Upgrade Down
Posted on April 26, 2008
If you bought a new computer in the last year, and it had a Microsoft OS on it, chances are you got yourself a shiny new Aero. If you bought almost any retail store computer, it would have had Vista on it instead of XP. So you’ve been using it a while now….as Dr. Phil might say, ‘How’s that working out for ya’?’
Vista sure does look attractive, even I admit that. However, once you get past the pretty face, you might find that you miss the plain workability of Windows XP. Here’s an indisputable fact for you — Vista is never as fast as XP using the same hardware. Newer computers are always faster than old models, so you would think the same should be true with the software side of things. Not so in this case.
And too, Vista is just not as stable as XP. Explorer crashes too often in Vista, and other oddities could have you longing for the good old days of XP.
Some of the retailers like BestBuy would be glad to help you out. I’ve heard of people buying a new computer at BB with Vista on it and then buying XP and having them ‘upgrade down’ their new computer, paying up to $150 for the swap of the OS.
What if you want to go back and “upgrade” to XP? You can’t just put your Windows XP installation CD into a Vista computer and choose “upgrade.” The XP disk won’t know what Vista is and will call it an unsupported system.
Your first real option, then, is to reinstall XP from scratch. Doing that will mean you’ll need to set aside the time to reinstall all of your applications and restore all of your files, also meaning you will need good backups of all the files you have created since the machine was new plus having access to all the install disks for any programs you installed since you bought the computer. Not a load of fun.
If that’s more than you would really like to tackle upfront, then let’s make some small mods to the way Vista runs. If you’re willing to ditch the glitzy look, you may be able to recover enough pep and stability to actually leave Vista on your PC and save a lot of work. The Aero interface gives Vista the glitz that makes it look so nice. However, Aero eats a lot of system resources — and that takes a big toll on performance.
OK, mouse in hand, let’s tweak this thing. Microsoft makes turning off Aero pretty easy. First, right-click on any blank area of your Vista desktop, and select Personalize from the resulting pop-up menu. The Windows Control Panel opens. From there, click the Window Color and Appearance link. Then click the Enable Transparency check box to remove the check mark.
Before leaving the Window Color and Appearance dialog box, click the link labeled “Open classic appearance properties for more color options.” That link takes you to the Appearance Settings dialog box. In Appearance Settings, you’ll find a list of color schemes from which you can choose.
Three of those color schemes — Windows Vista Basic, Windows Standard, and Windows Classic — will remove the Aero interface. Specifically, Windows Vista Basic gives you the Vista look without the transparency effects of Aero. Windows Standard recalls the Windows 2000 look, and Windows Classic is a throwback to the Windows 95/98 appearance. Switch to any one of these themes, and you should notice that Vista becomes a bit snappier overall.
You can also tweak more out of Vista by changing the way Windows Explorer works, which is also heavy on the glitz. One of the first problems is that the menus are no longer visible. Get them back by opening Windows Explorer, pressing Alt-T to pull open the hidden Tools menu, and then selecting Folder Options.
From the resulting dialog box, click the View tab, where you’ll see several check boxes. Check the one that is labeled “Always show menus,” and you’ll get your Explorer menus back in a flash. Also check the first option as well — labeled “Always show icons, never thumbnails.” That option tells Vista not to bother with showing thumbnails of images in a directory listing. If you can do without thumbnails, you’ll find that Explorer works faster and crashes a lot less.
You can also modify the Start menu if you want. Right-click the Start menu, and select Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu dialog box opens. From there, select the Start Menu tab, and then click the Classic Start Menu option button. Click OK, and Vista will give you back the old-style XP Start menu.
See if these tips will help you get most of the XP performance back. If so, you will have saved yourself a lot of work by not having to reload your OS, your programs, and all your data.
» Filed Under Microsoft, Software, Vista, XP
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