Published Date: Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 21st, 2005

Welcome & Overview

It has been about a month and a half since Microsoft launched Windows Vista™ Beta 1 to testers. Now they have let out build 5219, a build from the Beta 2 code tree that starts showing some of Vista's true colors as far as features are concerned. This build is a definite step ahead from Beta 1 (Providing you don't have a SATA Hard Drive). Anyway lets get on with the tips and tricks I have come up with for this build!

Windows Vista™ System Requirements

While Microsoft have not officially published requirements for Longhorn this is what we would reccomend as the minimum for a smooth running Windows Vista™ Install, these guidelines will allow you to run DWM (Glass).

• 2.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor or higher; 1.6 GHz AMD Athlon/Opteron/Athon 64 /Pentium M
• Nvidia GeForce FX5200 or higher/ATI Radeon 9500 or higher
• 512+MB of RAM
• 9 GB of free hard disk space

Windows Vista On SATA: Can't be done? Think Again!

Boot into setup from the Vista DVD.

Proceed through the various setup screens as usual until you get to the screen with the various harddrives and the "Load Driver" button (i.e., Where
do you want to install Windows?).

At this screen, press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt.

You'll need to use the command prompt to find 2 things:

1. The drive letter of the DVD drive containing the Vista DVD
2. The path to the location of your 3rd-party storage driver(s) on whatever media they're located on.

The easiest way to find these paths is to open Notepad (notepad.exe) at the commandline, go to File | Open, then click Computer on the dialog's breadcrumb bar to get a view of all your (currently available) drives.

Alternatively, you can do a "dir" on various drive letters until you get what you're looking for.


After you have both paths, exit notepad (if necessary) and go back to the commandline. You can use Alt-Tab if it has moved out of view.

At the commandline type:

<DVD Drive Letter>:\drivers\DPInst.exe /PATH <Drivers Disk Drive Letter>:\<Driver Files Path>


In my case, my DVD Drive was on G: and my storage drivers were on a USB key in H:\i386\.

So at the commandline, I typed:

G:\drivers\DPInst.exe /PATH H:\i386\

/PATH is a switch telling DPInst.exe you are giving it a directory path. It is not a variable, so don't replace it.


After you execute DPInst.exe, a Driver Wizard will appear. Click Next, and t will show that the storage driver you just added was installed. Click Finish. If you have other storage drivers to load, repeating this process should work (I just had one). After you finish with the wizard, click "Refresh" on the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen. The harddrives that required the storage driver(s) should now appear in the list. Continue installing Vista as normal and I hope this solution works well for everyone.

Explorer Performance Tweaks

Click Start, right click on "Computer", and click Properties.
Click on the Advanced tab. Under Performance, click Settings.
Uncheck these options:

• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade or slide tooltips into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show shadows under menus
• Slide open combo boxes
• Slide taskbar buttons
• Use a background image for each folder type

Close the Performance Options & System Properties dialogs.

Disable Unneeded Services

As I stated earlier in this guide, Windows Vista™ is pretty stable out of the box. The following list of services do not *need* to be disabled but I reccomend it since they only serve to annoy you anyway (Security Center, anyone?)

Disable the following:

• Automatic Updates
• Idwlog Service
• Security Center
• System Maintenance Service
• Tablet PC Input Service (If you don't use Tablet PC)

Fixes for Various 5219 Issues

This section will outline any fixes/workarounds for some of the common issues in 5219.

WinRAR Massive Title Bar Bug:

To fix the massive title bar in WinRAR, right click the toolbar and click "Show Text" to disable the text captions on buttons, now the buttons will be sized correctly.

DWM Lagginess Workaround:

This issue can be resolved by doing one of two things. You can either change the refresh rate, or terminate uxss.exe from the task manager and restart it. This workaround did not work for me but it has worked for others which is why I included it.

Sound Issues:

Fix for Random sound cut-outs:

Some of you may notice that when you do CPU intensive tasks in 5219, the sound likes to cut out for 2-3 seconds and then come back. This can be easily fixed by DISABLING the System Maintenance Service. Doing this will also cure the problem of svchost.exe gobbling up tons of RAM.

Sound Driver Recommendations:

These are the drivers that I reccomend you use for various sound devices in Vista, I have either tested these myself or recieved word that they work and do not have any garbled/crackly/distorted sound:

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy: Use the drivers off the original driver installation CD

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2/2ZS: Creative Driver Version 5.12.06.1161.

Creative Sound Blaster X-FI: Use the latest drivers available on the Creative Labs driver download page.

Realtek AC97 Audio Devices: Use the latest BETA Drivers located Here.

Soundmax Audio Devices: Use the latest drivers available from your manufacturer.

Internet Explorer 7 User Agent String

This was posted over at the IE MSDN Blog. It outlines how to change the user agent string back to IE6 so that things like Microsoft Beta chats, and some Online Banking sites will work (they seem to puke if they detect IE7):

Simply save the following as IE7UA.REG. Double-click the file to merge it into your registry and restart the browser to see the change.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 6.0”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform]
“SV1″=-

You can easily undo the change by saving and merging the following IE7Undo.reg.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
“Version”=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform]
“SV1″=”"

You can test the change using a simple page that echos the User-Agent, e.g.: http://www.fiddlertool.com/useragent.aspx.

Hidden Goodies

There are a few little gems hidden in Vista 5219 (in plain sight too) that Microsoft did not add shortcuts to for whatever reason, but they do work. Here is a rundown of what they are and where they are located.

NOTE: All Instances of C:\ are symbolizing the drive that Windows Vista is installed on.

Microsoft Game EXE's: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games

Microsoft Windows Photo Library: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Photo Library\PhotoLibrary.exe

NOTE: This app works perfectly except for the fact that it asks for the Indeo Video Codec. This codec does not seem to install properly so just bypass the message and tell it to never show it to you again.

Windows Movie Maker: C:\Program Files\movie maker\MOVIEMK.exe

Media Center Issues and Tips

The version of Media Center included in Windows Vista build 5219 will NOT work if you have LDDM drivers installed. It will cause uncontrollable flashing of the screen (cycling through refresh rates). So if you want to use Media Center you have to give up Glass for the time being (it's buggy anyway).

I will update this guide in a few days with all of the tweaks to get MCE into a full working state right off boot so that when you press the green button on your MCE remote it actually starts MCE instead of just sitting there looking at you.