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?

 

[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.