:set tabstop=4 " Force tabs to be displayed/expanded to 4 spaces (instead of default 8).
set softtabstop=4 " Make Vim treat <Tab> key as 4 spaces, but respect hard Tabs.
: " I don't think this one will do what you want.
:set expandtab " Turn Tab keypresses into spaces.
Sounds like this is happening to you. " You can still insert real Tabs as [Ctrl]-V [Tab].
:set noexpandtab " Leave Tab keys as real tabs (ASCII 9 character).
:1,$retab! " Convert all tabs to space or ASCII-9 (per "expandtab"), " on lines 1_to_end-of-file.
:set shiftwidth=4 " When auto-indenting, indent by this much. " (Use spaces/tabs per "expandtab".)
:help tabstop " Find out more about this stuff.
:help vimrc " Find out more about .vimrc/_vimrc :-)