Alternate Vista loading screen...

[Leisha]

I'm not sure how many of you would be interested to know this, but rather than having the standard green loading bar as Vista starts, you can have a cool-looking alternate screen instead, without the loading bar. If you follow the instructions, a restart will be required. And this doesn't harm your machine, don't worry!

1) Go to Start > Run...
2) Type in msconfig and press OK
3) Under the boot tab, tick the box labelled No GUI boot
4) Don't touch anything else in msconfig, unless you know what you're doing!
5) Press OK
6) When asked, press Don't show this message again
7) Press Restart (or Exit without restart, if you're busy right now).
8) Wait for the pretty loading screen!


If you want to put the old screen back (pah!), just follow these instructions again, but unticking the No GUI boot box.

[Perpetual Man]

Very pretty it is too. Thanks for the tip Leisha. Is it safe to do? Lenny?
Who cares it looks pretty!

[Lenny]

Perfectly safe, aye. I'd imagine it also speeds up the boot time of the PC, too, as the computer doesn't need to load the animation of the loading bar.

EDIT: Just done it, and yep, it speeds up the boot time.

[Momoka]

*Ahem* I wonder where you got such a useful tip, Leish?

'Tis faster indeed, and I couldn't stand that lurid green boot screen loader. I have already replaced the logon screen too.

(All this and I very rarely use Vista - only for my PC gaming)

[Leisha]

Yes. But who actually posted it and wrote out these instructions, hmm?


And I have another Vista tip (that Momo didn't tell me!). It's for users who have versions higher the Vista Home Basic.

1) Open a couple of programs. Any will do.
2) Press and hold the Windows key on your keyboard.
3) Whilst holding that key down, press the tab key. Keep pressing the tab key.

Et voila! You've now discovered Vista's version of everyone else's window/task switching.

[Overread]

ooh I forgot about that browsing thingy!
I think you can get it another way as well, but I forgot how

[Delvo]

It also works in XP, and thus probably in NT as well (although I can't test it).

And the flag-button & Tab-button trick also works if you hold down Alt instead of the flag. And if you keep holding down the flag or Alt and tap Tab more than once, you can skip to any other window in the sequence you want. And if you add Shift at the same time, you'll run through the windows in the opposite order.

And some programs let you switch between their multiple sub-windows or "panes" or open files by using either Control-Tab in the same way (or Control with PageUp & PageDown to choose which direction to run through them in).

And the most useful one of all for people who do stuff at work that they shouldn't be doing at work: flag-M minimizes all open windows simultaneously.

[Lenny]

The Windows + Tab combination is prettier than Alt + Tab, though.

For you non-Vista users, this is what it looks like:

[PTeppic]

Can anyone do a screengrab of the alternate loading screen for us non-Vista people (he said, from Mac land)

[Lenny]

Rather than the usual:



...it's:

[Leisha]

Wow. Len, this is so cool! Your screen is different to mine! Ultimate users differ from Premium ones! And... I quite prefer mine.

And, for anyone wondering, here's the Alt plus tab Vista task switching screen:






And now, since I've left you all wondering, here's my loading screen (which doesn't have text like Lenny's). I've had to take the shot with my camera on manual, since no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get Vista to take a screenshot of it:







Tada! Far better than Len's.

[Lenny]

Well I'll be, so it is. I prefer mine.

[Leisha]

I've seen yours before, though. Is it also Vista's shutting down screen?

I can't think where I've seen it, but I see it regularly, and not while my lappy's starting up.

[Commonmind]

I find the 3D application switching highly useful. Several people complain that it's superfluous, but it depends on what you're using it for; I love being able to switch between my graphic applications while seeing a nice amount of the image I'm working on. For instance, I can swap between a background I'm working on in Photoshop, the text I'm rendering in Illustrator, the overlay I'm using for them with Open Canvas and maybe some special effects I'm building in Painter or something else. Alt-tabbing gives you a thumbnail preview as well, but I find the 3D switching to be much nicer when working on these types of applications.

[Leisha]

Originally Posted by Moi

Wow. Len, this is so cool! Your screen is different to mine! Ultimate users differ from Premium ones! And... I quite prefer mine.

And you know what I just discovered yesterday? You Ultimate users share your alternate screen with *drumroll* Vista Home Basic users. So it appears Premium users stand out. Weird, not that I'm complaining.