Open up Control Panel and go to the Programs and Features section. Find the link for “Turn Windows features on or off” (or you could just search for it)
This dialog is quite self-explanatory… uncheck the things you don’t want, and hit the OK button. Depending on the version of Vista you are running you might not see everything in the list.
Guidelines, Not Set In Stone
Just to get you started, here’s a few tips on what an average user might want to enable or disable. The rules will be different for everybody, depending on your applications and needs, so don’t take these as absolute.
Hopefully this will help somebody!