vista and memory

[sendme]

I just bought a Dell xps 420 and it has vista 32 bit on it. The woman at best buy said I could pay them to delete some things and change things around so vista does not use all the memory that it does. So I thought I would get on here and ask people on cag if they knew what to do. This way if I ever have to reformat I know what to change and save the money because I know best buy would have charged me and would have never told me what to do if I needed to do it again.

[Richard Longfellow]

Besides Vista, what else is installed?

[Animeguy]

I would check Anti Virus Programs, Any Chat program, Office Programs and basically anything that starts up in the beginning. I don't know what the command is but in Xp its MSCONFIG to see what you have starting up in the beginning.

Vista MSCONFIG (http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/msconfig_vista.html)

Check what is starting up and uncheck the unneeded things or if its like XP uncheck then all and start them when you need them.

[sendme]

Only thing I have installed is age of conan other then that it is all preinstalled software.

[eliter1]

Only thing I have installed is age of conan other then that it is all preinstalled software.

New computers always have a bunch of pre-installed and useless software. Thats probably what they were talking about.

[Richard Longfellow]

...other then that it is all preinstalled software.

That's what I meant, you can try going through and eliminating a lot of that stuff ("bloatware") that you don't feel you'll need. There are ways to streamline Vista too, but I don't use it and can't help with that. Another Vista user here can walk you through that process.

[musha666]

I would try googling Dell Bloatware removal or something along those lines. I remember reading in PC World Magazine about some guy who made a little free program that will remove all that extra junk for you. Dont pay Best Buy anything for that.

Or just go to msconfig and make sure there is nothing loading up that you dont need. And then go and uninstall any programs you dont use manually.

[n25philly]

look online, there is a program called pcdecrapifier that automatically takes off most of the pre-installed garbage companies like dell puts on their computers.

Also, turn off the following services

ip helper
readyboost
tablet pc
Security Center (sounds important, but all it does is bug you if you don't have anti-virus installed or have UAC turned off)
Anything windows mobile unless you use a windows based cell phone

[XxSmityxX]

Just an FYI....

Vista still is a memory hog so if you dont have 2 gigs of RAM atleast anything you do will not help!

If you have 2 or more gigs try this...

1. like the previous posters said try and go to your control panel and go to add/remove programs and go through and delete dells CRAP.

2. Upgrade to Service pack 1, which lowers memory usage, you will have to manually search on Microsofts web site for the download since they took it off of Auto Update or here's the link...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b0c7136d-5ebb-413b-89c9-cb3d06d12674&DisplayLang=en

3. You can turn down the premium display options like Aero but it wont effect it to much.

I myself have 2 gigs on my desktop and Vista runs about 600mb just sitting on the desktop with AVG antivirus running and thats about it..
So like I said if you dont have 2 gigs or more your screwed!

[sendme]

The computer has 3 gigs and came with sp1 already installed. I will check out that program. I was wondering if someone had made one that did that. glad to see that someone did. Also I dont know why but i noticed that the pointer is off a little. On my old xp pc when i click on something i use the top of the arrow on the vist pc it uses the lower right hand corner. I looked and didnt see a way to change this so is it just vista or is their a way to change it?