I dislike the bells and whistles of Vista like many of you.
Here are the steps I had to do to get Vista looking and acting very much like the Windows XP Pro, I very much know and love.
This is Windows Vista, business and I was logged into a domain at the time.
1. Login as yourself, At Login uncheck run at startup on the welcome center, and close welcome center.
2. Open control panel, and click classic view.
3. Open user accounts, click turn user Account Control on or off.
4. Uncheck Use User Account Control to help protect your computer, and agree to message, then reboot.
5. Right Click on Desktop and Click Personalize
6. Click Theme and change theme to Windows Classic, and click apply, and ok.
7. Click Windows Color and Appearance, and click effects, and uncheck the two top boxes, click ok, apply, and ok.
8. Close Personalization.
9. Right click on the Gadget bar, (the toolbar with the analog clock), and click properties, uncheck Start Sidebar when Windows Starts, click apply and ok.
10. Right click again on the Gadget bar, and click close sidebar.
11. Right Click on the toolbar between the start menu and the taskbar, and click properties.
12. Uncheck Store and Display a list of recently opened Programs.
13. Uncheck Group Similar taskbar buttons and click start menu, and check Classic Start Menu.
14. Click Customize, scroll down and uncheck Use Personalized Menus.
15. Click Notification Area, and uncheck Hide Inactive Icons.
16. Click Apply and ok.
17. Open my computer, and click on views, and select details.
18. Click Organize, and select Folder and Search Options.
19. Check Use Windows Classic Folders, and click the view tab.
20. Check Always show menus, Display the full path in the title bar, Show Hidden Files and Folders, launch folders windows in a separate process.
21. Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types; remember each folder’s view settings, and use sharing Wizard.
22. Click apply and ok.
23. Close my computer.
24. Open control panel
25. Open Programs and Features
26. Click turn windows features on or off.
27. Uncheck games, and check snmp, and click ok.
28. Close, back to control panel, go to power, and click require a password on wakeup, and check don’t require a password, and click save changes, close control panel.
29. Click start menu, open run, and type gpedit.msc
30. Browse to Computer configuration, Administrative Templates, System, login, and enable Hide entry points for fast user switching, always use classic logon, and don’t display the getting started welcome screen at logon, and close gpedit.
31. Click start menu, open run, and type regedit.
32. Browse to hkey_local_machine/software/Microsoft/windows/currentversion/policies/system
33. Change HideFastUserSwitching to 1, or create a dword 32 bit value with the name, and a hex value of 1, close regedit.
34. Reboot.
35. Login as a user with Admin Rights, (not yourself) , go to control panel, and user accounts, click configure advanced user profile properties, click the user profile you logged into as in step 1.
36. Click copy to, browse to C:usersdefault and click, click permitted user use, and type everyone, ok, and ok
I hope this helps all of you.
