Tweakers

Want to bend practically every aspect of Vista to your will, from improving system performance to customizing the interface? Then try out the following six system tweakers.

Vista Smoker Pro 1.2

Vista Smoker Pro--click for enlarged image.

It’s designed to help you optimize the way that Vista runs, from memory to hard disk operations to the basic interface. Very little escapes this program’s notice. Want to optimize Vista for game play? The GameBoost feature will shut down services and free up RAM and CPU cycles for you. You can also optimize your CD drive, improve your system’s graphics performance, shut down unwanted services, and tweak Internet Explorer to your heart’s content. If you dislike Vista’s intrusive User Account Control feature, you can use this program to change UAC’s behavior. Vista Smoker Pro even lets you remove arrows from shortcut icons on your desktop–talk about attention to detail! If you don’t want to get down and dirty with manual performance tweaking, let the Auto Tuner featuredo the job for you.
Download Vista Smoker Pro.

Systerac Tools

Systerac Tools for Vista--click for enlarged image.

Your everything-including-the-kitchen-sink performance tool for Vista is this medley of utilities from Systerac. Among the tools bundled here are a memory optimizer, a disk doctor, a Registry backup program, a Registry optimizer, a shutdown scheduler, an Internet booster, a startup manager–and that’s just the beginning. You’ll also find a file shredder and a nifty tool that displays a complete list of all your hardware. That’s the good news. Now the bad news: Systerac was perhaps overgenerous in its use of nag screens that pop up whenever you want to use one of the program’s features, urging you to make the buy.
Download Systerac Tools for Vista.

Mz Vista Force

Mz Vista Force--click for enlarged image.

Here’s a free–and very accomplished–Vista tweaker. Use it to accelerate performance, juice your browsing speed, clean up your hard disk, clear out bandwidth-wasting startup programs, and even fine-tune Windows Media Player and Explorer. Many of the settings here are exceedingly fine-grained. Want to change the speed at which the Start menu search displays? With Mz Vista Force, you can.
Download Mz Vista Force.

Vista Manager

Vista Manager--click for enlarged image.

This Vista tweaker from Yamicsoft may be the most powerful one of the bunch. More than a single program, it serves as an umbrella uniting many utilities in a single interface. Whether you want to speed up your system, repair it, optimize Internet Explorer, enhance security, or adjust the way your network works, you’ll find something here that can do the job. Vista Manager also lets you customize just about every part of the Desktop, Start menu, and Taskbar, as well as your icons. A Registry defragmenter and cleaner provides a final dollop of usefulness.
Download Vista Manager.

Stardock Tweak Vista

TweakVista--click for enlarged image.

As its name implies, Stardock’s TweakVista lets you alter and fine-tune Vista in countless ways. A blessedly simple and well-designed interface makes tweaking easy. You can see what programs run at startup, how much RAM each currently running program uses, and what Vista security parameters are now in force. One particularly useful feature is the Services module, which enables you to switch various Vista services on or off, depending on how you want to use your PC. Another utility in the TweakVista tool box lets you customize how User Account Control works. For a free program, this one is hard to beat.
Download TweakVista.

Startup, Log-On, and Boot Tweakers

Don’t like your Vista startup or log-on logo? Want to change the way your system boots? Then try out the following four programs.

Vista Boot Logo Generator

Vista Logo Generator--click for enlarged image.

Tired of seeing the same old boot screen every time you start up Windows Vista? Become ennui-free with this nifty free program. It lets you replace your boot screen with one that you create yourself from scratch, or with a graphic that you find online. You’ll have to create or find the image in two sizes: 1024 by 768 pixels, and 800 by 600 pixels. Both must be in .bmp format, at 24-bit color depth. Once you have them, though–and plenty available via a search on Google–this program very deftly replaces you boot screen with them.
Download Vista Boot Logo Generator.

Stardock LogonStudio Vista

Logon Studio--click for enlarged image.

Facing the same boot logo screen every day isn’t the only repetitve experience that can render your visits to Vista mundane and joyless. Having to see the same log-on screen every time may have the same deleterious effect on a sensitive psyche as overexposure to French Symbolist poetry. But Stardock’s LogonStudio Vista gives you the power to triumph over your tedious log-on screen. It’s exceptionally easy to use: Pick a graphic already stored on your PC, create a new one, or download a prefabricated log-on screen from the Web site associated with this program. Then tell Windows Vista to use the new log-on screen–and prepare to bask in the new.
Download LogonStudio Vista.

EasyBCD 1.7

EasyBCD--click for enlarged image.

Longtime Windows XP users may remember that changing the way XP booted in multiboot systems required them merely to do a little digging and then edit a boot.ini file. With Windows Vista, unfortunately, that approach is no longer possible, because a well-nigh incomprehensible command line program called BCDEdit rules the roost. But EasyBCD from NeoSmart Technologies serves as a front-end to BCDEdit, enabling you to change all of the important settings on your multiboot PC. This free program comes with a diagnostics and troubleshooting tool as well, to help you recover from a multiboot system gone bad. A word of advice: You should be familiar with multiboot menus before using this program, so you don’t do your system any damage.
Download EasyBCD.

VistaBootPro 3.1

VistaBootPro--click for enlarged image.

Here’s an even stronger tool for hacking multiboot menus, with more options than EasyBCD. One especially nice feature of ProNetwork’s VistaBootPro is that it lets you back up all of your boot information–to a locale called the BCD store–before you begin making any changes. That way, you’ll be able to restore your system more easily if things go wrong. With VistaBootPro, you can change the order of the boot menu that appears when your PC starts, set any operating system to be the default, rename any OS list entries, and change how long the menu displays before your default operating system kicks in. Among the more esoteric features are options to debug the boot process, to enable or disable the boot GUI mode, and to allow or disallow the use of unsigned drivers in the 64-bit version of Windows Vista.
Download VistaBootPro.