I'd like to make some changes to my computer...

[Crescent Pulsar R]

Eh. Vista's alright. It hasn't given me any serious problems, and two of the three current issues I wish to fix are more than likely user-attributed. I even got used to being prompted on whether to allow this or that whenever I try to start a variety of programs. I'd say that, from my own experience, what makes Vista inferior to XP is that it's bogged down by a lot of superficial features (which I either turned off or changed to something standard or classic). I couldn't tell you exactly how, now that it's been a couple of years since I last did anything with XP (and thus my memory of it is quite faded), but Vista doesn't seem as easy to figure out or quite as efficient in some ways. But all I'm basing that on is a feeling, really.

Of course, I may just be one of those rare individuals who are lucky enough to have never encountered any serious computer problems. Lord knows how many different things happen to other people and their computers that -- despite being very frequent and/or common -- never happen to me. Which I'm sure would enrage every person who's ever shelled out the cash for the best protection they could buy, and who still ended up with some misfortune or another. Especially considering that most of the protection I've used in the past five or so years has been very basic and mostly dependent on the actions I had to take in order to prevent doing something or going somewhere that might compromise my weak defenses. My paranoia helped me, of course. XD;;

[frice2000]

I said the Windows Me of this generation. By that I meant it was slow, more unstable, nd quickly replaced by a far superior product very quickly.

If you're using out of date virus protection here use http://free-av.com instead. It works well and is updated for new viruses daily. It is slightly worse then the current version of Kaspersky but the difference is only a few percent in detection . It's also entirely free. You'll see one ad a day when it updates otherwise it'll run happily in the background. Also get rid of your other software firewall. Toss it don't need two running. Hell most people don't need one at all a good router does the job just fine.

... Oh you turned off Aero for classic huh? Not a good move turn it back on. If you have hardware to help accelerate it it actually runs far better then the software renderer Vista will use with classic on. So yeah go back into Appearance options and select Aero again. You should notice a faster computer.

[APN]

I personally just use the 3rd party file manager 'xplorer2 lite', I've been using it for over six years and will never go back to using the windows explorer ever.

And if you do try it, make sure you disable the tool bar addon during installation: http://www.zabkat.com/x2lite.htm

If you're using out of date virus protection here use http://free-av.com instead. It works well and is updated for new viruses daily. It is slightly worse then the current version of Kaspersky but the difference is only a few percent in detection . It's also entirely free. You'll see one ad a day when it updates otherwise it'll run happily in the background.

That popup can be easily disabled using these methods:
http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disabl ... ir_nag.htm
http://minibayit.net/remove_antivir_popup.htm

[Crescent Pulsar R]

Well, it seems my keyboard is on for a second when the logo and options blink into appearance, so over the past several days I eventually managed to get into the BIOS. (Well, F2 said BIOS, and F12 said Boot Options, but they did the same thing.) I didn't find anything that said anything even remotely close to what I'm looking for, so... Looks like I'll need to get my hands on one of those UPS things. ;/

So far the "details" setting has stuck, but only for the folders I've manually set. I guess it's better than nothing, though.