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Vista on Netbook: what services/etc to disable?


SRainharp

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Hi,

I'm running Vista on a netbook from 2009 with the following specs:

  • Intel Atom N270 @ 1.6Ghz
  • 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
  • 149GB SATA HDD (74.5GB for Vista and 74.5GB for XP)
  • Intel 945GM Chipset & GMA for specified Chipset (think 950?)

It's usable, but slightly sluggish - even a bit more sluggish at even FCEUX NES emulator than XP. Plus Vista is using about 400-500MB RAM when idle. I'm using an ISO that was updated to April 2017, Ultimate to be precise. I've installed WiFi (AR9285) and Intel GMA drivers. I want to keep the sidebar and Aero Glass on (I use the former because I like to subscribe to my own board's RSS feed and the latter because the performance impact of it is next to nothing here), but would like to disable unnecessary services and other things that gobble up CPU/RAM usage and HDD writes. Obviously don't want to go completely barebones, just disabling stuff like update services etc.

Any tips/hints? Thanks ^^

(And don't tell me to use Windows 7, that was even worse on here.)

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Why didn't you go for home premium or business? ultimate might add unneccesary stuff that might hog up a bit extra memory and processing, also you might want to get Windows 2008 Updates to be secure incase you're going to be using the internet for browsing or watching videos or anything related , although dont get the Spectre Updates if you decide to get the updates , it cuts around 25-30% cpu speed and considering you're already on 1.6ghz you wouldn't want that, It might a bit offtopic to what you asked but just a suggestion 

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I've followed most of that guide and got the RAM usage at a minimum idle of 322MB, and a rough average of around 406MB idle, I'm aware Vista handles applications RAM a d*** lot better than XP (even out of the box) does thanks to Superfetch and other things, but it just needs tweaking a little for services I suppose compared to XP.

I also bought a 2GB RAM so that should help further. Should I increase the paging file size to 4GB in that case?

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45 minutes ago, SRainharp said:

 I'm aware Vista handles applications RAM a d*** lot better than XP (even out of the box) does thanks to Superfetch and other things, but it just needs tweaking a little for services I suppose compared to XP.

Hmmm. :dubbio:

http://www.jucs.org/jucs_18_2/performance_evaluation_of_recent/jucs_18_02_0218_0263_martinovic.pdf

Quote

In comparison with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 have plenty of new features and enhancements in parts of the OS that mostly impact the performance: memory management, CPU scheduling, the display architecture, HDD management and network optimization. Our performance measurement results show that in all tested environments, in most performance measurements these new features and enhancements do not result in better performance.

Quote

The obtained experimental results lead to the conclusion that, contrary to our expectations, Windows 7 and especially Windows Vista do not provide a better overall performance on the high-end computer system compared to Windows XP. Some performance improvements can be seen in memory management and graphics display, but other parts of these OSs have equal or lower performance than Windows XP.

jaclaz

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In your particular case @SRainharp I would disable Superfetch, but keep Prefetch.  Vista was slow in relinquishing RAM used for cache to be available for applications.

HOWEVER - do not disable the Superfetch service.  Instead, go to the registry and change it there.  Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

Change EnableSuperfetch to "0".  Now restart Vista.

By the way, I don't charge "cache" for my advice (har hardy har har) :p

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've also rid of widgets, indexing (Windows Search Service) and Terminal Server.  But remember, I vLite'd my installation DVD.  I also run Ultimate, but mine probably runs just as well as Home Premium or something lesser.  And I didn't want to worry about CPU or Aero restrictions on "junior" versions.

 

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2 hours ago, SRainharp said:

That's what I was referring to! ^^

Not really, you were explictly referring to Superfetch, which - as Jody just posted (for  free[1]) - would be the first thing to disable. :whistle:

 

jaclaz

[1] and with my personal endorsement and cachet  (har harder har har) :P

 

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  • 1 year later...
On 9/3/2018 at 8:26 AM, Jody Thornton said:

In your particular case @SRainharp I would disable Superfetch, but keep Prefetch.  Vista was slow in relinquishing RAM used for cache to be available for applications.

HOWEVER - do not disable the Superfetch service.  Instead, go to the registry and change it there.  Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

Change EnableSuperfetch to "0".  Now restart Vista.

By the way, I don't charge "cache" for my advice (har hardy har har) :p

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've also rid of widgets, indexing (Windows Search Service) and Terminal Server.  But remember, I vLite'd my installation DVD.  I also run Ultimate, but mine probably runs just as well as Home Premium or something lesser.  And I didn't want to worry about CPU or Aero restrictions on "junior" versions.

 

@Jody Thornton

Hi, Jody,

  I took a vanilla Vista x64 SP2 ISO and slipstreamed all updates from 2007 through 2020 into it using vLite.

The process took 7 hours and vLite, and in the end, I got a 5.9 GB ISO that didn't work. Once I get to the screen where you would pick the OS, it just says:

Windows cannot open the required file D:\Sources\Install.wim

The file may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files available for installation are available, and restart the installation.

How did you do your vLite slipstream? I injected around 450 updates, and I'm not sure what to do now. I certainly don't want to have to manually install them all!

Thanks!

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@Dylan Cruz, My slipstream was only done with Vista updates up until February 2014.  I cannot speak to slipstreaming Server 2008 updates into the Vista installation DVD.  I was perfectly OK with manually installing updates post 2013.  So I won't be of much help I'm afraid,

 

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@Dylan Cruz I think @greenhillmaniac might be the person to summon (but perhaps I just did). I know he has said that USB 3.0 drivers cannot be slipstreamed, so he certainly knows more about it than I do. (My only Vista-compatible hardware already has Vista, and I have an image for backup, so not really concerned about a custom ISO.) One hunch: Server 2008's build number changed from 6.0.6002 to 6003 beginning with April 2019 updates, and later changes included SHA-2 support with servicing stack updates, so possibly March 2019 might be an easier target than January 2020.

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Just now, Vistapocalypse said:

@Dylan Cruz I think @greenhillmaniac might be the person to summon (but perhaps I just did). I know he has said that USB 3.0 drivers cannot be slipstreamed, so he certainly knows more about it than I do. (My only Vista-compatible hardware already has Vista, and I have an image for backup, so not really concerned about a custom ISO.) One hunch: Server 2008's build number changed from 6.0.6002 to 6003 beginning with April 2019 updates, and later changes included SHA-2 support with servicing stack updates, so possibly March 2019 might be an easier target than January 2020.

I've been trying to even get up through 2017 EOS, and that's proved difficult. This is the 4th time now that I've attempted to use vLite because the first 3 didn't work, and it takes 6-12 hours each time vLite runs to do the slipstream. Unbelievable slow.

I wish there was something like the Simplix pack for Vista. I used that and the boss911 script to slipstream updates from SP1, 2011 all the way through January 2020. Took 50 minutes, and the ISO worked perfectly.

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On 9/3/2018 at 12:12 AM, SRainharp said:

I'm running Vista on a netbook from 2009 with the following specs:

  • 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
On 9/3/2018 at 10:53 AM, SRainharp said:

I also bought a 2GB RAM so that should help further

18 hours ago, Dylan Cruz said:

I took a vanilla Vista x64 SP2 ISO

With a total sum of 3GB of RAM, I'd definitely opt for a 32-bit flavour of Vista, especially in the case of an under-resourced netbook; and, as advised already, I wouldn't go past Home Premium on that machine (the only thing I'm missing in HP is the Group Policy Editor :(... ).

Just my 2 cents...

 

Edited by VistaLover
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14 minutes ago, Vistapocalypse said:

Might be an imperfection in the list of updates you're going by then. Gee, you could've got those via Windows Update a lot easier.

Well, these 4 fail on vLite:

4537767
955430
4537810
4537822

Interestingly, 955430 is already in SP2, and SP2 ISO works fine, but this one causes issues when integrated apparently.

So no way to delete the 955430 update, but I'm redoing vLite once again with all updates through EOS except for the other 3. Hopefully the result is better!

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