A TweakUI for Vista
TotalIdea’s TweakVI (free basic edition) makes up for the lack of a “TweakUI†for Vista.
TweakUI is a Microsoft “PowerToy†for Windows XP (not Vista). It allows you to change all kinds of settings for how the operating system works. See the “Hit Parade†below, to get an idea of the kinds of settings I’m talking about. (Note: Microsoft makes this tool available without any warranty or support. Use it at your own risk.)
Microsoft does not offer a TweakUI equivalent for Vista, but a company called TotalIdea comes to the rescue. Their TweakVI comes in three editions (basic, premium, and ultimate). The basic version is free and it is roughly the equivalent of TweakUI for XP. For XP users, TotalIdea also offers Tweak-XP Pro, which goes beyond what TweakUI can do. Tweak-XP Pro has a free trial that’s good for 30 executions. Perhaps the most interesting feature of Tweak-XP Pro are the cleanup functions (unnecessary registry entries and unnecessary files).
The TweakUI Hit Parade: Here are a few of the more useful settings in the original TweakUI (for XP):
Disable Animations - for performance or if you just find them annoying (General)
Mouse wheel scroll speed (Mouse | Wheel)
Use classic search in Explorer - jumps directly into searching for files when you hit F3 (Explorer)
Increase size of thumbnails (Explorer | Thumbnails)
Whether or not system icons like My Computer and the Recycle Bin appear on the desktop (Desktop)
The Locations of special folders (My Documents, My Music, Document templates) (My Computer | Special Folders)
Disabling Autoplay by type (e.g. enable autoplay for CDs & DVDs, but not other removables) (My Computer | Autoplay | Types)
Disabling Autoplay by specific drive letter (My Computer | Autoplay | Drives)
Hiding control panel items that are not used (Control Panel)
Changing which text editor program is invoked for viewing page source (Internet Explorer | View Source)
Windows command prompt filename & directory completion (Tab key) (Command Prompt)
Screen saver grace period before locking workstation (Logon | Screen Saver)
Misc. repair functions (rebuild icons, repair font folder, etc.)
TweakUI
Latest Version: 2.10.0.0
Platform: Windows XP
Author: Microsoft
Price: Free (unsupported)
Download Link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
TweakVI v1.x for Windows Vista
Latest Version: 1.0 build 1052
Platform: Windows Vista
Author: TotalIdea
Price: Free (Basic), $30 (Premium), $40 (Ultimate)
Download Link: http://www.totalidea.com/content/downloads.php
Tweak-XP Pro v1.x for Windows XP
Latest Version: 4.0.8
Platform: Windows XP
Author: TotalIdea
Price: Trial, $30 (Premium), $40 (Ultimate)
Download Link: http://www.totalidea.com/content/downloads.php
Tags: cleanup, executions, free_trial, Microsoft, Operating system, registry_entries, risk, Software, TweakUI, TweakVI, tweak_xp_pro, unnecessary_files, Windows, windows vista, windows xp
