I spent some time poking around at techsupportforum.com in their Windows Vista Support area. For those not already in the habit, let me observe that it's amazing how much you can learn from reading through other user's problems along with the tools and techniques that knowledgeable experts suggest to help them ease their afflictions, or at least start shooting back at what troubles them. While reading through a thread from a person suffering from driver problems, I learned about the Windows Driver Verifier, aka verifier.exe. But that's not all I learned...

The Windows system configuration tool, msconfig.exe has been around for some time. The easiest way to launch this utility is simply to type msconfig in the Start menu's search box, but you can also access this utility by typing "system configuration" into Windows Help and Support, then selecting the "Start System Configuration" item that appears in response to this search. You must have administrative privileges, or be able to elevate access, to run this utility.

One of my favorite long-time haunts on the Web is http://www.blackviper.com/. It's the work of computer enthusiast Charles M. Sparks of Yreka, California, USA. Its main attractions are a series of detailed Windows Services lists with multiple recommended levels of settings. The draw comes from a simple statement about Windows "Disable unneeded services to reduce resource consumption." Yeah, right! How do you know which ones you need and which ones you don't? To give you an idea of what's up here, my "clean" Vista installation list 102 local services inside that runtime environment. This site lets you know which ones to keep, and which ones to reset or disable as your needs or wants dictate.