Windows Operating System Support for windows XP, Vista Support

Vista is an ideal gamer and machine combination, unfortunately Vista takes too many resources and leave so little room for older, less memory computers to execute resources intensive 3D games. Vista is advanced and able to deliver a better gaming experience, especially after Service Pack 1.

Tip #1 - Add or free more memory
You must be laughing by now, and yes this is the best way to accelerate games. If your budget is so tight, then you must disable most background services and startup software. Use " msconfig" in your command prompt to activate the system configuration tool, you can disable services from here, go to do some research before you even try to disable the services.

Tip #2 - Downgrade DirectX
You probably are using the newest DirectX now, if you are facing some incompatible problems, try to downgrade 1 version, you might get things back on track. Some games allow you to specify DirectX version, you can keep both New and older version DirectX on the same machine.

Tip #3 - Use 4 GB or more fast access memory stick
Use a large and fast USB memory stick to create ReadyBoost and accelerate your games. 4 GB RAM might not enough for x86 Vista, with upper limit of 3.2 GB to 3.6 GB supported, if you have a 4 GB to 8 GB fast access memory stick, just disable the page file and your game should run faster! You should format your memory stick with the largest allocation unit, enable background cache to accelerate the write operation.

Tip #4 - Get the latest firmware and driver
Latest firmware will increase your hardware compatibility level, while latest driver will increase your games’ stability. Visit your vendor website for latest firmware and driver for vista support, update your Vista frequently if your Vista’s Windows updates is done manually.

Tip #5 - Use compatibility mode
Run your games under the Vista compatibility mode, you might need to try different combination before getting the right settings. If this does not help, I am afraid your need an update from your game vendor. Try to visit their website and contact them for the latest patch.

Tip #6 - Join gamer forum
Join their forum for tips and tricks, most of the technical settings will be shared across different forums, visit them and participate to share and get tips for setting up your Vista for the particular game.

The best way to optimize your Vista for gaming is to learn the correct way to minimize and redistribute resources in Vista.

Microsoft’s Windows Vista is the latest operating system in over five years after Windows XP. And according to some experts this new OS is not really worth making a hue and cry about. No, there is nothing wrong with Vista, nor is there any single compelling feature that can force you to change your current OS for Windows Vista for the regular PC user.

However, Windows Vista Business is the first OS designed by Microsoft, keeping in mind the specific needs of small businesses support. Besides a user-friendly interface, and powerful new safety and security features, the mobile computing enhancements make this OS easy to use allowing them to get more from their computers. Therefore, if you are a small business owner, then Windows Vista for Small Businesses is worth switching over to from your existing windows operating system.

With better built-in support options and more stability leading to fewer crashes, enhanced new security features, mobility functions, and improvements to increase productivity, you can just focus on what really matters to you the most – making your business profitable. Your business data is safe and secure on your Windows Vista for Small Business PC.

Included within the Windows Vista for Small Business edition is:

* Windows Tablet PC

* Windows SideShow for remote gadgets

* Windows Small Business Server

* Group Policy Support

* File Caching (From client side)

* Remote Server Access for better mobility and secure access to confidential data

* Window Fax and Scan

* Windows ShadowCopy for creating file backup

* Easy Retrieval of accidentally deleted files/documents

As Microsoft claims, “Getting it done just got easier with Microsoft Windows Vista Business”.

Each Windows Vista edition includes a ‘basic’ restore option. Located in: Start>> Control Panel>> Backup and Restore center. Vista allows users to automate the process quickly and easily. This feature includes such options as, how often you would like your system backed up. What day to run this process and what time of the day. Scheduling couldn’t be easier as the "Simple Backup Wizard" guides you through the scheduling process.

If you are using either Business, Ultimate or Enterprise editions, you have a feature called "Complete PC Backup and Restore" available to you. This is a very comprehensive, image-based backup tool used in the event of:

• System Disaster
• PC Malfunction
• File Loss
• Corruption of Data

The Complete PC Backup and Restore tool is capable of restoring the entire PC environment which includes all Windows and data files, installed programs and individual user settings. You can also take your system back to its original state and even restore the PC environment to a replacement PC if necessary.

If you are not able to boot your computer to the hard drive, you can access ‘Complete PC Backup and Restore’ using your installation CD. or go for the Online Backup support

Below is the list of features that are available in Windows Vista. Please note that depending on the version of Windows Vista you may have, some of these features may not be available. This feature list was taken from Vista Ultimate which should have all the available features at this time.

The table below contains a list of all the features and their subfeatures. Each Feature name is a link to a description of the particular feature. These descriptions may contain link to further reference material about the particular feature. Each feature also has a corresponding default status. The key to the default status column is below:

Default Status Key

 

 

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 originally began as part of a single development project, and as such they share a number of new technologies across networking, storage, security and management. Although the development of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 have branched into separate releases with different release cycles, many of these enhancements apply to both Windows Vista (Microsoft Vista Support) and Windows Server 2008. When organizations deploy both operating systems, they will see how the combined client-server infrastructure provides even greater advantages.

Features

IT professionals who are administering a Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008 infrastructure will notice many improvements in how they control and manage their environment.

•	Maintenance is greatly simplified by the use of a single model for updates and service packs across client and server.
•	Client computers can monitor for specific events and forward to Windows Server 2008 for centralized monitoring and reporting.
•	Windows Deployment Services provides much faster and more reliable operating system deployment.
•	Network Access Protection features on Windows Server 2008 ensure that Windows Vista clients connecting to the network are compliant with security policies and restricted from accessing network resources if not.

The reliability, scalability, and overall responsiveness of the infrastructure are greatly increased by improvements made to both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

•	Clients can render print jobs locally before sending them to print servers to reduce the load on the server and increase its availability.
•	Server resources are cached locally so that they are available even if the server is not, with copies automatically updating when the client and server are reconnected.
•	Applications or scripts that need to run on both client and server can take advantage of the Transactional File System to reduce the risk of error during file and registry operations and roll back to a known good state in the event of failure or cancellation.
•	Policies can be created to ensure greater Quality of Service for certain applications or services that require prioritization of network bandwidth between client and server.

Windows Vista clients connecting to networks where Windows Server 2008 has been deployed can experience greatly improved communication speeds and reliability.

•	Searching Windows Server 2008 servers from a Windows Vista client avails of enhanced indexing and caching technologies on both to provide huge performance gains across the enterprise.
•	Native IPv6 support across all client and server services creates a more scalable and reliable network, while the rewritten TCP/IP stack makes network communication much faster and more efficient.
•	The new Server Message Block 2.0 protocol provides a number of communication enhancements, including greater performance when connecting to file shares over high-latency links and better security through the use of mutual authentication and message signing.
•	Terminal Services on Windows Server 2008 have many improvements, including providing Windows Vista clients with remote access to internal resources through an HTTP gateway and seamless remote applications that run as if on the local desktop.

Here is some of the Optimizing Vista PC Repair tips which i came across on. Hope it will help u all toooo..

Tweak Windows Vista’s Indexing Options

Windows Vista works in the background to automatically index all the files in the Start Menu, user profile folders and files setup for offline access by default. If you have many files in these locations and the files change often, the indexing service may slow down your system’s performance. Unlike Windows XP, Vista now allows you to easily tweak the indexing service following the steps below. It is recommended that you disable indexing for the other locations other than the Start Menu for maximum performance. Bear in mind that while this tweak speeds up your overall system performance, it will also slow you down when searching for files in those locations.

1. Click on the Start Button and enter Indexing Options. Hit Enter and the Indexing Options should load.
2. Click on the Modify button, followed by Show all locations.
3. Scroll through the tree-view and uncheck all options except the Start Menu. Hit OK.

Speed-Up Microsoft Windows Vista Start Menu Search

When you perform a search using the search box in the start panel, Windows Vista automatically searches the file index as well. The file index can be quite large because it includes all the files on your hard drive. One way to speed-up searching in your Start Menu applications is to narrow the scope of the search so that it does not include files on the hard drive:

Method 1: Registry Hack

1. Open registry editor using regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer and select Advanced.
3. Find and right-click on Start_SearchFiles and select Modify.
4. Set the Value to 0.
5. Restart the Explorer.exe process or reboot the computer.

Method 2: Start Button

1. Right-click on the Start Button and select Properties.
2. Click on the Customize button.
3. Uncheck Search Communications.
4. Set Search Files to Don’t Search for files.
5. Click OK.

Increase SATA Disk Drive Performance

You can squeeze a more performance out of your SATA hard disk drive by enabling write caching. The price though, is an increased risk for data loss/corruption should you experienced a power loss - this risk is less in a laptop because of its battery:
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Device Manager and hit Enter.
2. Expand Disk Drives.
3. Right-click on your hard disk drive and select Properties.
4. On the Policies tab, check Enable Advanced Performance.
5. Click OK and close Device Manager.

Speed-up Windows Vista’s Aero

Windows Vista is a step-up in terms of eye candy but it can slow your system down a bit. There are 2 things you can do to speed-up the Aero interface in Windows Vista:

Method 1: Disable Transparent Glass Effect

1. Click on the Desktop and select Personalize.
2. Select Windows Color And Appearance.
3. Uncheck Enable Transparency.

Method 2: Disable Windows Minimize/Maximize Animation

1. Click on the Start Menu, enter SystemPropertiesPerformance and hit Enter.
2. On the Visual Effects tab, uncheck Animate Windows When Minimizing/Maximizing.
3. Click OK.

Stop Applications That Auto-start On Startup

There are 2 ways to stop applications that auto-start when you login to Windows Vista. You can either use the System Configuration Utility or the new Software Explorer in Windows Defender:

Method 1: System Configuration Utility

1. Click on the Start Button, enter msconfig and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Startup tab.
3. Uncheck items that you do want to auto-start and click OK.

Method 2: Windows Defender

1. Click on the Start Button, enter Windows Defender and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Tools from the top menu bar.
3. Click on Software Explorer and select Show for All Users.
4. Select an application to either Remove or Disable.

Windows Vista is a rather heavy operating system with many neat features, but unfortunately they all come at a price. Right out of the box it requires a pretty hefty system to run (arguably). Before you run out and buy a new computer just so you can run your base operating system, check out these

10 Simple Ways To Speedup Windows Vista tips to lighten the load. This is just the first in the series, so many of them may be very apparent to those experienced in tweaking. If you’re still using Windows XP, then check out 10 Simple Ways To Speedup Windows XP.

1. Turn off UAC, or at least make it less annoying

Now, there’s a lot of talk about the new user account control policy in Vista, and all I can say is: as it is, it annoys the hell out of me and slows down my normal computer usage. Just why, oh why, does it have to flash my video card to a black screen, take 5 seconds and really just make itself a royal pain in the arse? To turn it off, the easiest way is to go into the Control Panel and type in ‘UAC‘ into the search bar. It’ll bring up a search result of ‘Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off’. Just follow the prompts from there. To keep some of the security of the UAC, let’s just turn off the crazy annoying blacking out screen bit. To do this: open group policy (start | run | gpedit.msc) then navigate to Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options Find the policy named ‘User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation’. Set this to disabled. Much better, eh? You might say ‘but what’s that got to do with speed?’ Well, as I mentioned, it prompts me a couple times an hour at least and then takes several seconds to figure itself out. My productivity goes up, so it’s a speed enhancer

2. Disable Aero

I personally do not do this, as I am a fan of the graphical styles, but I realize it comes at a cost. It does tend to eat up both RAM and CPU usage (as well as video card usage). While it is turned off during gaming, you can still notice its effects during normal computer usage. When it is really cranking, it can use 15% of your CPU. Ouch. Vanity comes at a cost. If you do like it, at least turn it down a couple notches. Some performance increases have nothing to do with strain on hardware, or amount of processing. Sometimes, things are designed to take longer than they should, though only maybe a fraction of a second, but the end result to the user is a faster machine. Minimizing and maximizing does an animation. Watch closely. Pretty quick eh? Still, it does slow you down, and, really, what does it add to your experience? I am all about vanity and aesthetics, but this feature has got to go. Relish in the fact you will be increasing your productivity by 0.2 seconds per minimize/maximize. Open your start menu, go to run, and type in ’systempropertiesperformance’ From the Visual Effects tab, uncheck ‘Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing’ While you are here, might as well check out the other goodies you can disable.

3. ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is one of the more innovative features of Microsoft Windows Vista. The idea behind it is to use solid state memory as a secondary memory cache (before hard drive caching). It does require a certain level of speed from your USB (or other) flash drive. Do a quick search on google for just the fastest USB flash drive you can get your hands on (don’t worry they are cheap) and buy one. To enable ReadyBoost, just plug in a fast flash drive, and AutoPlay should come up with a dialog stating that you can use it for readyboost. If you have disabled it, you can just go to the properties for the drive and select it under the readyboost tab. Easy as cake. It is no substitution for RAM, but one can get a several GB flash drive for very little. Some sites have stated that the improvements are not as much as MS says they are, but even a minor improvement for such a low investment makes this worth your while. Do find the best drive you can for random reads/writes (the drive speed is usually rated for sequential reads which won’t help you much). What speed drive do I need? 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writes. What size drive do I need? 256MB to 4GB, where as best performance is gotten at around a 1:1 to a 2:1 flash to ram ratio. So really, you should never try this with a flash drive smaller than 1GB-2GB. Continue on, and see the rest. I’ll get more complex as I go.

4. Tweak Indexing Service

I personally don’t mind the new search too much. It still hogs a lot of resources though. To turn it off completely: Go to my computer, right click on C: drive, go to the General tab, and uncheck Index this drive for faster searching, select Include subfolders and files. If you want, you can just remove any extra areas of search, so you can keep your fast searching for some areas. I personally find the indexing of control panel options and start menu items to be a blessing, so I would leave those alone. Just find items in the tree that you really don’t wish to be indexed (like your documents).

5. While you are at it, fix the rest of your search options

It is often that I do searches for text in files, like a method use in a PHP file, or maybe something in a java file. Regardless of the situation, Windows Vista has a very limited number of file extensions flagged for full text searching, which causes you to get ‘no results’ when you know there are some. Open Control panel and type in ‘indexing’ into the search box (or you can do this from your start menu, but many people turn it off). Select ‘Indexing Options’ Select Advanced Button Select ‘File Types’ Tab In this list you will see a list of extensions. When you click on most of them, the bottom radio button will change from ‘index properties only’ or ‘index properties and file contents’ Honestly, index properties only is pretty useless for what most people will use search for (i.e. really only search by date). Uncheck a box to have it removed from search. This can be done for a variety of extensions that honestly, you don’t want in search anyway. It will actually help your results.

Change the radio button to ‘index properties and file contents’ to have these file types included in your searches (should be set for word docs, etc and any other text-based files you search for)

6. Get rid of the sidebar

Pretty self explanatory. It’s a heavy and ugly. If you use it, great, if you don’t reclaim some desktop space. Install googles version. Or yahoos.

7. Defender has a use?

Yes, windows defender actually has a purpose! Open it up Click on tools Click on Software Explorer This will let you select groups of items, the default is Startup Programs. Now you can see that oh, Open Office quickstart is there, and I can just disable it there. Items in this list are very likely to be programs that are running 100% of the time your computer is on, so if you can live without them, kill em. Almost to the end of part 1. The final page is filled with some more advanced things you can do, but they can take a bit of time…

8. Tweak your services

Well, this one is arguable. Many sites preach Optimize Start-Up Settings as the end all of tweaks, and Vista does have a lot of services (like 130). However, a good portion of them are set to manual or disabled by default. Manual will only start the service when the operating system thinks it needs to use that program. However, Vista does have a lot of services set to Automatic by default that are not needed for many people. Granted, they are usually sleeping, not using any CPU, and if they use memory, they usually get paged out to disk pretty fast. But, regardless, it is fairly quick to do, and will gain you some improvement. First off, how to tell what you should really be worried about. One new feature in Vista is the ‘Go to Service’ feature in Task Manager (or at least I never noticed it before). Open Task Manager, Processes tab, right click on a particularly heavy process, and select ‘Go to Service (s)’. This will jump you over to the services tab, and select all the services that are running under that process (multiple ones are usually running under svchost.exe, many of the others only map to one service). It also works in reverse (select service, right click and go to process) I have something like 75 services running at this very moment. Many of them I have exactly zero use for. I do not have a printer, but print spooler is running and using a whole whopping 1MB of my ram at the moment. There are heavier examples, but even if you can remove 20 of these, is it worth your time? Well, yes and no. Like I said, many of them are already paged out, so they really aren’t affecting your system’s memory. There is added overhead because the scheduler still needs to manage them, but I cannot for the life of me remember how it is done in Windows. Overall maybe minimal, but if you are going for every ounce of tweak-ness, give it a shot. I’d recommend Speedyvista look for their cheatsheet or registry files pages so you can keep a copy of the default services around for when/if you mess it up and need to get back to default.

9. How to find out the next area for improvement – Tweak your programs

Well, you’ve gotten the operating system down to a certain point, what’s next? Well, figure out where your bottlenecks still are! There’s probably some software on your computer that just kills performance (or 6-7 of them). Don’t blame MS quite yet. Anyway, luckily for you Windows Vista has a simple tool included that can help you identify the problem and remedy it quickly. Open the task manager (many ways to get to it, easiest is ctrl+alt+delete then select Start Task Manager) Navigate to the Performance tab Click on Resource Monitor Expand the disk section and sort by either reads or writes column. Additionally, you can check out cpu, memory usage and network usage in the same way. Now you will probably notice that your virus scanner is using 20x the resources of Aero, as it insists on scanning your RAM all the time, and scanning every damn file you read from, write to, or execute. But, what can you do? Try to find a couple programs that are too greedy, or running when they have no reason to be running (Example: itunes has a couple services installed that run constantly. Why? I’ve no idea why it takes 2-3 services running and several threads to just be looking out for when you just might plug in your ipod, because that functionality is already built into windows). Office also has a preloader ‘quick start’ service (as does open office) to make sure that things run ‘better’ for you. Even though you do have super fetch which should do it automatically without the need for any extra memory usage.

10. Not really a tweak but…

Ok, #10 isn’t really a speed tweak, but it’s something I’ve always found annoying on many operating systems. Many of us have 2 LCDs, and oh wouldn’t it be nice to be able to set different backgrounds for both? There are programs out there that do it, but here’s a way to just do it inside windows. Right click on the background and select Personalization. Click on Desktop Background Select a background image that is at least as wide as the combined resolution of both of your monitors (or scale the image up so it is big enough, else you will get tiling.. it takes some tweaking, so get out your photo editor of choice for this one. Select the Tile picture positioning option as shown below. This is the only option that will display your background image across multiple monitors Alright, tune in next time for more advanced Windows Vista tweaks. If you have any questions doing any of the above, let me know, or if you wish to debate their usefulness, etc. If you wish to give your own, even better!

Windows Vista is a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, Tablet PCs, and media centers.

Microsoft’s primary stated objective with Windows Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system. One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to Spyware Removal, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide "Trustworthy Computing initiative" which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company.

Windows Vista system requirements

Microsoft Windows Vista contains hundreds of new and reworked features; some of the most significant include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology in an effort to simplify sharing files and digital media between computers and devices. Windows Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write applications than with the traditional Windows API.

Windows Vista ships in six editions. These editions are roughly divided into two target markets, consumer and business, with editions varying to cater for specific sub-markets. For consumers, there are four editions, with three available for developed countries. Windows Vista Starter edition is limited to emerging markets. Windows Vista Home Basic is intended for budget users with low needs. Windows Vista Home Premium covers the majority of the consumer market. Windows Vista Ultimate contains the complete feature-set and is aimed at enthusiasts. For businesses, there are two versions. Windows Vista Business is specifically designed for small business, while Windows Vista Enterprise, the premium business edition is only available to customers participating in Microsoft’s Software Assurance program.

All editions except Windows Vista Starter support both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) processor architectures.

In the European Union, Home Basic N and Business N versions are also available. These versions come without Windows Media Player, due to EU sanctions brought against Microsoft for violating anti-trust laws. Similar sanctions exist in South Korea.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is currently in development and is planned for release alongside Windows Server 2008 in the first quarter of 2008.

In the coming posts we are going to take on the issues and hacks more concerned with Windows XP and Vista so keep your self counting on the post.

Microsoft Vista SP1 Available by Mid-March