Vista Q's : Desktop Background, Cab Files etc.

[Frank_Rizzo]

Vista Q's : Desktop Background, Cab Files, Volumes etc.

What a pile of cack this OS is!

Here's a few annoyances I hope someone can sort out:

1. How do I remove the desktop background?
If I click Personalize and Desktop Background I can choose a different background but there is no option for 'No Background'

2a. CAB files do not install.
I download updates from MBSA. Some run fine but others are delivered as CAB files. If I open them they open up in Winzip / Windows zip rather than install.

2b.
I tried running the updates via "windows 'schmuk user' update" but it just keeps looping on the same update: It says there is an update to install, I install it, it reboots, it configures, it gives me the desktop and then says you still have the same update to install. I presume this is connected with 2a. above - CAB files not installing.

3. Are there any good tweak apps out there?
I'm after the basic, but useful stuff such as getting rid of the arrow on shortcuts. Another which grinds my gears is grouping of similar screens. Which app allows me to change the grouping threshold or where can I do this manually?

4. Anyone recommend a good firewall for Vista?
I presume the Vista Firewall is about as useful as a chocolate fire guard.

5. Resize Volumes
How can I resize a volume to a much smaller size?
I much prefer to structure a disk as:

C: OS
D: DATA
E: APPS
F: TEMP stuff

Vista has a 'shrink' option but I could not shrink C: less than about 56GB. It only has 8Gb on it (XP used to be about 4GB ) and I won't put anything else on there so I'm wasing about 48Gb. Why can't I shrink it further?

6. Change from NTFS to FAT32
Is this possible? I read that you can go the other way but not this way. If that is true then is there a backup solution where I can move stuff onto a preformatted FAT32 disk?

 

[Frank_Rizzo]

7. Outlook / Identities
With XP and Outlook I had three identities which I could swap between to get mail for each account (one orange, one BT, one freeserve). Now I have to create three Vista user accounts and one email account per user.

This is a PITA. Is there anyway around this, or is there someother email client which allows identities or easy management / use of three separate email accounts?

 

[marc2003]

1) choose solid colors from the drop down list
2) all my updates have ran fine???
3) right click taskbar, properties, untick 'group similar taskbar buttons'.
4) i rely solely on my router so don't need outgoing protection. search the forums as that topic has been done to death
5) you'll need to use a 3rd party i guess? the disk management in vista is somewhat limited
6) no, partition magic used to be able to do this in xp. i don't know if there is a vista compatible version out? but i have to ask. why? fat32 really is old hat.
7) i assume you mean windows mail? haven't a clue, don't use it...

 

[Frank_Rizzo]

Thanks for that.

1. D'oh
2. Still can't sort this. Can anyone confirm that clicking on a cab file in explore runs an installer or just unzips it?
3. Yes, but I was looking more for an app which allows you to set the group level. e.g. if more than 5 windows of one app then group.

I found TweakVI which looks pretty good - has options to remove shortcut arrow.

With XP I use Tweak UI which does the lot.

4. Ok.

5. Disk management certainly is better than XP but I'm still intrigued as to why I can not shrink a volume to less than 56Gb. I think it is to do with compression but I turn all that crap off. Maybe Vista needs 'room to breathe'.

6. Tried Partition Magic but it doesn't work. Guess I need to wait for more apps to be compatible.

As for FAT32 I much prefer that as I see NTFS as being overkill for desktops. I also like the fact that if the O/S goes wrong I can boot from a 98/Dos disk and access files in full name format. AFAIK, it's too much hassle with NTFS. Unless someone can show benchmarks that NTFS is 20% faster than FAT32 then I'm not interested in it.

7. Sure, I use Thunderbird as main mail client for day to day use but I have three other accounts I need to check about once a week.

With XP / Outlook I just click on the three identities, check the mail and scoot out of there if nothing doing.

But with Microsoft 'Mail' you can't do that. You have to create three separate Vista user accounts each having their own mail configuration. Either that or Mail is configures to have three Inboxes for the three accounts in one view, but you can not choose which account to reply from.

 

[marc2003]

a cab is an archive like zip/rar. some can can be opened to view. some can't.

and as for using fat32 as a personal preference.... bootable cds with a nice gui can read/write from ntfs drives. no need for floppies/dos.

 

[iCraig]

As for FAT32 I much prefer that as I see NTFS as being overkill for desktops. I also like the fact that if the O/S goes wrong I can boot from a 98/Dos disk and access files in full name format. AFAIK, it's too much hassle with NTFS. Unless someone can show benchmarks that NTFS is 20% faster than FAT32 then I'm not interested in it.

NTFS is better than FAT32. I've read your reason why you like FAT32, but I still don't understand why you prefer FAT32 over NTFS.

It's like preferring IDE over SATA. There's no real reason too, because despite little grievances, the latter is better than the former.

 

[J.B]

On the email issue, could you not just set up multiple mail accounts and get outlook or windows mail to pull them all down to you inbox. I have mail from 2 different servers coming into mine.

If you want to keep it all seperate you could set up some rules so when your mail is pulled down you could set "if addy is [email protected] put in folder "BT" and so on....

when you go to reply (this is the case in outlook 07 and outlook express) you can select which account you use to send the reply with a drop down menu at the top.

 

[Participant]

Regarding number five, it won't allow volume shrinks if any of the following (and I've probably forgotten some) are in the area of the disk it's trying to shrink:
- system restore files
- swap file
- some other's I can't remember

I ended up formatting and starting again.