Nicholas Rayner

Following from part 1 and part 2 of my review of the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC. Part 3 will cover system customizations, Vista SP1 install and performance.

System Customizations for Vista Mobile PCs

Having used Vista since the early days of Beta 1 I have had a lot of experience with using vista on a mobile device, from a laptop to UMPC you can use these customizations on all devices.

Step 1 - Remove unneeded Windows Features

First we'll Remove some unneeded Features. Go to Control Panel, then Programs and Features and the click Turn Windows Features on or off. Now un tick the the boxes next to Remote Differential Compression, Windows DFS Replication Service, Windows Fax and Scan and Windows Meeting Space (I use this feature, so I haven't turned it off).

You will have to restart after performing this.

Step 2 - Disable prefetch

1. Click the Start orb and type REGEDIT in the Start Search area.

2. Open the Registry Editor.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then SYSTEM
then CurrentControlSet
then Control
then Session Manager
then MemoryManagement
then click PrefetchParameters

4. On the right side, double-click on EnableSuperfetch

5. Give it one of the following values:

0 to disable Superfetch
1 to enable prefetching when program is launched
2 to enable boot prefetching
3 to enable prefectching of everything

Click OK.

6. Close the Registry Editor.

Note: If you disable Superfetch and would like to enable it for certain applications, you can use special switch in the program shortcut: /prefetch:1

Step 3 - other tweaks

• Turn off Aero interface - Other bloggers have stated that turning off the Aero interface will speed Vista up, although I haven't noticed any major differences, therefore I keep it on.
• Disable the Windows Vista Sidebar - I found this on a Gear Diary post, I do turn the sidebar up and have noticed slightly faster boot time. I do turn off the Sidebar on my mobile devices, but on my Desktop with two 24inch LCDs i have plenty of screen real estate and power to keep it on :-)
• Battery tweaks - The Vista Mobility Centre allows you to customize your power settings much better than in XP. You can disable/enable Bluetooth and Wi-fi, change the screen brightness and create settings for AC power and Battery Power. When on Battery power i have the screen close to full brightness, but when on battery power the screen is around the 50% mark, sometimes lower if I am working from an office.

So after all that the Vista Performance Score on the XT is:

Installing Vista Service Pack 1

The Vista SP1 install was quite simple to download and install on the Dell XT. Once the SP1 standalone installer hit the Microsoft Volume Licence download site. You then double-click on the installer, accept the EULA and then click start. The install process took 57 minutes on my XT, which I was expecting.

After the Vista install of the previously installed software is working without any problems and there have been some significant performance and reliability improvements. Boot up time, multi-tasking and file transfers (especially transfers across a network!!) is much better than before SP1.

After posting the 2nd part of my review, i had a few emails asking for more information on the inking experience on the XT. I can only say that it is fantastic!! I have Inked on many Tablet PCs and UMPCs and this is the best i have experienced. The experienced is help by the multiple touch inputs, you can leave the touch setting on Auto and it will automatically change between pen and touch input. The XT has auto screen rotation, so it is easily convertible between Slate and Notebook mode.

The pen feels nice working in Tablet mode and I've had no difficulties using the buttons on the Pen. The screen is very responsive to both the touch of the pen and your finger.

Overall the Dell XT is a great Tablet PC, Dell have done a great job with their first ever Tablet PC and i look forward to what Dell can produce in the future.

If you would like any further info on the Dell XT, please feel free to drop email me or comment below