At the beginning of 2009 I've decided to migrate to Windows Vista 64-bit and take advantage of the additional features and improvements. Although some people say that the 64-bit version is not ready for mainstream usage yet, after using it for two weeks and running some benchmarks I must say that this is not true. In this article I will give you an overview of what it means to upgrade to Windows Vista 64-bit. I will present the benefits and limitations introduced by Windows Vista 64-bit, the things you should pay attention to before upgrading, the gain in performance and my user experience since working with it.

Many people, including myself, have been hassled by the fact that you cannot add any custom entries to the AutoPlay menu in Windows Vista. You can only choose from the applications that Windows Vista wants to give you access to. To solve this problem, some suggest using TweakUI, which was designed for Windows XP, and run it in compatibility mode. Unfortunately this solution doesn't work, especially on Windows Vista 64bit. After a lot of research and testing I managed to find a rather unknown application which works both on the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows Vista and gets the job done very easily. The application is called Autoplay Repair v2.2.2 and it was developed by a programmer named Darius Baczynski. To learn how to use it, click on 'Read more'.

One way to improve the performance of your Windows Vista machine is to streamline your startup applications. Using the concept of 'Less is More' definitely helps improving the time it takes to log in and the performance in general. Having fewer applications running at startup frees resources for the applications you actually want to run. In this guide I will start by showing you how to remove unnecessary bloatware, how to disable startup items which do not appear in the system tray and I'll show you the locations where you can find information about programs running at startup.
It is very important not to overdo it when cleaning up the list of startup applications, as you might end-up having problems. Therefore, I'll show you some tips regarding programs which you should and shouldn't disable at startup. I will end this article by showing you how to remove programs from running at startup, how to delay the applications that launch at startup and how to hide system tray icons.

One of our most popular articles is a guide on how to reset your Windows Vista password using the password reset disk. However, if you did not create a password reset disk and you have forgotten your password, you cannot login and use your computer. In these situations there are certain tools that can help you out, most of them being commercial solutions, such as Active Password Changer. Still, there exist also some free alternatives, one of them being Ophcrack. In this guide I will show how to get Ophcrack and how to use it to crack and retrieve your Windows Vista password when you don't have any password reset disk at hand.

When working with Disk Cleanup, I often select all the files recommended for deletion without carefully reading the entire list. Unfortunately, when I did this for the first time, I also removed the hibernation file. This automatically disabled the hibernation feature which disappeared from Power Options. Also, this caused problems with the sleep feature. If power is lost during sleep mode, the computer does not recover its settings.

To prevent such problems it is better to remove the Hibernation File Cleaner from the list of files to be deleted in Disk Cleanup. In this tutorial I will show you how to do this. As you will see for yourself, the procedure is very simple.

Windows Vista has been criticized by many to be a power hog which drains battery power out of laptops & notebooks much faster than Windows XP. Even though this is true in some cases, it can be easily changed. If you use the right tools and make the right settings, you can easily prolong the time your battery lasts. In this article I will present a few proven tips and tools which will help you make your battery last longer.

Another year has passed and our site is almost two years old. 2008 has been a good year for us in many ways, with its share of success, failures and lessons learned. Today, I will tell you about 2008 and what it has meant for the Windows Vista for Beginners team.

Lately we have been receiving many help requests from people who have their Windows Vista in one language and would like to switch to another one. For example, people who traveled to Canada and bought from there a laptop with Windows Vista in French and would like to switch to English, or the other way around. I've done a little bit of digging and testing on this topic and I managed to find a few solutions which might help you to switch your Windows Vista interface to any language you want to.

Windows Mobility Center is a recently introduced application in Windows Vista, with the help of which you may easily access all the settings related to your mobile PC (laptop, notebook, Tablet PC). By using these settings you can improve the battery lifetime or system performance while working, without being connected to a power supply. In this article I will show you how to access this tool and how to work with it.