On March 15, 2008 I unpacked my new Dell XPS420 high powered performance bundle that comes with Vista Ultimate. The only setup problem I had was in determining which port to plug the speakers into; it should go in the green port. Other than that, I made these settings or played with Vista in the following manner. Before we begin, My brother worked with computers since 1982 on software and hardware. He has a college degree in electronics and am currently retired. So he still goes to school in his spare time to get a BSCIS degree. He is currently publishing a website with a blog addressing all these issues and others for free.
Turn off the Welcome Center startup page.
This is as simple as deselecting the Run at Startup check box. You do not need this to run at startup to enjoy Vista.
Change the sleep time on your computer.
If your computer has already gone to sleep please note that tapping a couple of times on the space bar wakes it quicker than moving the mouse. Go to the Windows start button and select Control Panel. It is the 3rd item from the bottom right. Select System and Maintenance green link, then go to Power options and select the blue link Change when the computer sleeps. You will notice they have it set for a measly 30 minutes, way too short for going to get something to eat and drink while you work at home. Set the Turn off display time to something you can live with, say 4 hours (I set mine to never). Set the Put the computer to sleep time to something you can live with. Save changes and exit out of the power options.
Change the defrag disk parameters.
It comes set to defrag every week and this is overkill for most users. I set mine for monthly defrag although on my old XP Professional system I only defragged once a year. Go to the Windows Start button and select Control Panel, the 3rd item from the bottom right. Select the green System and Maintenance link then scroll down to the category called Administrative Tools. Select the blue link Defragment your hard drive and click on the link. It should come up as Run on a Schedule and you can modify schedule. Do so. Select monthly out of how often, day 1 in days and 6pm or another time suited to you. This would mean defrag at 6pm on the first day of the month. Defragging keeps your files tight and together on your hard drive so they load faster. Of course, you could always take it off the schedule and defrag by going to the defrag scheduler when you want to.
Get on the Internet.
Get with your ISP and hook up to the Internet. Hopefully you do not have dial-up as it is much slower than anything else out there. I use my cell phone as a modem and typically run 7-10 times faster than dial-up for $25 a month. If you are stuck with dial-up but have a cell phone see if this option is available to you. After you connect to the Internet, just let your computer sit idle for awhile….Windows will download some updates and notify you to restart when it is done.
Get rid of PC-cillin by Trend and buy Norton Internet Security 2008 for $49.
If you decide to do this, go to the Start button and select Control Panel. Under the green link Programs select the blue link to Uninstall a program. Select Trend software PC-cillin and uninstall it. After it has done its' job close the Control Panel. Have your Internet up and running and put the CD in the CD player to install Norton Internet Security 2008. Once Norton Internet Security 2008 has been installed, change the scan schedule. It comes set to full scan weekly as did disk defrag, this is also overkill as long as you do a quick scan after every days work is done if you were on the Internet. Double click the Norton Icon and select Schedule a scan. The select Schedule a full system scan. Select month for Schedule Task: and then select The 1st Sunday of every month, select time consistent with when you will be on the computer (You might shy away from 6pm or whatever time you set your defrag to, give full system scan a couple of hours prior to defrag. Select OK to save your changes and exit out of Norton.
Burn your music library to Windows Media Player.
Windows Media Player has been completely revamped and it is well done. Once again make sure the Internet is up and running. This will fill in your album information and your song tracks for you. Place the CD you want to copy songs from in the CD player and it should auto start. You will see a tab on the Windows Media Player that says RIP. This is the tab to copy from CD to computer, they call it ripping now. Select the RIP tab. You should see the list of song titles with them all checked. Deselect the songs you do not wish to copy. Select START RIP at the bottom right. Wait for ripping to finish and then you can close Windows Media Player. Repeat this process for each of your CD's you want to copy from. I have 95 songs from 24 CD's in my music library.
