Having played with Windows Vista for the last five months, I’ve learned a few things about Microsoft’snew operating system, probably more than I wanted to know. There’s a saying in the car industry that the last ofthe previous model is typically always better than the first of the new one. Given we’ve had Windows XP for sixyears to iron out the kinks and get working just nicely, it’s not surprising Windows Vista is proving to be a bit of ahandful. So here are my top 20 tips to getting Vista under control.1. Get 1GB of memory There have been somereports that Windows Vista is actually quite happy to get up and running on as little as 512MB of memory. Ifyou’re just happy to sit on the desktop and do nothing, that might be true but if you start using multipleapplications, particular biggies like Adobe Photoshop CS2 (or CS3), bank on needing 1GB of memory – minimum.Try Vista and Photoshop with only 512MB of memory and you can bank on it taking 60% longer to do things than onWindows XP Professional with the same memory. If you can afford it, there’s enough evidence to suggest 2GB ofmemory will really get it into gear.2. Switch Aero off Microsoft’s new Aero interface, built int Vista HomePremium and up, is cute but after a while, I found it becomes more annoying than useful. The Flip 3D feature is cute toobut too slow with anything but the latest graphics cards. You can easily switch it off by right-clicking on the desktop,selecting Personalize – Windows Color and Appearance – Open classic appearance properties, and finally,selecting Windows Vista Basic from the colour schemes list. Then you select OK and Vista will automatically turn Aero offand change the colour scheme back to Vista Home Basic.

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