Hardware Profiles In Vista

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!

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 ?

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).

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?

I can’t find where to add a hardware profile to this

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.

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?

I think I can finally say it out loud… I’m going mac.

Diana, why you say the profile “undocked” will be created for a laptop ? I have a desktop and my profile is “undocked”

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???

So is there a way to delete a Vista hardware profile and have it rebuild when you reboot?

This doesn’t address the actual issue of creating another hardware profile. It only addresses managing services in one profile. If you are going to write a post regarding hardware profiles you should at least talk about them instead of redirecting the topic to something unrelated.

This article really should be renamed. Services != Hardware

I agree with the frustrated replies. The author begins writing about hardware profiles in Vista. This is what got me excited, but then as I read the entire article, the author switches tracks and tells me how to disable services. Unless there is some mystical way to stop a device driver from running as a service, and I don’t think there is, then the article conflicts with itself. Kind of like Microsoft or Windows.

If Microsoft really wants to dazzle the consumer, they will hire me as a consultant, and I will advise them on how not to offend the techies who have found ways to make working systems out of Windows machines. I will do this while advising Microsoft how to continue catering to the general public, and avoid a major catastrophe like Vista.

Hardware profiles are the best thing since sliced bread. They are essential with a laptop and a docking station in a business environment. I bought my personal laptop since it was almost identical to my work laptop and I could use it on the docking station that my employer provides.

Well on the work laptop, which runs XP, I can choose between a docked profile right after the bios screen and before windows even boots. This tells XP to turn off the wireless card and use the wired network connection instead. Well on my personal laptop this feature, apparently isn’t available under Vista, where IT USED TO BE. Apparently Microsoft yanked it, or put it somewhere else, or made my wireless network card “automatically” turn off when docked. Now you won’t see anything about it’s relocation, re-adaptation, or demise in any Microsoft marketing materials or “upgrade compatibility” verification programs. You simply must learn the hard way. Though by this time, you’ve owned the software well past the return date, if there ever was one.

Diana, are you still there? You seem to have gone quiet about all this.