Check for Ultimate Extras

A commenter on an earlier post (Ultimate Extras, MIA) asks, “Where are the extras?”

Only Microsoft knows what, if anything, is coming in this category. But you can find out which Ultimate Extras are currently installed on your system (delivered via Microsoft Update and, of course, only there if you’re running Vista Ultimate) by doing this:

1. Open Control Panel.

2. Click Programs.

3. Under the Programs and Features heading, click Turn Windows features on or off.

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4. Scroll to the bottom of the Windows Features dialog box. Expand the Windows Ultimate Extras category to see the full listing, and note that you can enable or disable any item on the list by selecting or clearing its checkbox.

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There’s some other interesting stuff in that dialog box, too, but don’t click unless you’re certain you know what you’re doing. For instance, that Indexing Service? That’s the old, basically useless one from pre-Vista days. It has nothing to do with Windows Desktop Search and you definitely don’t want it running. Trust me on this.

6 thoughts on “Check for Ultimate Extras

  1. I just installed Vista last week and was wondering why they would include such an odd option in the Feature list, especially when it took an act of Congress to get them to add a Windows Messenger selection in XP back when it first arrived.

  2. Espicially when you have software like Windows Desktop Search installed, as Indexing Services will compete with it for CPU time. You should compare Windows Desktop Search to Indexing Services.

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