Sidebar to low priority

So you like the Vista sidebar (and why not?) but you are worried about it consuming unnecessary resources while you are doing things with your computer that do not involve it? We have a solution for you.

What we are going to do is show you how to permanently set the sidebar to be a 'low priority' application for Vista, meaning that the operating system will not devote resources to sidebar apps when other full screen applications are demanding them.

To set the Windows Vista sidebar to low priority permanently:

First follow the steps in Tip #38 above to prevent the sidebar from starting when Vista starts.

Go to 'start/computer' and press 'ALT' to bring up the file menu taskbar.

Go to 'tools\folder options' and select the 'view' tab.

Under the 'hidden files and folders' section, select the 'show hidden files and folders' option. Click 'ok'.

Navigate to 'start\computer\c:\users\(your username)\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\start menu\programs\startup\'

Right click on the empty directory and choose 'new\shortcut.'

When the shortcut wizard appears, copy and paste the following:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c start "sidebar.exe" /LOW "C:\Program Files\windows sidebar\sidebar.exe"

And click 'ok' to save the shortcut. Now every time you start Windows Vista, the sidebar will be started also, but at low priority only.