Best Free Vista Tweaks

Vista Sidebar Gadgets - With Windows Vista Microsoft introduced the Windows Sidebar. Even though I did not like it at first, after investing some time in configuring it and even develop some of my own Gadgets I wouldn't want to live without it anymore. The Windows Sidebar is a metering and info platform, similar to Sysmetrix or Rainlendar. It displays a wide variety of information through so-called Gadgets. You can add, remove and arrange such Gadgets to your liking. Some basic Gadgets come with the Sidebar but there are hundreds more out there from many different authors. I found it worthwhile to browse through the immense collection that Microsoft is providing to the Sidebar users (see Download link). And if you are not too unfamiliar with XML, HTML and some image work you can easily modify each Gadget to your liking or create your own. You will find documenation about that there as well. All Gadgets are free. The downside of the Sidebar, more precisely each Gadget, is its footprint in your memory. If you have enough of the latter you probably don't have to worry about that but it is useful to check when adding a new Gadget how much space it eats up.

Start++ - After accquiring Lookout a few years back Microsoft beefed up the Windows Search functionality quite some bit. Well integrated in Windows Vista I am still amazed how helpful the results are when trying to locate some old e-Mails and other information. Start++ makes the Search experience even better. It hooks into the Start Menu Search module and lets you define your own shortcuts for searching inside and outside of your computer. Some useful predefined shortcuts, e.g. "g" for Google demonstrate very convincingly the power of this little tool. But not only the textual Google results can be displayed in the Search result box, even graphical objects like weather forecasts are quickly displayed by just typing in "weather" (see screenshots here). Besides the command shortcuts you can also define others to launch any gadget or script you like. Start++ is really a useful helper for your productivity.

Quite a few users complained about the annoyance of Windows Vista's User Access Control (UAC). Despite the increased security, it is quite a drag that with UAC switched on you have to confirm a Yes/No prompt on many operations you perform in Windows Vista. You have probably seen the Mac advertisement that specifically picked up this "feature". If you decide that you do not need UAC it can be switched off, however, doing this manually involves a couple of steps and clicks. You will most probably prefer to use TweakUAC. It lets you quickly turn UAC (User Account Control) on or off, or make UAC operate in quiet mode.

MzVista Force is a Vista tweaking utility. It allows you to change a good range of features that may improve your system's speed and efficiency. You'll notice that "Backup-Restore" includes a Registry backup option. It is strongly recommended that you use this before tweaking your system, so you can return to the current state if things don't go as expected. Other facilities include Performance tweaks, Windows tweaks, Internet optimization, Registry optimization, Startup Manager, and a Services Manager. If you're not sure about a particular feature, the Help usually provides adequate information. I did not like the design though and I feel that there is a lot of room for improvement. I am using a 1900 resolution, thus, a bigger font, and some of the buttons and captions disapear at the window edge. The colorful background makes it even harder to read. The way all the many settings are organized is another downside affecting the usability. I hope we will see improvements in those areas in the next releases.

The Vista Boot Configuration Data (BCD) controls how Vista boots. Although it's perfectly possible to edit the BCD from the command prompt, VistaBootPRO makes it much easier. Use the built-in backup option first, to make sure your current BCD is preserved. This program makes it dead-easy to install a second Operating System (And I know there are many out there wishing their XP back.). Astonishingly, it also allows you to permanently disable the driver signing requirements of Vista 64 Bit. Apart from making it easy to test unsigned drivers, this feature opens a whole new world of possibilities. (Disabling driver signing feature may not work if you've installed Vista SP1.)

The Sysinternals tools by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell is a collection of very valuable and helpful system utilities targeting a wide variety of Windows information and configuration issues. The tools are in fact that good that Microsoft acquired Sysinternals (incl. Mark and Bryce) in July, 2006. You can find a few of the single tools here at Techsupportalert also in other categories. When I started working and playing around with Vista, quite a few of the Sysinternal tools were very helpful to me, e.g. the Process Explorer or the Autoruns viewer. However, the downside of the Sysinternals tools is that they do not come with an installation routine. You need to unpack each executable file yourself and create a shortcut manually. The Sysinternals Toolbox here is a convenient setup package of the most valuable Sysinternals utilities. You start one setup file and you have all of the tools (you can select packages during setup) conveniently installed and accessible through your Start menu. The toolbox is updated regularly based on updates of the tools themselves. The utilities in the setup packages are untouched, this is just a setup routine for installing them easily.

I always liked it to change my boot logo and login screen backround to give my Windows design an individual touch. Already under XP there were some tools offering their help in that regards. Vista Boot Logo Generator provides this feature for the Vista boot logo. You can create your own 24-bit BMP's in two sizes (800*600 and 1024*768) and the tool will generate the new logo file. But actually, that is all the tool does. Quite some manual work is still required to make it work. You have to copy that file into a specific system32 folder (depending on your language). In order to do so you have to change the owner of that file and then again change your permissions to overwrite it. Also, you have to make sure that the NOGUIBOOT option is off, using the Windows MSCONFIG tool. For full details, make sure you read the info during the setup of the utility. Unfortunately even though I did everything and went through all the hassles as described it did not work for me (Vista Home Premium SP1). A couple of users posted similar problems on the programmer's home page as well. It seems that it does not work with SP1. In the end it is not a utility to my liking since too many manual interaction and knowledge is necessary to make it work (if it works with your Vista version at all). Hopefully future releases will address these issues.

Object Desktop's LogonStudio Vista is much more a convenient utility as the Logo Generator. LogonStudio offers you the option to change the background image of the Windows Vista Logon screen. No manual activities are required, it is all done from within the GUI. It comes with several logon screens to choose from, along with thousands that are available online from other skinning Web sites. It also includes an editor for creating your own logon screen. You can build or modify logon screens by tweaking parameters on a list of elements. This allows you to customize everything from background to letterings to buttons. Thanks to Object Desktop for offering this great tool for free.

VistaGlazz is a simple yet important application when you love customizing your Vista looks. It enables you to easily modify your Windows Vista installation to use custom styles and modify your Aero style to use the Glass effect on maximized windows. For reasons I cannot fully understand did Microsoft disable the usage of unsigned visual styles in Windows Vista. However, by overwriting a few system files this restriction is gone and you can use any visual style out there. That is exactly what this little program does. And when you take some time browsing the usual skinning sites you will be amazed how excellent those skin designers are. Usually all these skins and visual styles are donwloadable for free. VistaGlazz makes it possible to use them. It works with SP1 as well. My top customization tool for Vista.

The name is a little misleading here since this tool just allows you to manage the shortcut overlay image of your icons. Usually this is a little arrow in the lower left corner of an icon, you have surely seen that on your desktop. The well designed tool offers to either replace the overlay image with a different one (two transparent icon files come with the tool, you can also use your own creation) or to not use an overlay image at all. I personally do not see any sense in disabling it (since it indicates that this icon links to a shortcut and not to the real executable), but customizing the overly image is an interesting idea. After you made your choice you need to logoff and back on to make your changes visible. The Logoff function is offered by the tool after saving your changes. However, I am getting an exception error when I use the built in logoff feature, but the changes were applied. The utility also offers to disable the “ - Shortcut” extension when creating new shortcuts.