at all. Since it's a solid freeze, I can't alt-tab and check Task Manager. So I just wait it out. It's rare - it doesn't happen every 20 minutes like clockwork, and some nights I don't see it at all. I see it in all applications - games, even Explorer and Firefox. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. It will even happen while the machine is essentially idling.

Thats not normal for sure,couple of things you could try like disable Defender.

As apoppin already meantioned look in Control Panel anything listed under problems/reports?...

It could be either hardware or software issue,however I would try changing the IDE/SATA drivers and see if that helps.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

YGPM.

 

[Tachyon74]

Originally posted by: pm

3. About once every 20 minutes or so I get a ~7 second pause in games and apps while my hard disk goes to 100% (HD LED is solid red). The computer essentially freezes solid - I can't do anything at all. Since it's a solid freeze, I can't alt-tab and check Task Manager. So I just wait it out. It's rare - it doesn't happen every 20 minutes like clockwork, and some nights I don't see it at all. I see it in all applications - games, even Explorer and Firefox. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing. It will even happen while the machine is essentially idling.

I've never seen anything like this in XP - so it's likely not a hardware issue. I'm not overclocked, I'm using a workstation-grade motherboard and ECC-protected memory. My hard disk is a new Hitachi 750GB with SMART and no issues (I've checked). I have a E6600, 4GB of ECC-protected DDR2, a DFI 975X motherboard. Since Vista is relatively newly installed, there's not many apps running. The only two that I have aside from Vista apps are Avast and 64-bit iTunes helper-stuff. I've not tried disabling them, but aside from trying it without these, does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of this freeze? It's REALLY annoying in games.

One other thing to try is to turn off System Restore. Indexing tries to stay out of your way, and once you've had the system running for a while it won't need to do too much of it, but System Restore still seems to pick lousy times to run.

I am also doing Vista 64 bit on the new compy, and i'm suprised at how well its working so far. Only a few old games have not worked (so I keep XP on another partition)

 

[loup garou]

As for your file saving dilemma, you could use the subst command to map a drive letter to your \users\documents folder, but you'd need to create a startup script for it to be persistent.

Perhaps someone with more experience can chime in if Vista's symlinks makes does sort of task differently/more easily/safely/securely? I haven't investigated it yet.

 

[ChronoReverse]

System restore has some pretty funky run times, the most egregious being at boot time (wtf MS). Goto the the task scheduler and disable schedule for boot time System restore and maybe edit the other one to have a longer idle delay before running (and set it to 3AM or something).

As for Favorites, right click and remove/delete.

For the colour of the task bar, start=>personalization. Adjust the Aero colour.

Finally, if you REALLY REALLY REALLY want to have easy write to c:\, you can adjust the security settings to include full RW priveleges to your user account. I REALLY REALLY REALLY recommended you at least use something like c:\tmp instead though.

 

[pm]

A huge thank you to everyone for these very helpful replies! Yet another example of what a great group of people post here at the AT forums. :thumbsup:

1.
Thanks for the suggestions on the Taskbar personalization. I couldn't figure out how Apoppin suggested doing it (but I really messed with the Vista customization stuff and made my Vista look like Windows 2000, so things aren't where they usually are for everyone else). Windowsblinds is working great though - it's fun to play with too.

2.
Thanks, Noema, that worked! 🙂 I don't normally have those tabs shown so that's why I didn't see it. Thank you.

3.
I have drive indexing disabled. I've been running Vista for... about 3 weeks I think. It's a new install, on a blank/clean hard disk. I'm using signed drivers for everything that I can think of - but I'll check this. As I recall, the only drives that I had to install were my printer and my video card and I used the signed drivers for both. But I'll double-check this.

Is there a way to list out unsigned drivers?

The idea of looking in the Vista status logs is a great one. I'll do that tonight.

4.
I'm "old school" in a lot of things - which I guess is a sign that I'm old. I still put applications in various directories (like if it's a game, it goes in "C:\Games\<game name> rather than C:\Program Files\<game name>", or if it's a Security program, it goes in C:\Security\<name> just like it did back when I was running Windows 3.11 or when I was running DOS. The first thing that I did when I got Vista was make it look like Windows 2000. It must be the old-dog-new-tricks thing because I always like my latest copy of Windows to look like the one that I was using 9 years ago, only work better.

All that said, everyone's comments about learning a better way to save files are good suggestions. Rather than disable UAC (I'm actually running UAC "lite") or create links, I'll just shove everything in C:\tmp instead. Thank you all for your suggestions.

5.
Bummer that I missed the boat on the RC of SP1 by a few hours yesterday. 🙂 I'll wait it out like everyone else, I guess. They are saying mid-March from what I've read. Seems like a long time.


Thank you all again for your replies.

 

[apoppin]

Thanks for the suggestions on the Taskbar personalization. I couldn't figure out how Apoppin suggested doing it (but I really messed with the Vista customization stuff and made my Vista look like Windows 2000, so things aren't where they usually are for everyone else). Windowsblinds is working great though - it's fun to play with too.

i am on the default aero scheme with the "Start Search" .. to find "personalization" you would type P-e-r-s [until it comes up] into "start search" and it will narrow down your search. You will then click on "personalization" and then "Windows Color and Appearance" and finally "change the color ... of the Taskbar"

don;t worry about not having SP1's RTM ... most of it is available in hotfixes and and from MS Windows update

make sure you check these out - several are critical for memory management in gaming applications:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945149

updated^> *start here* http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945149
and look at "what others are D/L'ing" ... i got about 7 of 'em for each OS

this thread may interest you ... as a gamer

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2144497&enterthread=y

 

[Modelworks]

I think the thing that interest me most about sp1 is they tossed the vista kernel and replaced it with the same one from server 2008.
Its actually got me looking serisouly about going back to vista x64

 

[stash]

I think the thing that interest me most about sp1 is they tossed the vista kernel and replaced it with the same one from server 2008.

The kernel wasn't "tossed" 2008 and Vista were developed in parallel, and they share the same code base. When Vista was released, Longhorn/Server 2008 (still in development) had the exact same kernel. Since 2008 was developed for another year+, there were incremental changes made to the kernel. SP1 just gives them a chance to resync everything, for supportability purposes.

This is why when you look at the system info on a 2008 box, it says SP1. 2008 RTM is SP1, since it is in sync with the Vista SP1 code base and vice versa.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: stash

I think the thing that interest me most about sp1 is they tossed the vista kernel and replaced it with the same one from server 2008.

The kernel wasn't "tossed" 2008 and Vista were developed in parallel, and they share the same code base. When Vista was released, Longhorn/Server 2008 (still in development) had the exact same kernel. Since 2008 was developed for another year+, there were incremental changes made to the kernel. SP1 just gives them a chance to resync everything, for supportability purposes.

This is why when you look at the system info on a 2008 box, it says SP1. 2008 RTM is SP1, since it is in sync with the Vista SP1 code base and vice versa.

Ok, so they made incremental changes to the kernel.
Its still not the same kernel that it shipped with.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Which is the same with XP. SP2 certainly isn't the same kernel as the original one shipping.

@pm
You shouldn't turn off Aero without good reason. GDI is no longer hardware accelerated in Vista so using it will slow your system down. As long as you don't have memory shortages (e.g., you're running lol 512MB RAM) and you have a GPU that can handle it, Aero should be kept on. Feel free to turn off stuff like transparency, transitions and fades of course. Just keep Themes and Desktop Composition turned on.

 

[Lord Banshee]

#1, unless i am miss-understood the question , isn't this what you want to do?
1) Right click desktop
2) Click personalize
3) Click "Windows Color and Appearance"
4) Change the colors to your heart's desire (click "show color mixer" for more options)

But in the end, the task-bar still tends to have a darkish color with it.

#2, you can change what is in there or remove everything and just make the folder pane take up most of the area. edit links inside C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Links
or
http://windowshelp.microsoft.c...-244ab61585e11033.mspx

#3, Hmmm this isn't good at all and not normal as others stated. My first guess would be ide/sata controller drivers, then a program that is acting funny windows defender as others have said too. The only think i can think of is open task manager process tab and view all processes from all users and see what is going on when it happens, or better yet look at the resource manager and see even more detail.

#4, not sure without turning off UAC. You could always put a folder inside C that is just a simply name like temp. So you can use C:\Temp\*** and it will not ask you for UAC as much if at all.

#5, i have yet to successfully install any of the SP1 release, it always fails at the end. So when the full version comes out i will have to do a reformat, but that is ok been running vista very nice for a long time so i am sure i have a lot of stuff i should get rid of anyway (spring cleaning) 🙂

good luck,
Chris

*Edit* Sorry i see that other have answer some of these questions but in different ways 🙂

 

[stash]

System restore has some pretty funky run times, the most egregious being at boot time (wtf MS). Goto the the task scheduler and disable schedule for boot time System restore and maybe edit the other one to have a longer idle delay before running (and set it to 3AM or something).

System Restore doesn't run right at boot. By default it will run 30 minutes after bootup and at midnight.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Yes, it's delayed by 30 minutes. Arguably that's even worse since to the user it seems as if the system suddenly grinds to a halt while the hard drive starts churning.

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: ChronoReverse
Yes, it's delayed by 30 minutes. Arguably that's even worse since to the user it seems as if the system suddenly grinds to a halt while the hard drive starts churning.

It's configured to only run if the system is idle for 10 minutes, so the behavior you describe should not be happening. If it is, it isn't SR.