Minimal Windows Vista

[Budious]

A single core 1.6GHz Pentium M is an efficient enough processor for web usage, word processing, and game playing. The only thing inefficient in this equation is Vista's utilization of system resources and cpu cycles.

[tsupersonic]

Don't take the Windows Experience Index to heart. Some people use it to rank their systems, but it's just a rough estimate of how your system is going to perform. I got a 3.0 (due to my integrated gfx) but Aero still ran fine. I'd say Vista was just as responsive as XP on my laptop.

Also, make sure you get the latest drivers and windows updates and such... If you follow black viper's guide, you can dramatically reduce the footprint of Vista. Also, check your power management settings. It should be on "Balanced" on a default install, I think.

[Boeing 787]

dramatically ignorance! :D

If it stops the hard drive thrashing then it's great.

[dmd3x]

If it stops the hard drive thrashing then it's great.

exactly, i don't want to be swapping HDs out yearly

[Dashel]

Um, why not just install Win95, its much less bloated than XP.

As we found out in the tweaking thread, there isn't much to do these days other than customization. Following silly guides like Blackvipers only cripples what you paid for, generally for no good reason.

Plus, HDD use doesn't 'hurt' the drive so its not going to fail earlier. Temperature, physical shock, and powering up/down is where your main 'wear' comes from.

[Digitalx]

Just install windows XP onto and leave it. by the looks of the specs it's "made for windows xp" and not vista.

[devHead]

Does your processor haves a single core or dual core? If it's a single core then 1.6 GHz is not good enough. Check out your "Windows Experience Index" and post the full results here. The full results are below. :)

I have a single core (Athlon64, mind you) and at 1.8 Ghz it runs Vista x64 (and Server 08 x64) just fine with 2 GB of RAM. In my WEI, my CPU is 4, and since I'm running a 64-bit OS, I'm fully utilizing the 64 bit CPU. It is very snappy and continues to get quicker with time, especially boot-up and launching the applications I used the most.

Course, maybe it's just me but Windows Server 2008 seems a bit snappier than Vista x64. But it's possible it's just my imagination.

[tsupersonic]

Um, why not just install Win95, its much less bloated than XP.

As we found out in the tweaking thread, there isn't much to do these days other than customization. Following silly guides like Blackvipers only cripples what you paid for, generally for no good reason.

Plus, HDD use doesn't 'hurt' the drive so its not going to fail earlier. Temperature, physical shock, and powering up/down is where your main 'wear' comes from.

Because there are services that people don't use, so why should it take up valuable resources? It makes absolutely no sense why a service should run if you're not going to use it (unless it has dependencies)...

[dmd3x]

Um, why not just install Win95, its much less bloated than XP.

As we found out in the tweaking thread, there isn't much to do these days other than customization. Following silly guides like Blackvipers only cripples what you paid for, generally for no good reason.

Plus, HDD use doesn't 'hurt' the drive so its not going to fail earlier. Temperature, physical shock, and powering up/down is where your main 'wear' comes from.

Dashel.... how exacltly do you think the temperature rises?

Also, why would disabling services cripple Vista? Maybe in your mind it would, but I only want the core OS. If something really didn't work, couldn't I just re-enable it? I plan on monitoring my own security and backups, etc.

[tsupersonic]

I made a thread a long time ago, and here was my result. Like I said, you can pretty much retain a lot of functionality and disable a lot of services to save your memory and it sped up Vista by quite a bit for me. As you can see, I got it down to 314MB of RAM use, it actually went down to 290MB. The point here is not how much memory Vista occupies, but how snappy Vista when I tweaked it and I had all the functionality.

[ViperAFK]

If it stops the hard drive thrashing then it's great.

I don't get ANY hard drive thrashing in vista with no tweaks at all. After bootup superfetch goes for like 1 min, but after that the hdd led only blinks like twice every couple minutes. There's something wrong if you are getting thrashing.

[Boeing 787]

I don't get ANY hard drive thrashing in vista with no tweaks at all. After bootup superfetch goes for like 1 min, but after that the hdd led only blinks like twice every couple minutes. There's something wrong if you are getting thrashing.

I don't believe you.

Search indexer, superfetch, system restore, defrag, etc would always run at the worst possible time. The hard drive light would be on solid and the computer would be to busy to process what I wanted like encoding a picture or video.

[jesseinsf]

Pentium M is a single core processor and welcome to the days of 2000. You're thinking of plain processor speed is wrong. It's all about how efficient the processor is and the Pentium M was a good laptop processor in its time.

You see, I have a 3 GHz hyper threading P4 processor and it rates my processor as 4.2. The Pentium M single core will have an experience Index rating of below 3 which is not worth using Vista, unless you prefer on using Vista Basic GUI. Vista recommends Dual Core CPUs. A 1.6 GHz Dual Core CPU will have a better rating than mine. If I were you I'd stick with XP.

[jesseinsf]

Tweak Vista has a more detailed rating: a rating of 5.9 is the highest as you can get at the moment.

[jesseinsf]

I have a single core (Athlon64, mind you) and at 1.8 Ghz it runs Vista x64 (and Server 08 x64) just fine with 2 GB of RAM. In my WEI, my CPU is 4, and since I'm running a 64-bit OS, I'm fully utilizing the 64 bit CPU. It is very snappy and continues to get quicker with time, especially boot-up and launching the applications I used the most.

Course, maybe it's just me but Windows Server 2008 seems a bit snappier than Vista x64. But it's possible it's just my imagination.

Does the other guy have a 64bit system? probably not. And Server 2008 as a workstation isn't worth the time and money to set it up. and Vista Ultimate has other functionallities that 2008 doesn't.

[jesseinsf]

Pentium M is a single core processor and welcome to the days of 2000. You're thinking of plain processor speed is wrong. It's all about how efficient the processor is and the Pentium M was a good laptop processor in its time.

My graphics, HDD and Memory have a good rating which will help out the CPU, even though the CPU rating is a 4.2. My Vista flys. Plus I have a PC Power 750 Watt Power Supply which also give juice when needed. An no...not the juice you drink...lol

[ViperAFK]

I don't believe you.

Search indexer, superfetch, system restore, defrag, etc would always run at the worst possible time. The hard drive light would be on solid and the computer would be to busy to process what I wanted like encoding a picture or video.

system restore only runs for a couple seconds after I install a program. Never have any problems with search indexer and it doesn't do much besides when you first install and add all your data. I set defrag to run at like 1:00 in the morning... Their is something wrong on your end if you are getting cosntant thrashing. I game all the time and never get thrashing or anything slowing anything down. My hdd hardly gets any more activity then in xp.

I also convert a lot of music files ect.. and don't get any of the thrashing you mention. My hdd light sits idle almost all day.

[Guest xiphi]

I don't get any HDD "thrashing" either. Most of the process hardgiant mentions are set to run as "Background" processes anyway. So even if they were running, I wouldn't ever notice.

Bottom line is, I haven't noticed any more HDD activity on Vista than on XP.

In the event there is heavy HDD activity, one could always open up the Reliability and Performance Monitor....

[soldier1st]

i also dont get any thrashing even though my 1.8GHZ athlon 64 is rated at 3.8.i do agree that you can speed it up a bit by turning off some of the visuals and limiting what starts up and turn off features you dont need but then again it dpends on the system,if it's older then it will help alot but if the system is say brand new from 2008 then your milage will vary.

[Typhon]

Vista before sp1 would ride my hdd like a $2 hooker but not anymore. Even though I just made a fresh Windows XP X64 with all the hotfixes and some tweaks. I would stay with XP you have nothing to gain form Vista, other than more security.

[Fairlytayleree]

My advice would be here;

1. run it and tweak it, disable services such as indexing and so fourth.

---or---

2. check out vlite and make your own cut down vista IF [2.5] you are happy to make a slipstreamed install CD and [2.9x] you don't mind reinstalling your OS fairly regularly (Say).

I have myself gone back to XP since I am more used to it and so fourth for now.

[Grope for Luna]

You can set the indexer to low power mode in the Advanced power options.

[dmd3x]

You see, I have a 3 GHz hyper threading P4 processor and it rates my processor as 4.2. The Pentium M single core will have an experience Index rating of below 3 which is not worth using Vista, unless you prefer on using Vista Basic GUI. Vista recommends Dual Core CPUs. A 1.6 GHz Dual Core CPU will have a better rating than mine. If I were you I'd stick with XP.

Last time I ran the Windows Experience Index before I wiped the partition yesterday, I'm pretty sure my CPU had a 3.x rating. I'll get the official stats when I re-install later today or tomorrow.

[tsupersonic]

Yeah, the Pentium M will clock in anywhere from the 3.x to 4.x range for CPU rating.

[dmd3x]

Yeah, the Pentium M will clock in anywhere from the 3.x to 4.x range for CPU rating.

That's cool... :yes: I wonder why there is so much prejudice against it here. :huh: