Windows XP was using Windows NT technology when it was released but to move Windows in 21st century & to make a good foundation for future version of Windows, Microsoft needed a new technology, new architecture for Windows while still maintaining backward compatibility with Windows XP era application. Microsoft played a gamble with Windows Vista due to which they released many new technologies, architecture etc. which did break backward compatibility but it in a way paved the path for Windows 7.

If it was Windows 7 with which MS was releasing new technologies then Windows 7 would have had the fate like that of Vista. With Vista Microsoft gave us developers new API like WPF, WCF, WWF, DirectX 10, X-Audio etc. which wasn’t liked much when Vista released as the low end hardware at that time was not capable enough to run Vista, it was Windows XP centric.

64bit Computing & Hardware

Microsoft increased awareness about 64bit computing with Vista 64bit edition, people also started upgrading to more than 3 GB RAM for which 64bit computing is required & today after 3 years, all CPUs in the market are 64bit capable, they can run 64bit version of Windows which brings more stability, more RAM support & ability to do more work at ones. This just increases the efficiency of our current hardware. All the hardware purchased in the last 2 years need no upgrade to run Windows 7. It is highly optimized form of Vista & Microsoft won the gamble that today most of the PCs in the world have more than enough power to run Windows 7 without any upgrade which is essential considering the current economic crisis all over the world.

DirectX 10 & GPGPU

Microsoft re-created a large part of DirectX with DirectX 10 & released WDDM Driver model which bought much more stability even to the third party drivers which are the biggest reason of Windows BSODs. Microsoft also gave developers the ability to use the graphics card to use as a GPGPU which can assist CPU in tasks because a GPU is also like a big CPU but only for graphics. This wasn’t possible with DirectX 9 so the large re-write & no compatibility with Windows XP did make some people mad at Microsoft but Microsoft wasn’t thinking about short term gains, they had long term gains in mind. Now 3 years later, today, GPGPU is a common term. AMD & nVidia have their support in the form of CUDA & Stream API. Almost all new games use DirectX 10 which also makes them easy to port to XBOX 360, doubling the market reach. Again, a gamble MS played by not providing support for Windows XP but it won the gamble today with Windows 7 as now even onboard graphics support DirectX 10 hence GPGPU capability & enhanced stability.

Hardware Industry

With Vista & Aero, Microsoft forced GPU manufacturers to support DirectX 9 at the bare minimum in there onboard graphics too. Now, nVidia & ATI are the big dogs in GPU industry but enterprise & casual users don’t usually buy separate graphics card, they rely on onboard video which was arcane in form of Intel Extreme Graphics. For the first time in years, Intel started providing Intel GMA 950 with full DirectX 9 support, which had sufficient power to run Windows Vista & Aero but wasn’t enough to play games though this isn’t what Microsoft was aiming. If you are an avid gamer, you will sure buy a separate graphics card but if you are a casual user then Onboard graphics will also suffice. nVidia & then ATI (now AMD) also started giving powerful onboard graphics & 3 years later, today, even the low-end onboard graphics found in motherboards is enough to run full 1080p HD Videos, Aero & even casual gaming.

HD Audio

With X-Audio, Microsoft broke the monopoly of Creative & it’s EAX from the Sound Industry. Now HD Audio which was created in alliance with Intel & Microsoft rules the consumer PC industry & only some high end users & audiophiles buy Creative’s Sound cards as Onboard HD Audio provides better Value for money, features & stability instead of Creative. There is no point in buying another sound card when the onboard APU is enough to provide 32bit, multi-channel audio while Creative X-Fi is still 24bit. Since X-Audio is all in software, it can do wonders. Never doubt the power of software :-p

New API

Microsoft introduced WPF for Application development instead of GDI+. WPF is all C# managed code based due to which there are low memory leaks, large audience as .Net CLR is also available as open source & it is also supported on Linux with Mono, etc. When Vista came the 3rd party developers had a choice, either support the arcane Windows XP model of software development or slowly switch to C# & WPF. Many of the companies did this & after 3 years, a large market is there with .net based application for Windows Vista. Not only the 3rd party developers got certification for Vista, but they were also exposed to new technologies only available to Vista. They used the technology & 3 years later… many applications are using the new technologies provided by Vista so when Windows 7 is coming, the devs don’t have to do anything much. Their application is already Windows 7 compatible since a long time. Microsoft made developers update their code for Vista, it gave them 3 years to do it & with Windows 7, everything is already ready at launch.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft was lacking behind in terms of web technology support with Internet Explorer & they are also facing a silly lawsuit by E.C. & Opera. Well, Microsoft just listened to the customers & made IE 8 with much better support for current CSS & HTML technologies & a multi-process engine which later on even Google Chrome copied, followed by Firefox. If you hate a product due to lack of features, you won’t use it. But if all the flaws are fixed & it does what you want it to do the way you want it to do… will you still not use it or will you still act like a Firefox or Safari Fan boy. Internet Explorer 9 is going to be completely new HTML engine based with full support for HTML 5 if HTML 5 gets standardized before IE 9 is released but judging by the situation today, IE 8 will be able to hold for a long time as HTML 5 is not coming anytime soon. Though I myself wish it comes quickly.

Windows Live Services

Microsoft also changed their application bundling model with Windows 7. Windows 7 no longer comes with Windows Mail or Calendar, cos it doesn’t need to as Microsoft already develops them in form of Windows Live. Now, if a user doesn’t want to use Windows Mail, it’s not there at all. He can very well use Thunderbird or something else or install Windows Live Essential pack to get all those apps he might be missing. Now, no one can sue Microsoft by saying it is a Monopoly & since Windows Mail is inbuilt, no one uses XYZ E-Mail client. Consumers have a choice, either use whatever you want… or if you are unaware.. There is a link in Welcome center of Windows 7 informing them about Windows Live services.

Security

All those people who say Windows get virus, well… it’s been 3 years I am using my PC without any antivirus suite & there is no problem so far. I don’t even use Windows defender, but then again… not everyone is a power user so for them, Microsoft is releasing “Codename Morrow”, a free anti-virus suite from Microsoft which will sure come under Windows Live brand when released. Like I said previously, if you hate a product due to lack of features then you won’t use it. But if all the flaws are fixed & it does what you want it to do the way you want it to do… will you still not use it or will you still act like a Fan boy.

Microsoft also faced some stiff completion, Lies & Lawsuits but one thing I like about Steve Ballmer’s administration is that now Microsoft is listening to what people are saying. If it wasn’t for this, Windows 7 wouldn’t get this much overhaul in performance, UI & UX.

One of the biggest reason of Apple users making fun of Windows users is that Apple has a better UI. Well, guess what…. the Superbar One ups the Dock in every way. Windows navigation with Superbar is so better than even Apple copied Dock expose from Window’s Aero Peak. Apple even copied GPGPU in form of OpenCL but no one will blame them… it’s just cool hating Microsoft even if you don’t have a reason to hate.

In my workplace we use Windows, Mac & Linux. All the people who use the OS know how to use it so they are comfortable with it, we have no reason to hate the other OS cos we know at the end of the day, whatever gets your work done is the best thing.

Mojave experiment proved that many people hated Vista, didn’t like it just cos someone told them this. How can you hate something when you have never tried it? Sure with Vista Microsoft gave a new UI for explorer etc. but 3 years later, that UI is common & people using Windows 7 won’t be feeling new. They have been using & working on similar environment since 3 years. That Vista’s UI is now old & generic.

Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been but it’s a wrong saying. If it wasn’t for Windows Vista & its success/failure… Windows 7 would not exist in such a successful form as it is today.

I installed Windows 7 on two computer so far, one is my workstation & 2^nd is another PC running Windows XP. Windows 7 uses the same Boot Configuration editor found in Windows Vista due to which dual booting with Windows Vista wasn’t a problem. Even when I formatted the Windows 7 partition from Windows Vista after installing Windows 7, I was still able to boot into Vista. However, if you are installing it on a new blank hard disk then Windows 7 will make a 200 MB hidden partition for boot files & this partition will not be visible in Explorer. In case of dual booting with Windows XP, Windows 7 Setup copied the boot files to C:\ Drive where Windows XP was installed & I wasn’t able to boot into XP or see the drive in Explorer as now it was the hidden partition. To fix this problem simply download EasyBCD & add a new entry for Windows XP after deleting the old Windows XP entry & select the C:\ Drive. Now you can dual boot Windows 7 & Windows XP without any problem.

Windows Vista drivers will work fine in Windows 7 in most cases. In my case, I installed it on my Workstation & it automatically detected all the drivers. Even then I went to Windows Update & it installed new drivers for my Graphics Card & Realtek LAN. Keep in mind that the current ATI drivers are giving me lots of trouble & they keep crashing 50% of the time. Waiting for things to get a bit stable.

Libraries are nothing but Search Folders of Windows Vista. This feature was never used much in Windows Vista but in Windows 7 it is right there in Explorer. By default there are 4 libraries named Pictures, Videos, and Documents & Music. You can add multiple locations in each libraries after which when you open that library in Explorer, it will show you the content from all the locations at once place even it is a web based location provided you have net connectivity. I don’t keep my data on the default drive where Windows is installed. I keep them in a separate partition under categorized folders so Libraries are a boon for someone like me.

The On Screen keyboard is finally something much better than the old one found even in Vista since the time of Windows 2000. The buttons are big so that if you are using a tablet PC, typing text won’t be a problem. The buttons are big enough for even finger touch & they are beautifully crafted on a glass panel.

Finally I can say that it is time to leave Winamp. Windows Media Player 12 is the be all end all Media Player for everyone’s need. WMP12 now has two separate views, the Player View & the Library view. Combine that with the Superbar of Windows 7 which acts as a minimize to tray functionality I have been always missing in WMP & I can very well say that I won’t be using any other media player from Windows 7 onwards when WMP12 & FFDShow will fulfill all my needs. I was easily able to connect my Nokia N79 in MTP mode & transfer all my files as WMP 12 has native support for MP4 & AAC Files along with H.264 & DivX support. Since I transfer videos to my phone after converting them to MP4, I was able to manage them right there from WMP12.

Windows Media Player 12 now has instant preview of the song. If you are playing something, then its audio will stop & the audio of new file come into front. As soon as you close the preview, the old audio will play again.

WMP12 playing a Video.

The new Caculator

Windows live Writer with my new blog theme auto applied, this gives lots of space to write stuff.

UAC no longer bugs you if you are working on something. If there is a UAC prompt & you are working on something then it will sit in the Superbar & glow to show you a prompt, If you click on that then only screen will dim

Installing DirectX 9 runtime

My Workspace with switcher

Some keyboard shortcuts which come in handy

However, Vista was to be very frank, way ahead of its time. People were very familiar with the experience of Windows XP, its Interface and way of working. They were running Windows XP released in 2001 on modern hardware of that time like Pentium 4 & Athlon64. Since Windows XP didn’t have a GPU accelerated User Interface, most of the computers were using outdated Intel Onboard graphics or similar without the support of DirectX 9 at least due to which users started to have a misconception that the system requirement of Windows Vista is very high. What they didn’t see was that the minimum requirement to run Windows Vista was a GeForce FX 5200 graphics card with 128 MB VRAM which used to cost Rs 2,000 in the year 2006 end. This wasn’t an expensive upgrade considering the benefits it gives in long run but still at least in India people stayed with Windows XP just because it didn’t require a graphics card update.

But, this made the foundation for Windows 7. Vista increased the minimum RAM a PC should have from 512 MB to 1 GB & 2 GB isn’t that costly today either. Since 4 GB RAM is also very possible today, this resulted in the awareness of Windows Vista 64bit edition which was way better then Windows XP 64bit edition as nearly all the manufacturers now have 64bit drivers for Vista. This has increased the penetration of 64bit computing in our daily life. Today a new PC with something like a Core 2 Duo E4500 & 2 GB RAM with onboard GeForce/AMD/Intel GMA X3/GMA X4 series onboard GPU can be purchased for as low as Rs 17,000. Vista did make the price of PC components to reduce & paved the path for a solid Windows 7 foundation. Today computers with above mentioned configuration are common & have more than enough horse power to run Windows Vista, Windows 7 & all the high definition content people are getting these days.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft gave developers .net 3.5 & WPF due to which for the first time Microsoft was paying attention to user Interface & designs. Now we can see more & more 3^rd party developers coming with WPF & GPU accelerated applications which are able to use the hardware available today such as multi core CPU & GPU.

Microsoft also released UAC with Windows Vista which was hated & criticized because at the time of Vista’s release applications were developed with admin privilege by default resulting in many security breaches. Users had trouble using their old applications but today after 2.5 years, almost all of the applications out there are made with UAC in mind & they run with standard user privilege. The benefit can be given with an example that now a Virus cannot penetrate Windows internal files if UAC is turned on. Why would an application need to make changes to system files just to run, unless it is some Security application like antirvirus or firewall. Based on this concept UAC was created to be annoying so that developers can make application with a better security model.

Now comes Windows 7. Windows is more like Optimized Windows Vista code. Due to all what Windows Vista did, the foundation & road to Windows 7 was paved long back. Today, the security of Windows is rigid due to UAC & almost all the applications out there today are UAC aware which means fewer security risks on Windows 7.

Windows Vista came with a new Windows Display Driver Model requiring DirectX 10. Because of this crashes are reduced due to a malfunctioning or corrupt graphics subsystem. Now, even if a game you are playing crashes, Windows OS will not crash & the graphics system will just restart itself. Windows 7 brings Computer Shader with DirectX 11 due to which developers can use the GPU for doing things other than crunching frames in a game cos GPU is nothing more than a CPU which calculates for graphics. nVidia & AMD are doing this in form of CUDA & Brock+ already but with DirectX 11 developers will have a single unified API. Now, developers won’t have to code for 2 separate graphics architecture from nvidia & AMD, They can code in either DirectX 11 or OpenCL & be assured that it will work on any compatible GPU out there. This made sure that in the future the GPU can also help the CPU in computing & can be used better instead of sitting idle when a user is just working on Windows. Today GPU are able to decode High Definition content taking some load away from the CPU.

Vista gave us a new Sound Driver model based on HD Audio specification from Intel. UAA is all software based sound API due to which the need of an expensive external sound card like Creative SoundBlaster Audigy isn’t required any more to play EAX based games which is propriety Creative Labs technology. Since we have multi core CPU available today, taking out some power from them to process multi channel Audio & 3D Audio in games & Movies isn’t that taxing on system resources. Now developers can freely create Positional 3D Audio in games & rest assured that if the computer has a HD Audio Solution, then it will give the desired performance & quality.

Windows Vista was blamed that it has DRM inbuilt, well….here is the thing, DRM doesn’t comes in front unless you have some DRM content playing. I would rather have support to play DRM content & not use it, then need it & not have it like in case of Linux or Mac OS.

Vista made us familiar with a new UI which is being enhanced in Windows 7. Explorer is much easier to work with compared to Windows XP. Finding content is easy with instant search.

Vista gave us Trusted Platform Module support due to which securing your data on a laptop became easier & better.

Windows Vista also made 64bit applications & drivers widely available due to which Windows 7 64 bit can be used easily in day to day computing as everything is 64bit compatible today either natively or via a emulation of 32bit on 64bit hardware.

Last year saw the herald of Netbooks & Intel Atom platform. For the first time, small & inexpensive laptops were possible with enough power to do most of the tasks other then gaming when you are on the go. Asus EEE PC pioneered it & today almost all the companies have a Netbook available such as Acer Aspire One or Lenovo Ideapad S10. The penetration of Mobile Phones have increased tremendously & even basic smart phone such as HTC Touch is available for Rs 8,000 which brings us more close to computing on the go. Now, we just don’t have one PC at home, we also have one in our pocket.

Windows 7 is all set to make life easy with its new features & technologies. I won’t be writing about the usual features which are being talked about everywhere as you can easily see the new features on the Windows 7 homepage. I will however talk about some features which won’t be highlighted much but will make our life easier under the hood.

• Search is an essential part of our computing life today. Can you imagine your life without Google? How hard will it be to find information online? But why limit the benefit of search to Internet only & why not bring it to the Desktop. Windows 7 has federated search which means you can search online on websites like Youtube etc from your Start Menu itself by using a search connector available freely on the website.
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• UAC is almost fixed. I am using Windows 7 beta with UAC turned on & unless I am tinkering with the internal of system, installing an application which needs admin rights, or doing something I should not do, UAC doesn’t bothers me. Users can configure UAC according to their taste now.
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• LCD monitors are all the rage these days due to falling LCD Prices & availability. I bought my 20" LG L206WTQ LCD Monitor in march 2008 for Rs 10,500 only. It has a resolution of 1680 X 1050 which is quite big for something like Windows XP where everything becomes very small & the 48pixel icons start to look bad. Windows Vista gave us a nearly resolution independent UI in form of Bigger Icons & Vector based UI of WPF, Windows 7 is just taking it one step further. I myself run my Monitor at its native resolution & 120 dpi. However, for a resolution like 1920X1080 or higher I would prefer something more, & Windows 7 gives me that. Higher DPI makes text & icons etc look more crisp & better on a big screen. Windows 7 also bring the ability to calibrate your monitor which usually most people don’t do to get better visual quality & color reproduction. There are 3^rd party tools which are doing this, but having this feature in build in Windows means more & more users will start to calibrate there Display. Windows 7 also has the Cleartype Tuner Powertoy inbuilt
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• Windows 7 brings a unified interface for all the maintenance of your PC in form of Action Center. This is a central location & an update to security center.
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• You no longer have to go through device manager or the whole control panel to look & configure your devices as Windows 7 makes it easier in form of Windows Device Stage & the Device & printers Panel. Device Stage is the future of managing your digital camera, Mobile phone, Portable Media Player, Netbook, Laptop, Mouse & what not.
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• Windows Homegroup is a new feature introduced in Windows 7 where you can share your music, pictures, documents, videos and printers with other machines in your home network. I can’t say much about this feature as I am not using it.
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• Windows 7 is being made with Touch Based computing in mind. Anyone remember Tablet PCs which never got popular due to there high cost. Well, I find tablet PCs the best form of a mobile computer even more than a Notebook or Netbook. They are making a comeback now with Windows 7 as The UI of applications is made with Touch Screen computing in mind. The future of computing is Touch UI which although was available since a long time, but is made popular only by Apple iPhone.
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• Internet Explorer 8 is finally something Microsoft has done right. It is being long hated for not supporting the latest Web standards but with Firefox & Webkit in the market now, Microsoft is finally making the rendering engine of IE 8 as standard compliant as possible.

These were just some highlights of what Windows 7 is & how it can very well be the best Windows ever released. Creating perfection takes time, & with Windows 7, Microsoft is close to a perfect OS. The beta of Windows 7 is releasing tomorrow, Friday January 9^th 2009 freely from Windows 7 Homeapge.

There is a way I use my computer due to which I don’t need to install Windows again & again, like many people do. In my case, it works when I want it to, the way I want it to. I decided to share my deployment expertise here which might help other Windows Vista user. I don’t use many paid applications now, & also use some OSS applications where applicable, so I am making this tutorial in a step by step way.

1) Install Windows Vista, then go to Windows Update & install every update available.

2) If you have a Bluetooth adapter, then don’t forget to install BlueSoleil 5. It is a must have application for all your Bluetooth needs. Although you can transfer & receive files without BlueSoleil in Vista too but since it is an OEM bundle, chances are you already have it bundled with your Bluetooth adapter.

3) Make sure you use Ad Muncher, it is a must have application for Windows Vista. Just install it, then run it & forget it, it won’t bug you & do its work automatically. Vista comes with Windows Defender which is good enough for removing Adware & Spyware. If you want something else, there are many free tools to choose from but once you start using Ad Muncher, you won’t need an Adware cleaner & you can very well disable Windows Defender.

4) The best torrent client for Windows is un-doubtfully µTorrent. It us low on resources, works the way you want it to work & even provides a WebUI for controlling it even when you are away from the computer. Start it, configure the way you want it like setting downloaded files fodler, enable port forwarding & that’s it. Just double click on a torrent file & it will do the rest automatically without bugging you. A very good Vistaish skin for uTorrent is the nCore suite.

5) For CD Burning you will be satisfied & surprised by InfraRecorder. It is a very small & simple, easy to use CD Burner with support for writing Audio & Video CD out of the box. It can also make CD Images of your optical CDs. For mounting Virtual CDs there is no better solution then DAEMON Tools for Windows. It hardly has any front end & runs simply from the tray. Install it, then right click on any disk image & select to mount it.

6) A must have Add-on for Internet Explorer 7 in Vista is IE7 Pro, it has one very small but effective Download Manager integrated which works very nicely with IE 7. If this isn’t sufficient for you then you can always use Orbit Downloaded. To view the loaded cookies in Windows you can use Cookie Monster.

7) When it comes to IM clients, I recommend using the official IM client due to more features available compared to something like Pidgin. You can also have a look at Digsby as it is also like Pidgin, an all in one IM Client but unlike Pidgin, Digsby supports voice & webcam chat too.

8 ) For your Image Viewing & Management tasks, you can rely on the inbuilt Windows Photo Gallery or something like Pictomio which uses the power of WPF in Vista. If you can pay, then there is nothing better than ACDSee 10 for Windows. You can also use Paint.net which is by far the best free Image editing application for Windows Vista.

9) When it comes to system maintenance, Tune-up utilities is the all in one solution that I use. However you can also use separate applications for maintenance I haven’t tested any other application then CCleaner.

For Registry Cleaning, a simple & effecting solution is Eusing Free Registry Cleaner

For registry defragmenting use Free Registry Defrag/Compact

You can use either the inbuilt defragmentor or use any free defragmenting application like Defraggler or Auslogics Disk Defrag.

10) You must be having a mobile phone, right. If it is Sony Ericsson then make sure you see MyPhoneExplorer & if it is Nokia then make sure to install Nokia PC Suite for managing everything in your phone.

11) A very good & lite PDF reader is Foxit PDF reader , it’s only 2 MB & works wonders however it is good only for simple text PDFs, not those with inbuilt movies or interactive content. For that you should use Adobe Reader which is very fast now & even supports hardware acceleration in Windows Vista something which Foxit lacks. For printing to PDF, have a look at BullZip PDF printer with Ghostscript 8.6. Install it & then you can print any document or web page to PDF.

12) For all your Multimedia needs just install K-Lite Codec Pack. It has FFDShow inbuilt which is the only decoding engine you will ever need. For more formats like Quicktime & Real Media, just install Quicktime Alternative & Real Alternative. These codec come without the player so you can simply use Windows Media Player 11 or Media Player classic to play the videos.

13) The inbuilt security in Vista is quite beefed up, in most cases the default ones are enough. Still if you want to have control over the system, then just install Comodo Personal Firewall which is free for home use. You already have Ad muncher installed so with this firewall it is a killer combination. For your anti virus needs, I would recommend NOD32, the best anti virus for Windows Vista I have ever used. It’s very light on resource usage. For storing your passwords, you can either use Keypass or AI Roboform. Most of the time I have my anti virus disabled & I run it only when I plug in a pen drive of a friend or a CD. It’s advisable to download Applications etc from reputed sources like Download.com or FileHippo or Fileforum.

14) The Media center application in Vista will take care of all your PVR needs; you can even record TV using it. If your TV tuner card is not supported then have a look at ChrisTV or Media Portal, which is equally good.

15) For converting videos from one format to another, you can use SUPER, although I use Riverpast video cleaner.

16) A must have UI enhancer for Vista is Vize. Install it after you have installed every update for Windows. Vista comes with inbuilt sidebar which brings gadgets to Windows, but if you want a bigger library of Widgets, considers using Yahoo Widgets.

17) Windows Vista comes with Windows Mail inbuilt but it lacks support for Windows Live Mail in it. A better solution is Windows Live Mail desktop using which you can check & access your Yahoo, Gmail & Windows Live Mail. It’s quite simple to use & an All in one E-Mail Client.

18 ) For saving contacts, you can use Windows Contacts. It integrates with WLM Desktop so you don’t have to worry about syncing.

19) For archiving purpose WinRAR is the best but it is paid, however another good & free solution is jZip which integrates in Windows like it is a part of Windows. The shell integration is better than WinRAR. It can open RAR files too, just that you can only make Zip files using it.

20) You can use Winmpy FLV player for playback of FLV files like those downloaded from YouTube.

21) RSS Feeds are a very good way to stay in touch with latest news & articles. Although you can use any of the RSS reader application out there like FeedDaemon etc, but Windows Vista already has a RSS feed reader inbuilt, it’s in IE 7. A simple & easy to navigate RSS feed reader.

22) You can simply use TCPOptomiser to optimize the internet settings of your computer. Just select the speed of your internet connection & select Optimal Settings, then reboot.

23) GSpot is a free utility which identifies the codec required to play an AVI file and supplies other information as well.

24) For recording what you do on the screen I use Snag-It, but you can also use Jing which is free. The only problem is that it saves in Flash video format.

25) If you are like me, chances are you are running Windows Vista as your primary & only OS. However, many times you might need to check your application or design or web site or anything in Windows XP. In this case I prefer using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 with SP1 & Windows XP SP3 Virtual PC image provided from Microsoft which you can freely get & use it to test your stuff in a virtual Windows XP environment. Although you can also run Linux virtually in Virtual PC 2007, I do not recommend it. Instead have a look at Sun xVM VirtualBox. You can install Windows, Linux & BSD in VirtualBox easily.

A quite extensive TweakGuide for Vista can be found here.

Vista has inbuilt instant search but if you manage it like me, you will not need that. I am assuming that you only have 2 partitions in your computer, one C drive for Windows & another E drive for files.

1) Make some folders in E drive named Music, Movies, Documents, Software, Backup, Download, Pictures. Now go to C:\users\your username\ Right click on the appropriate folders & go to properties, then the location tab, then set the location to the folders created in E drive.

The benefit of this is that you don’t have to worry about backing up your data in case of a Virus breakthrough or corrupt windows installation. All you have to do is to insert the vista DVD & repair. All your documents will remain safe.

2) Make a folder inside the folder Backup in E drive with the name “Application files”. This is where you should save your application files like Firefox profile folder, or Windows Live Mail Desktop data folder. This way the application settings will remain same even if you reinstall Windows. In case you have to migrate to a laptop or new computer, just copy the files there. The method to change the folder location should be there in Options or Preference of the application. Like in ACDSee, the option to change the location of Database folder is in Tools->Options-> Database. Just give the path of this application folder & it will take care of the rest.

3) Copy all your songs to the Music folder & videos to Movies folder. Now open WMP 11, Go to tools -> Library -> Monitor folders & give the path of these 2 folders. WMP11 will automatically add new files placed in these folders to the library.

4) Make a shortcut of the download folder & put it in the folder

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\ SendTo

This way you don’t need to copy files individually when you are trying to copy files from different locations to a particular location. Just right click on files placed in various locations & select downloads from the Sendto Menu. After this just copy the files at once from the download folder to where ever you like.

5) Make a habit of copying downloaded applications or files or documents to their proper location. Like make a folder named Office in the E:\Documents\ folder & place all your office related files there only. This simple task makes life easy.

6) Once Vista is installed, Disable DEP. To do this, go to Start -> Run -> Type “CMD” & enter this command.

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

7) Don’t install applications in the default path of program files. Instead, make folders like “User Interface”, “Security” in Program Files folder & install the applications inside them. For example, this is how my Program Files folder looks like, all application released to security such as Firewall, NOD32, Ad Muncher & AI roboform are installed inside the Security Folder, while Codec Pack & Riverpast suite is inside the “Studio” folder.

8 ) Instead of Shutting down the system, Hibernate it.

9) Make links to frequently used folders in the Sidebar of explorer

10) Start up Regedit and navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]

On the right pane look for the "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" string and change its value to 5000 . Default value is 20000.

11) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\explorer, Create a new string called Max Cached Icons & give it a value of 10000.

12) To change the reserved bandwidth by Windows go to gpedit.msc then to Local Computer -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> QoS Packet Scheduler -> Limit reserved bandwidth Then enable it & change the bandwidth to 0

13) Disable Auto Play from control Panel. This will save you from the nasty virii like Brontok etc which spread via Pen drives.

14) I am not much into gaming these days, but Microsoft started a new program with Vista called, Games for Windows. Once you install a compatible game it automatically shows up in Games explorer, if u run he game from here then Vista automatically disables unused resources, DWM & indexing service for games to run faster & better. If a game is not detected then either follow this tutorial or use Vista Game Explorer Editor.

Well, this is just part of how I use my Windows Vista system & how it stays top notch even after months of usage, I will be adding more to this guide soon about how I have made it easy to run Windows here. There are lots more tricks & tweaks, but this is how I use Windows.