Originally Posted by Andy Can't believe you bogarted my thread title! Typical Winders user, have to copy everything that Mac does

Yep. Copy and improve!

Originally Posted by Pupator You're welcome. I'm a big PSP advocate as well. I've been using it since version 4 and am now on X2. (I was happy with XI, but with coupons was able to upgrade to X2 for $30, so I figured "Why not?," ya know?) Don't forget to offer your Vista tips and tricks as well!

Unfortunatly I don't have any tips or tricks because I'm a newbie.
I'm 50 yrs old and bought my first computer this year I pretty much had to because I replaced my 35mm camera with a DSLR last year.

Originally Posted by Pupator Yep. Copy and improve!

you mean like flip3d improves expose? Or like the inexplicably annoying 'cancel or allow' box improves the 'enter your password' box?

I run 3 monitors and sometimes it takes 5+ seconds to display the UAC prompt, during which my screens are totally black and the PC is unresponsive. There has to be a better way to handle that prompt than to take a screenshot to use as the background. It just gets too slow with lots of screen.

Not to mention that the UAC box pops up 2 or 3 times during an application install. I've already authenticated this. Bug off. Install and let me do something else.

I enjoyed using vista for a while...until I started doing work on it. Now its like using one of those 3rd world/no child left behind computers.

I can't wait till my Mac Pro gets here.

Originally Posted by jdmphoto It's nice to see that there are other pleased Vista users out there. I got my new Dell with Vista home premium in march and have been pleased overall. As far as organizing photos,making slideshow DVD's Ilike it, I don't have photoshop but use Paint Shop Pro XI and works for my needs so far. Thanks for the tips.

I agree! I've really enjoyed using it so far. I know it does take up more resources, but the way I see it if you have a computer that can process RAW photos at a decent clip it can probably run Vista ok! As far as teh whole Mac vs Windows thing goes, I tried out Mac, but I just couldn't get into it. It just seemed to spartan for my customizing madness! Not to mention the games. Yeah, gaming on Mac leaves a lot to be desired!

Originally Posted by bigwebguy I run 3 monitors and sometimes it takes 5+ seconds to display the UAC prompt, during which my screens are totally black and the PC is unresponsive. There has to be a better way to handle that prompt than to take a screenshot to use as the background. It just gets too slow with lots of screen. Not to mention that the UAC box pops up 2 or 3 times during an application install. I've already authenticated this. Bug off. Install and let me do something else.

Great learning opportunity here. Some people are frustrated by the User Account Control prompts (Allow or Deny popup when you perform a function that requires administrator access.) If you are generally computer saavy you'll survive just fine without UAC. Make sure you realize, however, that once you've turned it off, Windows will no longer warn you when you are performing administrator activities (like installing or uninstalling programs). So make sure if you turn it off that you pay attention in making sure that nothing gets installed while you're surfing online that you aren't aware of!

To turn it off:

• Go to Control Panel
• Go to User Accounts
• Click on "Turn User Account Control On or Off"
• Uncheck the box and click "okay."
• Don't restart just yet! Instead click on the red "X" box that has now appeared in your taskbar (down by the clock!)
• When the security essentials box pops up click "Change the way security center alerts me."
• Click "Don't notify me, but display the icon." This will prevent annoying bubble tips of "User Account Control is disabled"
• Restart

I hope we can keep the "Get a Mac" posts to a minimum at least in this thread. Andy and I were poking fun at one another, as indicated by the smilies.

Originally Posted by Pupator So make sure if you turn it off that you pay attention in making sure that nothing gets installed while you're surfing online that you aren't aware of!

Good advice. One good way to handle administrative privileges is to create a separate administrator user account. Many operating systems come pre-configured with an admin account, but I don't know whether Vista does. The admin account has all the confirmations turned off. You login as admin when you need to do configuration changes, but use a normal account the rest of the time. That will protect you from nasty stuff out on the Web as well as accidental damage that you can do after one too many glasses of Chardonnay. All professional computer systems are managed this way.

Originally Posted by rsinmadrid Good advice. One good way to handle administrative privileges is to create a separate administrator user account. Many operating systems come pre-configured with an admin account, but I don't know whether Vista does. The admin account has all the confirmations turned off. You login as admin when you need to do configuration changes, but use a normal account the rest of the time. That will protect you from nasty stuff out on the Web as well as accidental damage that you can do after one too many glasses of Chardonnay. All professional computer systems are managed this way.

This is sort of what MS intended with the User Account Control. Instead of issuing a "sudo," you click a box. Switching accounts would be one option, but they figured (I assume) that it would be more annoying to do that than to click a box from time to time. So when you try to do something that requires administrator priviledges, a box pops up to tell you that they're required and to allow or deny the action. This is most noticable (the only time I've turned it off) when you're installing or uninstalling a long list of programs because it will come up twice for each install or uninstall (first to allow the execution of the installer/uninstaller; second to make sure you know what is being installed).

Originally Posted by Pupator Great learning opportunity here. Some people are frustrated by the User Account Control prompts (Allow or Deny popup when you perform a function that requires administrator access.) If you are generally computer saavy you'll survive just fine without UAC. Make sure you realize, however, that once you've turned it off, Windows will no longer warn you when you are performing administrator activities (like installing or uninstalling programs). So make sure if you turn it off that you pay attention in making sure that nothing gets installed while you're surfing online that you aren't aware of! To turn it off: Go to Control Panel Go to User Accounts Click on "Turn User Account Control On or Off" Uncheck the box and click "okay." Don't restart just yet! Instead click on the red "X" box that has now appeared in your taskbar (down by the clock!) When the security essentials box pops up click "Change the way security center alerts me." Click "Don't notify me, but display the icon." This will prevent annoying bubble tips of "User Account Control is disabled" Restart I hope we can keep the "Get a Mac" posts to a minimum at least in this thread. Andy and I were poking fun at one another, as indicated by the smilies.

Turning off UAC sort of defeats the purpose. I was torn on whether to turn it off or not but decided to leave it enabled to get the true Vista experience. It's one of the more maddening things i've ever experienced using a computer.

My smiley was there wrt my mac comment . If you enjoy the Vista, more power to you!

Originally Posted by rsinmadrid Good advice. One good way to handle administrative privileges is to create a separate administrator user account. Many operating systems come pre-configured with an admin account, but I don't know whether Vista does. The admin account has all the confirmations turned off. You login as admin when you need to do configuration changes, but use a normal account the rest of the time. That will protect you from nasty stuff out on the Web as well as accidental damage that you can do after one too many glasses of Chardonnay. All professional computer systems are managed this way.

I run my Mac this way and I had my Vista box configured this way for a while but ran into problems with creating shortcuts and default execution paths. Authenticating with UAC as Admin instead of my own account (even when logged in to my account) would put shortcuts on the Admin desktop and would default saved files to the Admin profile. This could be because the application was doing something stupid or an early bug with UAC, I'm not sure because I just gave up and made my own account an Admin.

Originally Posted by bigwebguy I run my Mac this way and I had my Vista box configured this way for a while but ran into problems with creating shortcuts and default execution paths. Authenticating with UAC as Admin instead of my own account (even when logged in to my account) would put shortcuts on the Admin desktop and would default saved files to the Admin profile. This could be because the application was doing something stupid or an early bug with UAC, I'm not sure because I just gave up and made my own account an Admin.

It doesn't surprise me. Microsoft has never been known for elegant design. They aren't too bad at evolving things till they work, though, so maybe they'll get it to work smoothly eventually.

Originally Posted by Andy Can't believe you bogarted my thread title! Typical Winders user, have to copy everything that Mac does

Except the outrageous pricing.

Alright, alright - we've all gotten our Vista vs. Mac OSX laughs in - now let's get this thread back on track!

Ya the fanboy comments are beyond old.

The mac pc debate will rage on forever or until one of the two go under (which ain't hapening in our lifetimes).

While there are some inherant issues w/ Vista. Go ahead and tell me that OS X 10.0 wasn't riddled w/ problems in 2001. I had to install it 4 times just to get OS X up and running on my mac.

Please.. Give it a rest...

In the following link, you will see how Vista turns on many applications that allot of people don't use. This is so that in the case that you DO use it, it will be "plug and play".

There are a bunch of great tips here. It does recommend turning down some Aero functions, but that's part of the reason I like Vista so much! So I leave all my Aero settings maxed out.

http://thehiddenguide.blogspot.com/2...un-faster.html

-Jon

Good find! Turning off services you don't use is a good way to reduce overhead (though it's not much, but still...)

From the above link:

How to disable Windows service open up the service window click start then Run type services.msc click ok to disable service right click and choose properties then from the properties window Edit start up type and choose disabled and press ok Some of this service are not useful for most users and it can be disabled Windows Time Maintains date and time synchronization on all clients and servers in the network Print Spooler Loads files to memory for later printing Note: if you don't have printer you can disable this service Tablet PC Input Service Enables Tablet PC pen and ink functionality Note: if you don't have tablet pc you can disable this service IP Helper support for IPv6 Note: IPv6 is not used right now you can disabled this service Readyboost Provides support for improving system performance using Flash Memory as cashing memory to improve the system performance Note: If you planning not to use Readyboost disable this service Routing and Remote Access Offers routing services to businesses in local area and wide area network environments Note: if you don't use VPN you can disable this service Offline Files you can disable this service if you don't use Offline Files Distributed Link Tracking Client if you have only one computer you can disable this service, if you are on network you won't be able to access to other computers Shell Hardware Detection Provides notifications for AutoPlay hardware events. you will no longer see pop up when you insert device ec (e.g USB , Camera ) Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) Provides image acquisition services for scanners and cameras Note: you can disable this service if you don't use camera or scanner on your computer Windows Error Reporting Service Allows errors to be reported when programs stop working or responding and allows existing solutions to be delivered sometimes it can be annoying when every time program stop working , if you get tired of this warning you can disable this and you will no loner see warning message

Originally Posted by Pupator Alright, alright - we've all gotten our Vista vs. Mac OSX laughs in - now let's get this thread back on track!

Fine What the heck is this:

Yikes.

All kidding aside - it's a Mac/Boot Camp/Parallels (whichever it is) error. Not only is that error non-standard to a Vista user, but even the language is Apple and not Microsoft.

"mount" "initialization of file system" and the red stop sign are not native to MS Vista.

(You know me Andy, I'm not poking fun at Apple in this - just trying to be helpful.)

It's likely related to the different filesystems used by OSX and Vista (NTFS vs. ???) but I have no idea what the solution would be (other than to do as the prompt suggests and increase the timeout length.)

Originally Posted by HarlanBear 1. My monitor profile, calibrated using Spyder 2 Express and set as default, does not always load up on first booting the computer. It will finally load if rebooted, but is inconsistent. I usually “close” the computer at night using Sleep mode, so this isn’t a big deal. But comes up when new programs are introduced and need to reboot.

I have a similar issue. Running an HP Vista laptop, I have two monitors (lappie and external) profiled using the latest version of ColorVision's software. Every single time the computer is locked, Vista (I assume) re-profiles my monitors back to their original horrible state. I have to run Profile Chooser and re-select the proper profiles for each monitor. It's maddening. Anyone have a solution?

Originally Posted by HarlanBear Except the outrageous pricing.

I just wanted to say that for systems with similar specs, macs are actually CHEAPER than PC's. That said you can get bare bones PC systems whereas macs only go down so far.

Do you use the sidebar, and if so what gadgets have a permanent spot on yours? Or do you use the google version?

Have to agree wrt Avast! - I canned Norton a long time ago and have never missed it. Avast! is free and works well without trying to take over my system. Kapersky gets good reviews and I have seen deals for getting it free every so often as well, so that's another option.

As for the UAC, maybe it's just me but I don't do things that kick it off very often. I guess I'm not loading and unloading programs constantly like some folks...