Menion

Yay! It actually works Thanks a lot Stead!

Hey! I am running Windows Vista x86 (build 6000) and I can't seem to install the WIM filter. I've tried to reboot several times and the driver (wimfltr.sys) is copied into the drivers folder (..windows/system32/drivers) but vLite doesn't recognize it. It always ask me if I've restarted after installed, which I've done. If I try to use NET STOP wimfltr it seems as if the service is running, because it say the service can't be stopped or paused. But I can't seem to find the service anywhere else. I've tried to install the filter in many different ways. Letting vLite install, install manually with .inf-file and so on, but nothing works! Anyone have a clue? Regards, Menion

Uhm. That's not a bug. It's a feature.... You can install Vista without entering a key for evaluation purposes (30 days). You won't be able to activate without a proper key. So, this was already known.

Well, I guess you don't a clue what you're talking about. One of the new features in Vista is symbolic links (NTFS Symbolic Links @ Wikipedia). All the old XP folders such as Application Data exists as symbolic links in Vista. Which means that for all old applications, all the folders from xp (Application Data, My Documents etc.) are still accessible. So what the heck are you ranting about?

This guide wasn't meant for you tweak services haters... As I clearly stated, you do it on your own risk. I gained a lot of performance and decreased Vista's RAM usage considerably, so what's wrong is wanting to share that experience and knowledge with the rest of the community? Come on. Get a room!

I've followed the guide myself, and my computer run so much better. I decreased RAM usage from about 480 to 330 after fresh startup. And that's noticeable. That's only from disabling services btw. Yikes. Against any tweaking at all? Well. ALOT of the services in Vista and XP aren't even used by us mortals, so why should they be enabled per default? I don't want to waste resources on stuff I don't use and never will. And that's pretty understandable, isn't it? Tweaking services is the same as overclocking. There's a risk, but it's worth the performance gain.

Windows Vista Services Tweak Guide v1.0 This guide is only recommended for power users. Inexperienced Windows users should NOT use this. It's also recommended that you have in-depth knowledge about network security. The guide is meant to be used with Windows Vista RTM build 6000. Beware: Disabling some of the services below may have a negative impact on your system/network security. I take no responsibility what so ever of any negative consequences these tweaks may have on your system, hardware or life. Use on your own risk. Disable the following services to improve performance and decrease RAM usage: Base Filtering Engine Disable if you don't use the Windows Firewall Diagnostic Policy Service Distributed Link Tracking Client Function Discovery Provider Host Function Discovery Resource Publication Human Interface Device Access Disable if you don't use/need hotkeys on your keyboard. IKE and AuthIP IPSec Keying Modules Disable to improve network performance and decrease RAM usage. Disabling will have a negative impact on network security. Internet Connection Sharing Disable if you don't need to share your internet connection. IP Helper Disable to improve network performance and decrease RAM usage. Will also disable IPv6 connectivity over IPv4. Might be useful in the future. IPSec Policy Agent Disable to improve network performance and decrease RAM usage. Disabling will have a negative impact on network security. KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator Disable if you don't use MSDTC and/or KTM. Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal Reader service This service is only available if Messenger Live is installed. Disable if you don't use Messenger Live's sharing folders. Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider Disable if you don't use MS Shadow Copy. Disabling will have a negative impact on system redundancy. Net.Tcp Port Sharing Service Disable if you don't use the Net.Tcp protocol (from .NET framework). Disabling will make .NET applications using this protocol not to function properly. Network List Service Disable if you aren't connected to a LAN with multiple computers or if you don't share files or printers through your LAN. Network Location Awareness Disable if you aren't connected to a LAN with multiple computers or if you don't share files or printers through your LAN. Offline Files Disable if you only use local profiles and aren't connected to a domain. Portable Device Enumerator Service Disable if you don't need to syncronize data with removable storage (such as mp3 players. This will not affect third party applications such as iTunes, only applications using this service, e.g. Windows Media Player). Program Compatibility Assistant Service Disable if you don't care about compatibility issues. (Running applications in compatibility mode will still function.) ReadyBoost Disable if you don't use this feature. Remote Access Connection Manager Disable if you don't use dial-up connections and/or VPN-networks. Routing and Remote Access Disable if you don't need to route network data within a LAN or WAN. Secondary Logon Disable if you don't need to login two users at once. Security Center Disable if you can take care of the system security manually. Server Disable if you don't share files and/or printers through LAN. Shell Hardware Detection Disable to remove autoplay functionality on removable media. SL UI Notification Service Disable. You can manually run this if it's needed for activation or other software licensing issues. Tablet PC Input Service Disable if you don't have a Tablet PC. TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Disable. Totally useless if you don't use NetBIOS (NetBT). Telephony Disable if you don't use dial-up connections. Terminal Services Disable if you don't use Remote Desktop. Disabling will improve system security. UPnP Device Host Disable if you don't need to host UPnP devices. WebClient Windows Defender Disable if you don't want to use it. Though, consider using third party anti-malware application if you disable it. Windows Error Reporting Service Disable if you don't use error reporting. Windows Firewall Disable if you don't use the Windows Firewall. Though, consider using third party firewall (hardware, software or router w/ firewall). Windows Image Aquisition (WIA) Disable if you don't use a scanner and/or digital cameras. Windows Media Center Extender Service Disable if you don't use Media Center extensions. Windows Search Disable if you don't want to use the advanced windows search feature with indexing (Normal search will still function, but is alot slower). Windows Time Disable if you don't want the clock to syncronize automatically. Waste of resources. Update clock manually. WinHTTP WebProxy Auto-Discovery Service Disable if you don't use applications which use the WPAD protocol (most applications don't). Manually enable if you need it. Virtual Disk Set as manual if you don't use Disk Management in the Computer Management console. You can manually start this service at any time if you need to use Disk Management. Volume Shadow Copy Disable if you don't use MS Shadow Copy. Disabling will have a negative impact on system redundancy. If you don't use the Aero theme disable the following services: Application Experience Desktop Window Manager Session Manager If you don't use themes at all, disable the following services: Application Experience Desktop Window Manager Session Manager Windows Themes Ok, that's all so far. If you have anything to add, just post a reply! Constructive feedback and criticism is also welcome. Request to be pinned!

Hey! I don't like the default aero theme, so I'm looking for a replacement, anyone know if there are any new themes for Vista yet? Since the uxtheme has been patched there should be themes to use with it, or? Regards, Menion

Processor: 4.2 Memory: 4.5 Graphics: 5.9 Gaming graphics: 5.5 Primary hard disk: 5.2 Pretty good for something that cost me less than $600 Next upgrade is CPU and Memory... The rest will hold out for a while. Cheers!

I've come up with a great solution that helps alot against fragmentation. That is, convert drives to dynamic ones, and then create partitions that you mount in folders that you use for different stuff... This is my setup: C: (10GB partition for system, drivers and such) - Not striped C:\Games (80GB partition for installed games) - Striped over 3 disks C:\Program Files (40GB partition for installed programs) - Striped over 3 disks D: (250GB partition I use to store my documents, ftp and other stuff that doesn't need to be defragmented very often) - Striped over 3 disks S: (3GB partition for swap and temporary only) - Striped over 3 disks The only partitions that really needs to be defragmented is C:, C:\Games and S:, all the others doesn't get fragmented alot and/or don't need to be defragmented. But this doesn't stop the system becoming bogged down (Windows have always been like this!!) So when it happends I just refortmat C: - use my nLited installation (install takes about 15 minutes) and just mount all the partitions to the right folders again reinstallation of most software goes really fast since all the files already exists and thus, installation just skip them. This means I won't loose any critical data (exept your current desktop, I am thinking about mounting the desktop folder into it's own partition as well, but it might be overkill!), since it's stored on different partitions... So I can reformat with ease! I also use striped partitions over 3 drives, which is very easy when you have dynamic drives. Even if my computer have crashed once in a while (due to OC:ing and bad drivers), and that I've reformatted about 6 times; I use the same striped partitions. They are still healthy and have never failed! So I must say that software striping is alot safer and stable than hardware striping, but software striping may eat cpu during hdd read/write-intensive tasks, and doesn't give the same performance boost, but it's cheaper and easier! Best regards, Menion

Hey! I get some stuttering because of dynamic texture loading and such, but that's quite common, and I can live with that! Would take insanely long time to load an area if everything was preloaded! Since I am on WinXP 64-bit I need to run in 32-bit emulation mode (Hoping for a 64-bit patch!), which give me a small decrease in performance, but only affects about 2-5 fps. Inside i have stable 40-60 fps, and outside about 15-40 depending on how many NPCs are on-screen at the moment. Regards, Menion

Hmm.. I don't use it never chose to install the drivers for it... I'm on NAT and have chosen to forward some custom ports to my internal IP, so it's not really needed... So if any hardcore hacker want to break in, I don't mind I don't have anything of value anyway! How do you know it doesn't show up when RAM is faulting? In my case it did.. Not always, but sometimes... I also got this error when I was OC:ing my GPU as well, but then it pointed to the nvidia-driver so It was pretty easy to understand why it happened. http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.html There it says that mostly it's the CPU, but secondly RAM, so I guess you're wrong ;D Regards, Menion

Haha ok! Luckily I've never used it and probably never will... I got nVIDIA firewall instead

cpuz says that they are running in dual channel mode Man... This is so weird!

Then why use it? I found some nice tools, both command-line utilities and gui-based ones that can handle both 32-bit and 64-bit files... You can find them here: Haventools Maybe could use it? Regards, Menion

Hello! About 3 days ago I bought some new hardware for my computer... Athlon64 3200+ GeForce 7600GT MSI-motherboard SLI-ready Because I already have 2 x 512MB memory modules and the motherboard supported them, I decided to wait with memory upgrades until I really needed it. Well... This proved to be a bad decision, and a pain in the arse! Here goes: First off, I reformat and installed Windows XP Professional (32bit), everything goes smooth; without a glitch. After installation is finished I install all the latest drivers and a couple of games to try out my new rig that supposedly would be mindblowing compared to my old one. Now it gets interesting... Every game hung the whole computer after a couple of minutes. Oblivion even hung the computer as soon as 3D-graphics were displayed, some other games could run longer but eventually hung as well. And after I was forced to do a hard reboot, a second problem appears; bios freeze during post, right after the cpu-info was shown... This motherboard have some diods that show bios posting status, but according to the manual they didn't show any error at all?! Uhm... Took some time for me to solve the bios posting problem, it's hilarious, but it had to do with my ipod being plugged into the usb. Something made the bios hang when looking for usb keyboard, and found ipod instead. Unplugging ipod, solved the bios freeze, and the computer posted as normal. Now to the first problem again, computer still hangs up in games and programs using 3d-accelerated graphics. First I thought it had to do with the graphic drivers, so I tried a couple of other drivers, but still no luck. Then I thought it might have to do with the graphic card itself... Now I noticed I got bluescreen and not always freeze... The bluescreen would show an error message I haven't seen in many years, basically "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" WHAT?! IRQ conflicts in Windows XP?! I've never experienced that before! So, I disabled all controllers (in bios) and devices I didn't use to free up some IRQ-adresses, but still get bsod or just plain freeze. What the heck? After a couple of hours of testing I decided to troubleshoot the hardware once again. This time I took out one of the memory modules... Guess what?! No bsod! No freeze! Woohoo! Finally... But this means I only got 512MB, which will not be even close to what I need for the games I want to play, and would result in HDD swapping madness! Anyway, to be sure the memory module was damaged I installed it into my other computer, and it worked like a charm! What is this?! After reformatting again, and installing Windows XP Pro 64-bit, I wanted to give the failing memory module another chance; just to get bsod and freeze again! Just to spice things up, as a last resort, I did the opposite what the manual said... These memory modules are not identical and should not be run in dual channel mode, but what the heck, doesn't hurt to try?... God bless curiosity! IT WORKS! No bsod, no freeze... And I even run them in dual channel mode, which means more memory bandwidth!!! So, finally after many hours and even days of testing I can play all the games I want without crashing! I must say that this problem, and not to mention the solution, is illogical, and I can't find any explaination for why it's working in dual channel mode and not in single channel mode, even if the modules aren't identical. I guess earth is flat, after all! Just wanted to share this story, I think it's kinda fun! Maybe some of you have been struggleing through a similar hell! Best regards, Menion

Hello! I am trying to use the XPize install wizard to make an XPized version of Windows XP Professional 64-bit. However, this does not seem to work. I've looked through the forum about this, but haven't found any answers or fixes as of yet. The installation will not recognize the folder (where I've put all the contents for the Windows installation) as being a valid Windows installation. EDIT: What I found out is that XPize do not have support for 64-bit yet? So this question goes out to XPero, have any plans to implement support for 64-bit, and if so, do you know when it will become available? Regards, Menion