These 11 tricks will help make your Windows Vista system more useful than before and save time doing routine tasks on Vista machine.

This list also covers some of the annoyances of Windows Vista and how to remove them using simple tricks.

1. Disable Balloon Notifications

If you are annoyed by balloon notifications given by applications in system tray, then here’s how to disable them.

Open up Registry Editor and move to key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced and right click in right pane and create a new 32-bit DWORD value named EnableBalloonTips and set its value to 0. You’ll need to log in again into Windows for changes to take effect.

2. Quickly Launch Applications

This one is a big time saver. The applications whose icons are placed in Quick Launch Bar are automatically assigned keyboard shortcuts. The shortcut is Windows Key + number corresponding to icon position in shortcut bar. e.g. If I need to launch Firefox, I’ll press [Window Key] + [3]. The shortcuts are assigned to only first 10 application in that bar.

3. Display Additional Clocks

Windows Vista can display up to two additional clocks each using different time-zone. The additional clocks will show up whenever you left click on clock in system tray.

Here’s how to enable additional clocks in Windows Vista.

4. Disable Windows Sidebar

If your system is low on resources then you should consider disabling Vista Sidebar to improve performance as gadgets in sidebar need lot of system resources.

Just right click anywhere on empty region in sidebar and select Properties. Then in properties dialog uncheck then entry “Start Sidebar when Windows starts”. The sidebar won’t be there next time you start windows.

5. Disable Flip 3D

One of the features i  seldom use while working in Windows Vista is Flip 3D as Alt+Tab is sufficient to switch between windows.

If you also seldom use Flip 3D, then here’s a nice article by HowToGeek on How to Disable Flip3D.

6. Use Vista ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is one of the less commonly used feature in Windows Vista that lets you use a USB drive as a memory cache as USB drives are faster to access than a hard drive. This feature lets you speed up Windows Vista a bit. Here’s how to use ReadyBoost to Boost vista performance.

7. Easily Find your File in a Folder

The Windows Explorer in Vista makes it much easier to find the file you are looking for in a folder containing tons of files and folders. You can apply different types of filters to look for your file. For example, you could set a filter to show files only with names starting with A-H with a constraint on size of the file.

These filters let you find your file easily which otherwise would have been the job of Windows Search.

8. Disable UAC

User Account Control(UAC) is one of the security features that prevents your system from lot of security threats but it can be annoying as it pops out every time you need to make even a minor change to windows functionality.

Though, it is not recommended to disable it but if you are so annoyed by it, head over to Control Panel > User Accounts and there you can disable UAC easily.

9. Remove Shortcut Overlay from Desktop Icons

Windows Vista puts huge arrows on shortcut icons and in case you make size of icons a bit larger, these arrows doesn’t look good. Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover is a nifty utility that lets you remove arrows as shown above. Once you apply the changes in the utility, you’ll need to login again to see the changes.

10. Get more Info about Processes

The task manager in Windows Vista can provide much more information about each and every process running. Open Task Manager(Alt+Ctrl+Del) and click on Processes Tab. Now under View Menu, move to Select Columns.. and there you can select what information to show for each process.

11. Desktop Shortcut to Shut Down

The shut down option in Windows Vista is not so easily accessible. One needs 2-3 clicks to get to it. Creating a desktop shortcut to shut down will give you quick single click access to shut down PC. Here’s how to create a desktop shortcut for shut down.

Further reading: 23 Lesser known but Incredibly useful Windows shortcuts

This list is by no means complete. If you use any other useful Windows Vista trick then feel free to discuss in comments below.

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