TweakUI is different, but it’s well worth the download. TweakUI just edits some not-so-obvious registry settings to do things like remove the Recycle Bin from the desktop, change how Explorer groups programs on the taskbar, change search back to the Win2k style, etc. It won’t change the look of Windows (much) or give you extra functionality.
[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]I know many people will be doing the opposite of this, but is anyone “dressing up” their desktops? I normally only do this on my desktops which are fully loaded but I normally strip down my notebooks for maximum speed. However, the added speed of the TR (compared to what I’m used to) has allowed me to add some eye candy to the desktop.
I’m playing around with WindowBlinds, WindowsFX and MobyDock. It’s frivolous stuff but it’s fun and makes working in Windows much more aesthetically pleasing.
Feel free to post pictures or your thoughts…
gr00vy .... what kinda programs on there that you strip off I am curious can you provide me a list . I like to junk all the proggies that I would not use. My primary purpose of the laptop is to surf, chat and download pics from my digi camera and i do everything else via telnet /ssh .
[quote author=“zen_vaio”]
gr00vy .... what kinda programs on there that you strip off I am curious can you provide me a list . I like to junk all the proggies that I would not use. My primary purpose of the laptop is to surf, chat and download pics from my digi camera and i do everything else via telnet /ssh .
Well, you basically answered your own question…simply junk the programs that you don’t use. What I find not useful may be useful to others so I don’t want to tell you that you should be deleting something. All I’ll say is that you probably don’t want to mess around with Sony system files and drivers for the hardware. Sony Apps, on the other hand, can be deleted if you don’t use them. For instance, I got rid of picture gear because I tend to use Adobe Photoshop Album for my needs. You can also trim down stuff that’s loaded by using any Startup Manager kind of program. Again, you’ll have to decide what should and shouldn’t be disabled depending on what you have installed.
[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”][quote author=“zen_vaio”]
gr00vy .... what kinda programs on there that you strip off I am curious can you provide me a list . I like to junk all the proggies that I would not use. My primary purpose of the laptop is to surf, chat and download pics from my digi camera and i do everything else via telnet /ssh .
Well, you basically answered your own question…simply junk the programs that you don’t use. What I find not useful may be useful to others so I don’t want to tell you that you should be deleting something. All I’ll say is that you probably don’t want to mess around with Sony system files and drivers for the hardware. Sony Apps, on the other hand, can be deleted if you don’t use them. For instance, I got rid of picture gear because I tend to use Adobe Photoshop Album for my needs. You can also trim down stuff that’s loaded by using any Startup Manager kind of program. Again, you’ll have to decide what should and shouldn’t be disabled depending on what you have installed.
You know the reason I ask is that I see a BUTT TON of processes running in the TASK LIST ... and I have no idea if some of them are not needed or not .. I took care of the obvious ones like REAL . yhou know of anything else ..?
A lot of them are supposed to be running. It’s tough for someone not familiar with how NT works to know what each svchost process is doing, for example. Most, if not all on your system, will have to be running. Your best bet is go through the last page of msconfig and see what’s running. Honestly, if you’re not having any performance problems, don’t screw around with something you don’t know much about. If you are having performance problems, the problem probably isn’t showing up in task manager. Try running AdAware and/or Spybot S&D to get rid of spy/ad/malware.
Sorry zen_vaio. i wasn’t trying to be short with you it’s just that it’s not a very exact thing to do as Drachen said and you could do more harm than good if you go mucking around with system services. Generally speaking, a reasonable amount of stuff is needed for the OS to run and for certain devices to work properly. I’m extremely familiar with NT and have been using it since version 3.1 so I’m comfortable changing things around but it’s hard to make blanket recommendations because it’s not such a simple thing. There are a lot of factors to understand before you simply enable/disable services.
As Drachen said, if there’s nothing inherently wrong with the system then I wouldn’t bother tweaking anything. If you are interested in learning more about NT services then I suggest you check out Black Viper’s service configurations page. He explains what certain services do and whether or not it’s a good idea to enable/disable them. Still, you should be very cautious about turning off too many services as there may be consequences within your particular system. I can assure you that there is probably no service that is secretly holding your system back and will make it faster.
Honestly, I don’t have too many things disabled. I found that I ended up turning things back on since I used them regularly. In terms of startup items, I only disabled things like the hotkeys for the intel graphics and some other things for items I installed.
I downloaded the Mobtdock and it seemed to work pretty well. The only problems I can’t figure out is getting it from the bottom right hand corner to the bottom center. THe other problem is trying to get the email icon to open my Outlook and not Outlook Express. I tried a couple of things with no success. Any suggestions?
Has anyone else noticed that with Mobydock installed and running the TR fails to restart following standby or hibernation? Mine would start to come up and then restart itself.
I had to go with Objectdock instead - even though Mobydock seems to perform better.
IME, Mobydock is an incredibly buggy program. I had a lot of problems with it freezing and other bizzare behavior during drag-and-drop operations on my desktop machine. :? ObjectDock is much more mature. If it’s a little slow, try turning on the “Custom Engine” option in the control panel. The magnification is much less precise, but the rendering should be faster.
As to object dock, i would like to know if you can set the weather station to a uk area.
I still think desktop side bar beats all this though. http://www.desktopsidebar.com
Yes, but you need to download the updated weather docklet - the packaged one won’t.
I gave up on the ‘sidebar’ products as they all seemed so buggy. An on the TR, you don’t have as much ‘length’ down the screen so you can’t get that much on them anyway. On my old notebook at 1600x1200 it was worth the effort…
gr00vy, is there anyway to customize which apps show up on the bar in Mobydock? i’d like to get rid of Outlook Express and Favorites but can’t see any way to do it.
Drag items off the dock to delete them. They should disappear with a “poof”. To add new ones, drag a shortcut or executable onto the dock… if the app doesn’t crash.
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