Another Vista Tweaking App: VistaTweaker
There’s another application you can download to mess with system settings on Windows Vista, and this one’s a free download. VistaTweaker is light on the graphical flash, but it has seven tabs of checkboxes to keep you satisfied. You can use it to:
- Disable User Account Control
- Disable the Secure Desktop or Security Center notifications
- Enable unsigned drivers
- Add context (right-click) menu listings, like Register/Unregister DLLs or ActiveX Controls, Copy/Move to Folder, Open with Notepad and Take Ownership
- Disable AutoReboot
- Disable AutoComplete in file dialogs
- Show hidden/system files and file extensions
- Disable file Tooltips
- Remove the Shortcut arrow or the “Shortcut to” text from icons
- Disable Start Menu notifications for newly installed programs
- Hide Recent Documents
- Speed up Start Menu search*
- Enable ClearType
- Enable Classic View in the Control Panel
- Disable auto image resizing in Internet Explorer
- Disable all browser extensions
- Enable smooth scrolling
- Disable header/footer printing when printing web pages
- Open all popups in the same window
- Disable the Information Bar
- Disable the Internet Connection Wizard
- Disable the RSS feed discovery sound
- Disable header/footer printing when printing from Notepad
- Disable updates for Windows Media Player
- Disable Roaming Cache
- Allow more connections per server
- Disable low disk space checking
- Disable the creation of 8+3 filenames
- Tweak the timeout for killing a service or an application
- Change the registered owner or company
- Set the default user, password and domain
There are a lot more settings I left out, and while a lot of them are settings you already know how to change, you might appreciate having them all in one place, instead of having to locate the appropriate control panel, plus it can be run off a flash drive (even U3). You can download the latest version here.
(via Download Squad)
* - I don’t know how exactly it accomplishes this, so I’d worry that it reduces the effectiveness of Vista search in order to speed it up
