Hardware Profiles In Vista
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Windows XP allows you to create multiple hardware profiles. When you start working in Vista, you may notice that this option is no longer available. It appears that Vista will automatically create hardware profiles depending on the type of computer you are using. For example, if you are using a laptop, Vista will automatically create a profile called “Undocked.”
You can still work with these hardware profiles as you could in Windows XP. For example, you can disable specific services for a specific hardware profile. This can be accomplished using the steps listed below.
- Click Start, All Programs, Accessories then Administrative Tools.
- Click the Services option.
- Right click a service that you want to disable and click Properties.
- Click the Log On tab.
- The available hardware profiles will be listed at the bottom of the window.
- Select the appropriate profile from the list and click the Disable button.
- Click OK.
Now when Vista starts using the hardware profile, the specific service you selected above will not be started.
[tags]Diana Huggins, Microsoft, Windows, Vista, hardware profile[/tags]
10 Comments
Paul D Pearl
February 4th, 2007
at 3:01pm
That’s fine and dandy for services.. but what if you want to disable HARDWARE?
I have dual monitors but when I’m gaming.. I want to only use one monitor to save resources for my game experience… now I’m going to have to write my own boot file by hand… BOO!
Dennis Ducey
June 30th, 2007
at 8:59pm
What you outlined has not changed from Windows XP, what has changed is how do you create a “Hardware Profile”. Could you please explain how you do that in Vista ?
przemoc
July 1st, 2007
at 4:30am
Try to run in vmware vista not installed in vmware, but on real hardware. Yes, there is bsod. Lack of real hardware profiles is microsoft’s stupidity (in all likelihood intentional).
Jason
July 1st, 2007
at 12:21pm
So what does one do if they need to have (and tweak) hardware profiles in Vista like was possible in XP. I am willing to copy and edit by hand but could the previous poster say where these files are located?
dbc
November 18th, 2007
at 12:02pm
I can’t find where to add a hardware profile to this
Kent Hanners
December 26th, 2007
at 5:51pm
That is all well and good, but does not answer how to set up HARDWARE profiles in Vista. From what is said, it would appear that this is no longer possible in this iteration of Windows. That is truely sad since it was a very useful feature on a laptop. Looks like it is time to find XP drivers for this new laptop. Vista continues to be completely unimpressive.
UKSamo
May 14th, 2008
at 9:33pm
I’ve 2 x sound cards in my PC, one for surround sound gaming, and a high quality one for stereo audio production. With both enabled Windows BSOD on boot-up so I need hardware profiles to choose which Sound Card to load at boot-up. As I understand it, hardware profiles was the only way I could accomplish this set-up? Any idea’s as Vista doesn’t seem to have an option to configure this scenario like in XP?
eddie moffett
July 12th, 2008
at 10:53pm
I think I can finally say it out loud… I’m going mac.
dennis
August 2nd, 2008
at 6:30am
Diana, why you say the profile “undocked” will be created for a laptop ? I have a desktop and my profile is “undocked”
BJammer
September 23rd, 2008
at 9:01am
This article is useless since the main question everyone ask when reading it is not answered at all:
How to make multiple hardware profiles in Vista???