Fresh Starts

[mikeyikeey]

Hey OS people!

I just reformatted my computer with Vista Ultimate (nothing new, used it for a year now) and I was wondering what should I have? Like, what are a few programs I can't live without?

Right now I've got Diskeeper, CCleaner, and CPU-Z. What else do I need?
Oh, and can anyone direct me towards a decent guide for processes that can be eliminated in Vista? I use it for gaming and would like to "cut off the fat" on this OS.

All your help is greatly appreciated!

 

[QuixoticOne]

GPU-Z, RealTemp, RivaTuner / ATI Tray tools / whatever, PowerShell, SyncBack freeware, SyncToy 2.0, Cobian Backup 9, FCIV, 7Zip, Flash 10, OpenOffice 3.x beta, Firefox 3.x, Thunderbird, new Drivers, all the updates, SP1 of course, useful text editor, ISO recorder or some CD/DVD burning program, Alcohol / Daemontools?, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, Adobe Reader (or something better).

 

[smb]

don't use Adobe Reader, use Foxit Reader.

 

[MTDEW]

Acronis True image to make an image of your clean install so you can restore the pc anytime you want.
VLC player(video lan), will play pretty much any video file you'll ever encounter without needing to install any codec packs.
Image Burn.

 

[mikeyikeey]

This all sounds good, but now may I request a tweakers guide to eliminate unnecessary processes and whatnot? Anyone know some good ones? Better yet, are there any here on the forums?
I know I have not come across anything.. but it sure would be helpful. 60 processes at startup doesn't sound very gaming friendly. When I first installed, it was down around 35-38!

 

[nerp]

Change your thinking.

You won't gain performance by disabling services.

Things you can safely disable: System restore (accept that if you have a glitch you might regret doing this) defender real time scanning (weekly scans are OK), security center (as long as you know what you're doing).

things like superfetch, the indexer, etc, use low priority i/o and will not affect performance. If an app like a game or something needs memory used by services, don't worry -- vista will give it to that game.

Vista is not windows 95. You really don't need to tweak the OS to have optimal performance. Just follow smart computing practices and focus on using the computer with an objective eye.

 

[Maximilian]

Yeah just leave the processes alone, only thing ive disabled is system restore as it was hogging drive space i needed. Theres a chance that you may want to do something later down the line that requires one of the processes youve disabled anyways and you may waste ages trying to figure out why the thing you want to do wont work.

 

[mikeyikeey]

Thats really something, thanks for your input guys. I'll leave the processes alone and see how the games play out.
Another question though.. I have windows dreamscene enabled, and it is obvious that this demands a lot of system resources. Once in a game, does it disable itself? Or is it taking away resources that could have been used for that game?

 

[MTDEW]

Originally posted by: mikeyikeey
Thats really something, thanks for your input guys. I'll leave the processes alone and see how the games play out.
Another question though.. I have windows dreamscene enabled, and it is obvious that this demands a lot of system resources. Once in a game, does it disable itself? Or is it taking away resources that could have been used for that game?

Good question, i never installed that on my pcs because i didnt know for sure either, so i'd like to know the answer to that also.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: mikeyikeey
Thats really something, thanks for your input guys. I'll leave the processes alone and see how the games play out.
Another question though.. I have windows dreamscene enabled, and it is obvious that this demands a lot of system resources. Once in a game, does it disable itself? Or is it taking away resources that could have been used for that game?

Yes, absolutely.

In fact just maximizing a window (that covers dreamscene) will cause it to stop using CPU cycles. Also know that it runs at a pretty low priority so as not to interfere. If you run something CPU intensive you'll notice dreamscene stutter before you'll notice your intensive task stutter. It's just visual fluff and the application was designed to know this.

My only gripe: the final version of it doesn't multimon..the betas did.

 

[mikeyikeey]

Man thats awesome, thanks Smilin. Now I have a cool looking AND smart desktop!
It would be pretty sweet if dreamscene were to run on multiple monitors too!
Anyways, thanks for everyones help!

 

[Smilin]

If you want to get the most out of dreamscene head over to stardock.

They have lots of extra dreamscenes as well as some sort of add-on for dreamscene that expands it's functionality somewhat (lets it run more filetypes).

Beware though: some "dreams" are very CPU intensive (40%) while some are nice and lightweight (5%). Seems to depend mostly on the way it was encoded and to a lesser degree filesize. The ratings/comments on them usually tip you off as to which are decent.

 

[mikeyikeey]

Thanks! Will do!