Transform Windows Vista into Windows VXP — the hybrid

In last week’s edition of the Windows Vista Report, “Stop Unfairly Comparing Vista to Its Predecessor and Its Successor,” the resulting discussion thread quickly filled up with all sorts of chatter about the topic at hand. While respondents weighed in on both sides of the issue, along with the usual interpersonal sniping, an overall analysis of the discussions seems to indicate that there are a whole lot of disgruntled Vista users out there.

Those of you who are using Vista and are adapting to it, seem to be doing OK. However, those in the disgruntled camp, well, you appear to be absolutely miserable. While some have opted to abandon Vista and go back to XP, it would seem that many don’t have that option and as such are being forced, against their will, to use Vista when all they want is XP.

Well, I gave it some thought and figured that I would throw those poor folks a bone. In this edition of the Windows Vista Report, I’m going to show those of you who hate Vista but are stuck with it how to convert Windows Vista into Windows XP by stripping out as many of Vista’s components as possible, thereby making the OS both look and operate more like XP.

We can even come up with a fancy name for the transformed OS. Let’s call it Windows VXP! That way, you can have your cake and eat it too!

This blog post is also available in PDF format in a TechRepublic download.

Since User Access Control will get in our way when transforming Vista to VXP, let’s begin by getting rid of UAC. It’s a real pain anyway, right? Windows XP doesn’t have anything to automatically protect you from inadvertent mistakes or tricky malware; you can do that yourself, so you don’t really need UAC. Here’s how to disable it:

With UAC out of the way, we’re free to disable all sorts of Vista features without any stupid warning messages. Yea!

After you disable UAC, you’ll be nagged to death by a notification balloon whose message will constantly remind you that you have disabled UAC. To get rid of that, and all notification balloons for that matter, you’ll need to perform a little registry edit. Here’s how:

Editor’s Note: The Windows Registry is vital to the operating system. Before editing the Windows Registry you should take a few moments to back up the Registry for safekeeping.

Because Windows Defender is built in to the operating system, it more than likely should be considered part of the overall bloatware problem. Besides, Windows XP doesn’t come with a built-in spyware tool, does it? No, so let’s get rid of Windows Defender too. Here’s how:

You can install your favorite third-party antispyware tool later.

By default Vista comes with TCP/IP v6 installed even though almost no one is using it yet. Windows XP doesn’t have IP v6 installed, so you really don’t need it in VXP. Vista also comes with a fancy network mapping and troubleshooting feature that we can remove. Since XP works fine without this stuff, then VXP won’t need them either. Here’s how to disable it:

Vista comes with a bunch of special features and games that XP doesn’t have. Having all this extra stuff in Vista is just bloatware anyway, right? Here’s how to get rid of it:

In Windows XP, you had control over how and when your hard disk needed to be defragged, so take back that control in VXP. Here’s how:

By default, Vista hides the standard menu bar (File, Edit, View, Tools, and Help). However, it has always been a part of Windows Explorer, so you probably want to put it back in VXP. Here’s how:

As you know, the Start menu was completely revamped in Vista. However, in XP the Start menu was basically the same as its predecessors, and it has always worked just fine. Fortunately, you can turn back time and revert the new fangled Start menu to the good old-fashioned one. Here’s how:

Chances are that those pesky thumbnails that pop up whenever you hover over the Taskbar really annoy you. Here’s how to disable them:

Gadgets, who needs them. They just waste resources and screen real estate. Here’s how you can disable the Sidebar and get rid of those inane gadgets:

Vista is really packed with useless eye candy. Here’s how you can get rid of all of it:

Once you disable all the visual effects, the goofy transparent, smooth-looking windows generated by the Aero user interface are gone, and the good old solid boxy windows are back. Here’s how to make sure Aero won’t reappear:

While there doesn’t appear to be a way to uninstall some of the other native Vista applications that aren’t a part of XP, you can delete the shortcuts from the Start menu. That way you won’t be tempted to run them. For example, you can delete the following shortcuts:

When you get done with this last step, you will be looking at and using Windows VXP. Sure there are probably other services and Vista features that you can strip from the operating system, but after performing the steps in this article, you are well on your way. If you know of any other things that can be removed from the operating system to make it more like XP, stop by the discussion area and let us hear from you.