The typical non-technical computer user doesn’t want to see extra information about what the computer is doing as it will probably just confuse them. That’s why modern OS’s hide most of what’s going on underneath and just show pretty pictures and allow users to point and click on things. The more technical users, often called Geeks (I put myself in this category) like to type in commands, and see what is going on behind the scene. What better way to display your Geekness, and impress your friends with your technical prowess than to have your computers boot screen scrolling all kinds of technical information?

This is a simple tip that allows you to replace the useless green ‘progress bar’ you normally get when you start Vista with a list of what’s happening during the boot process.

Hit the key, type msconfig and hit Enter. The System Configuration window will open (you’ll be prompted by UAC to approve this).

Click on the Boot tab.

Check the box for OS boot information and click OK.

When you boot your machine, you’ll now see a scrolling list of what’s loading on your computer instead of the little green bar. If you’re familiar with what some of these things are, you might even find this useful sometime if your computer hangs while booting (you’ll be able to get a clue what it’s doing or just did when the hang occurred).