Windows Vista Help

Recover your files quickly with File-Saver

2007-09-28T03:03:00.000-07:00

File-Saver is the world's smartest undelete tool. It can instantly restore hundreds of deleted files from your PC. It doesn't matter if you've emptied the Recycle Bin, or a computer virus deleted the files.If it's been deleted, it can be UNDELETED. Important documents, precious photos, work presentations. File-Saver enables you to get your files back.

It enables you to recover and undelete lost files, documents and photos, even months after you deleted them.

Customers of File-Saver include the U.S. Army, Microsoft, AT&T, IBM, FedEx, British Telecom, UPS, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Network Solutions, Sun, Deloitte & Touche, Dow Jones, Merrill Lynch, the Discovery Channel, Time Warner, Nationwide Insurance, Xerox, and many more.

File-Saver works on any Windows computer, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows 2003 and Windows XP.

File-Saver Recovery Features:

INTUITIVE Windows Explorer mode enables you to view your deleted files as though they were still available on your computer!

INSTANT Image Preview - Is that the right photo? Check instantly without recovering, with image preview

ENHANCED Recovery Algorithms - New, exclusive data recovery algorithms mean File-Saver now recovers more files than any other undelete tool

PREDICTIVE Recovery - File-Saver provides you with full details on the files, including likelihood of recovery

RESTORE with folder structure feature enables you to restore entire folders, intact!

FULL SUPPORT for any drive - including all FAT and NTFS drives, floppy disks, and digital camera cards!

(This is paid review)

Disable useless Vista Features

2007-09-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

Lose What You Don't Need
If you installed Vista yourself and have experience installing previous Windows OSes, you surely noticed that Vista hardly asks any questions about your computer—and what you plan to do with it—than did prior OSes. Windows Vista makes all kinds of assumptions about your computing habits and the features you may or may not need, and it inevitably installs some overhead that you simply don't need. You can get rid of it. Windows XP had the Add/Remove Windows Features button in the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet, and Vista has something like it.

Open Control Panel and click Uninstall a Program to launch Vista's Uninstall or Change a Program Window. In the Tasks pane on the left, click Turn Windows Features On or Off.
Check the list of features. Each feature is preceded by a checkbox which, if filled, indicates the feature is installed. If you hover the mouse over a feature, a help tooltip appears to tell you what it is.
Do you really need Windows Meeting Space or Tablet PC components?
Uncheck any feature you don't need. Some of the features are headings with a sub-list below them; just click the little + sign to expand.

For my gaming system, I've purged everything except:

Some of the games
XPS Viewer (under .NET Framework 3.0)
Remote Differential Compression (a network optimizer)
Windows Ultimate Extras

Note that when you uncheck features, you're not removing these features from your system; you're simply turning them off so they don't sit in the background eating up resources. You can turn any of them back on by invoking this window and filling the checkboxes.

Review of 123-reg eCommerce

2007-08-21T03:40:00.000-07:00

Following is Paid Review:

123-reg ecommerce now offers great solutions for businesses that want to sell online but don’t have the technical know-how to do so. 123-reg ecommerce is an easy to use, yet powerful, online shop that comes in three sizes and includes a free domain name with the mid and top level shop.

123-reg ecommerce starts from as little as £8.99 per month for a shop of up to 150 products and gives users access to over 100 design templates, several marketing tools, as well as integration to eBay, Kelkoo and other shopping portals. 123-reg eCommerce also comes with trusted SSL encryption, Trusted Shop and Safebuy (UK) certification with the ability to take secure payments through the likes of PayPal, WorldPay and HSBC bank.

Thanks to 123-reg’s web hosting expertise, the new eCommerce merchant solution is pre-configured and fully hosted online in one of Europe’s leading data centres so no software is required to set up a shop or keep it running. With all the advanced features, such as a range of shipping options, stock control, languages and many more, users can customise their shop to suit almost any need.

Mark Beyer, sales and marketing director at 123-reg.co.uk, explains, “Whether you’re a business looking to start online, but lack web experience, or a webmaster wanting to expand with online ordering capabilities without investing in consultancy or unwieldy software, 123-reg eCommerce gives you the whole package. Our prices include the hosting, the marketing and back office tools, so you don’t have to buy anything extra to make your shop work for you.”
All 123-reg ecommerce packages are available on monthly contracts and start from £8.99 per month for the Plus version, £18.99 for the Pro version and £39.99 for Business Pro. The Pro and Business Pro versions include a free .com or .uk domain name

Review of Anglian Home Improvements

2007-08-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

This is paid review:

For more than thirty six years Anglian has been renowned amongst UK homeowners as the place to go for high quality home improvements. They opened their first high street showroom in Ipswich in 1969 - at the time it was a revolutionary concept to encourage the public to view the products personally and discuss their needs.

They offer high quality, service-based approach has since reached all the corners of the UK, helping millions of satisfied customers to create their ideal home. With an annual turnover of £300 million, they ensure that we stay one step ahead of the competition with our continual programme of research and development, our 'state of the art' manufacturing plants, and their ever improving product range.

You can find out more about what they do, how they do it, and where they do it, by exploring the areas below.

	More customers, most recommended Anglian is the most recommended home improvement company in the UK, and has more happy customers than any of its competitors.
	The Perfect Fit The process of buying an Anglian product shouldn't be complicated - from the original quote, right through to the after sales service, we aim to be as professional and impressive as we can.
	Bespoke Service Each Anglian product is tailor made to fit your home exactly, so that you are 100% satisfied.
	Our 10-Year Guarantee Craftsmanship so good we guarantee it for a decade.
	Anglian Commitment Anglian are the experts in all areas of home improvements and we are committed to our customers in the service and the products we offer.
	Our Service to You Find out what we offer our customers, discover our working methods and practices, and see how we go about bringing you the very highest levels of service and quality.
	Anglian in Your Area We are a huge national company, but with our extensive local network you'll get accessible, knowledgeable local service, wherever you live. Find details of your nearest office - and arrange a quotation.
	Careers with Anglian With a large and highly skilled workforce across the UK, we at Anglian are always on the lookout for new recruits. If you are interested in joining us, visit our careers site.
	Setting the Standard Our aim is to continuously improve our products and services. Find out about the standards we are setting, achieving and maintaining within the industry, for your complete peace of mind.

To find out more about what we have to offer our customers, you can request the DVD, or browse the various different product areas below.

	Windows We offer a window style to suit every home. We install replacement uPVC Casement, Sash and Tilt and Turn double glazing - with a huge choice of different finishes, glazing and security options.
	Doors Whatever your needs, we have the right door for you. We manufacture and install many different styles of uPVC Front Doors, Patio Doors, French Doors and Sliding Doors - and offer you a choice of security, glazing and furniture options.
	Conservatories As one of the UK's foremost conservatory suppliers we offer a complete design and installation service, as well as conservatory furniture. You can choose from a range of high quality uPVC conservatories to suit every home and garden - and budget.
	Heritage timber windows and doors Anglian's new Heritage range of windows and doors are made from seasoned, treated timber and built to traditional designs. The range is built to a high-grade finish and provide all the performance you'd expect of a modern product.
	Rooftrim The modern low maintenance replacement for softwood fascias, soffits, bargeboards and cladding - there's guttering and downpipes too
	Cleanaroof With our Cleanaroof system, you can clean and restore your roof and gutters, ensuring that your roof looks great and works the way that it was designed to.
	Kitchens We offer an extensive range of kitchens, with a huge choice of cupboards, sinks, worktops and accessories. With our complete bespoke service, we'll help you choose and design your fitted kitchen, and then we'll professionally install it for you.
	Garage Doors A range of GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic) doors - immensely strong and designed to keep their immaculate appearance indefinitely, without painting.
	Garage Conversions Turn your garage into a warm habitable room with Anglian Garage Conversions. What will you convert your garage to?
	Driveways We offer a great range of driveway designs, using only the highest quality of driveway products. A choice of concrete, block paving, detailing and security options.

For more info go to Anglian Home Improvements.

How to reduce disk space used by System Restore

2007-08-16T02:28:00.000-07:00

While system restore is a God send it can have a tendency to consume large amounts of disk space. By default System restore is allocated a minimum of 15% of disk volume for restore points.

Decreasing system restore space is somewhat a trade off - reduce the allocated space and, although you gain extra free space, you also loose the earlier system restore points. If you are happy having a reduced number of system restore points available, then by all means reduce the allocated space.

However, before you can make an informed decision as to how much to reduce the space allocated to system restore, it is wise to find out just how much space system restore is actually consuming.

In Windows XP increasing or decreasing the available space to system restore was no more complex than opening the System window in Control panel, clicking the system restore tab, then clicking the settings button and adjusting a slider bar to increase or decrease the space.

In Windows Vista this option has now disappeared. the whole process of enlarging or reducing system restore space has become more complex. Instead of a simple slider bar all such alterations must now be done via command line option.

To see how much space system restore is actually taking up you need to use the Volume Shadow Copy Service Administration Tool (vssadmin, for short), which runs from an elevated command prompt as follows:

1/ Click Start

2/ From the Start menu Click All programs followed by Accessories

3/ On the Accessories menu Right Click on the Command Prompt option

4/ From the drop Down menu that appears, click the Run as administrator option

5/ When the Command Prompt window opens type: vssadmin list shadowstorage and Press Enter

6/ The results should read something like this:

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool

Shadow Copy Storage association

For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{db8e056a-6294-11db-9f9f-806e6f6e6963}\

Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{db8e056a-6294-11db-9f9f-806e6f6e69

63}\

Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 197.766 MB

Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 400 MB

Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.092 GB

7/ In this example the C: drive is 19.5GB in size. The currently used storage space is 197.766MB and the Maximum space allocated for System restore is 2.092GB.

8/ The current stored system restore points are 2. this can be found out by using the vssadmin list shadows command.

9/ In my opinion the 2.092GB Maximum shadow copy storage space is quite acceptable for this size of partition. However, the larger the drive/partition the more space will, inevitably, be allocated for system restore points.

Reducing the Allocated Space

To reduce the allocated space we need to use the Resize option in the form of:

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[here add the drive letter]: /For=[here add the drive letter]: /Maxsize=[here add the maximum size]

Let us assume that we wished to have a maximum size of 2GB from this particular partition/drive. The command line option would look something like this:

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=2GB

So to put this in to practice you proceed as follows:

1/ Click Start

2/ From the Start menu Click All programs followed by Accessories

3/ On the Accessories menu Right Click on the Command Prompt option

4/ From the drop Down menu that appears, click the Run as administrator option

5/ When the Command Prompt window opens type: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[here add the drive letter]: /For=[here add the drive letter]: /Maxsize=[here add the maximum size] and Press Enter

6/ if all goes well you should see a message saying 'Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association

7/ Your System Restore shadow storage has now been resized

Advanced Searches and Natural Language Search

2007-08-16T02:14:00.000-07:00

Windows will usually search for whatever you enter in the Search box by looking in the file name, file contents, and file properties of all the files in the current view. Type "Summer," for example, and it will find files named "sunset in summer.jpg," files tagged with "summer," and files written by anyone named Summer.

Vista's Search engine uses the Windows Desktop Search query syntax. If you want to search more selectively, you can filter your search by specifying which file property to search. To filter by file property, separate the name of the property and the search term with a colon, as in these examples:

kind: music artist: Sting -> Find music files from the artist Sting.
Name: Sunset -> Find only files that have the word sunset in the file name.
Modified: 05/25/2006 -> Find only files that have been modified on that date.

You can filter by any property that appears in the file list headings. To see the complete list of properties that you can filter by, right-click the heading you want to see properties for, and then click More. Using Boolean filters is another way to perform a more precise search, you can combine them with other search filters:

tropical AND island -> Find files that contain both words "tropical" and "island".
tropical NOT island -> Find files that contain the word "tropical", but not "island".
tropical OR island -> Find files that contain either of the words "tropical" or "island".
"tropical island" -> Find files that contain the exact phrase "tropical island".
(tropical island) -> Find files that contain both words "tropical" and "island", in any order.
date: > 01/05/06 -> Find files that are more than or later than a certain value, such as after 01/05/06.
size: < 4 MB -> Find files that are less than or earlier than a certain value, such as less than 4 MB.
Note: When you type Boolean filters like AND or OR, you need to use all capital letters!

If you turn on Natural Language Search, you can perform searches in a simpler way, without using colons and without the need to enter AND and OR in capital letters. For example, compare these searches:
Without natural language: kind: music artist: (Beethoven OR Mozart)
With natural language: music Beethoven or Mozart
To turn on Natural Language Search: Open the Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, click Folder Options, click the Search tab, select the Use natural language search check box, click Apply and then click OK.

Enable support for 4GB of RAM (or more) in Vista 32-bit

2007-08-16T02:12:00.000-07:00

On a computer that has 4 GB of RAM, the System Properties dialog box and the System Information dialog box may report less memory than you expect. This problem occurs because the address space is limited to 4 GB in a 32-bit hardware environment. Memory may be relocated to make room for addresses that the basic input/output system (BIOS) reserves for hardware. However, because of this limitation, Windows Vista cannot access memory that is relocated above the 4 GB boundary.

Solution: Open an elevated Command Prompt, type BCDEdit /set pae ForceEnable and press Enter.

The pae parameter enables Physical Address Extension (PAE). On 32-bit versions of Windows, PAE is disabled by default. PAE is an addressing strategy that uses a page-translation hierarchy to enable systems with 32-bit addressing to address more than 4 GB of physical memory. PAE also supports several advanced system and processor features, such as Data Execution Prevention (DEP; "No execute"), Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA), and hot-add memory, so it is also used on computers with less than 4 GB of memory. PAE must be supported by the processor.

On a computer that supports hardware-enabled Data Execution Prevention (DEP), PAE is automatically enabled when DEP is enabled and automatically disabled when you disable DEP. To enable PAE when DEP is disabled, you must enable PAE explicitly: Open an elevated Command Prompt.
Type BCDEdit /set nx AlwaysOff & BCDEdit /set pae ForceEnable and press Enter.

Info & Sources:
• Memory Limits for Windows Releases
• Windows Vista may report less memory than you expect
• Boot Parameters to Configure DEP and PAE
• BCDEdit /set Parameters

Cheap Dedicated Hosting Reviews

2007-06-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

If you need cheap dedicated hosting you have to check this site. Comparison and differences between the cheapest dedicated hosting services. All plans starting from $29. One of the reasons people choose to outsource dedicated servers is the availability of high powered networks from multiple providers. As dedicated server providers utilize massive amounts of bandwidth, they are able to secure lower volume based pricing to include a multi-provider blend of bandwidth. To achieve the same type of network without a multi-provider blend of bandwidth, a large investment in core routers, long term contracts, and expensive monthly bills would need to be in place. The expenses needed to develop a network without a multi-provider blend of bandwidth does not make sense economically for hosting providers.

VMware Workstation 6 on Windows Vista

2007-05-18T02:10:00.000-07:00

Virtualization software provider VMware announced the release of Workstation 6, the first of the company's product line to offer support for Windows Vista, Microsoft's newest operating system.

In this sixth generation of its desktop virtualization software lineup, EMC subsidiary VMware is touting other new features as well, including support for multiple display monitors and USB 2.0 devices.

The Vista support will allow users to deploy the operating system as a guest or host system, facilitate hosting of legacy systems, and enable upgrade and migration projects with "minimal end-user disruption," according to the company's product announcement.

The new software is likely to appeal most to developers, who have to test applications on multiple systems such as Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Windows XP, both in the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Usually, developers would have to work on multiple computers to test their code, but Workstation 6 would allow them to test applications on a single desktop that can run multiple operating systems.

Benefit Round

Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett noted that although the term "virtualization" is becoming broadly used, the type of virtualization provided by Workstation is primarily focused on hardware abstraction. "Workstation gives users the ability to run multiple operating systems on one desktop, and do hardware abstraction in the process, so you don't have to worry about drivers and other desktop issues," he said.

This technology is advantageous developers, who sometimes need multiple systems and hardware in one area, he added. Using virtualization can cut down on the costs associated with additional PCs at the same workstation, said Gillett.

Another benefit would be the uncoupling of desktop identity from hardware, he noted. "That aspect is appealing for folks who worry about virus stuff," he said. "It's all about trying to make it easier to set up managed, secure PC operating systems and users experiences. That's one of the most interesting things going on with virtualization -- the improved management and usability."

Feature Rich

Beyond the support of Vista, Workstation 6 features include integrated physical-to-virtual functionality so users can create a virtual machine by "cloning" an existing computer, and an integrated virtual debugger to debug programs inside a virtual machine.

The product also offers automation APIs for easier creation of scripts and programs that can help speed virtual machine testing, and virtual machine interface (VMI) support, which allows execution of paravirtualized guest operating systems that implement the VMI interface.

VMware Workstation was one of the first virtualization applications on the market when it came out in 1999, and since then has benefited from a lack of intense competition, although Microsoft has been increasing its efforts in the arena.

Automate your repetitive tasks to a single mouse click or a keystroke

2007-05-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

This is a paid review:

Great tool for automating your repetitive tasks to a single mouse click or a keystroke.

Apis Ceratina is a Windows application for recording and replaying macros. Save millions of clicks and keystrokes with Apis . Reduce you repetitive tasks to a single mouse click or a keystroke.

Apis Ceratina is:

• Intelligent software to record, replay and schedule keyboard and mouse activities. With Apis you don't need to learn any programming language. Apis system monitors such activities as creating and showing windows and drop-down menus, starting applications. It also monitors position of the windows on the screen. Intelligent kernel suspends macro replay until necessary objects are absent.
• Auto fill of hundreds of business forms and dialog boxes. Relax while Apis logs on to your mail server, fills out repetitive parts of business forms, fills out dialog boxes involving any Windows application, copies current playing song to your mobile device, generates report, renames a group of files, or performs cross application macro. In fact, once you start using Apis , you discover hundreds of new ways to use it in your daily work.

With Apis you can:

• Define hotkey and launch your macro from anywhere instantly.
• Define hotkey scope (Substring of a window title) and launch your macro from a certain application.
• Use Repeat option, which allows you to replay macros the repeatedly given number of times.
• Use Schedule, which allows you to schedule macros for any time, any day of week, and which offers many other schedule options.
• Use Turbo speed options, which allow you to run your macro faster.
• Use Fast access Apis Menu, which allows you to start macro faster from a drop-down menu.
• Create shortcut to macros in Start Menu, Quick Launch panel or on the Desktop.
• Also select only mouse or only keyboard replay.

Define a hotkey and launch your macro from anywhere instantly. Define a hotkey scope, and launch your macro from a separate application.

Repeat options allow you to replay macros a repeatedly given number of times. Turbo speed option allows running your macros faster.

Create macros shortcuts in Start Menu, Quick Launch panel or on the desktop. Fast access "Apis" menu.

Scheduler allows you to schedule macros for any time, any day of week, and offers many other scheduling options.

Visit Official MavrSoft Site for more info.

Windows Movie Maker Overview

2007-05-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

You can use Windows Movie Maker to import audio and video to your computer from a digital video (DV) camera, and then use the imported content in your movies. You can also import existing audio, video, or still pictures into Windows Movie Maker to use in the movies you create.

After editing the audio and video content in Windows Movie Maker, which can include adding titles, transitions, or effects, you can then publish your final movie and share it with your friends and family.

Understanding the Windows Movie Maker tools

Windows Movie Maker is divided into three main areas: the panes, the storyboard/timeline, and the preview monitor. The following picture shows the basic areas of Windows Movie Maker:

These sections provide a brief introduction to these areas.

About the panes

The main features of the Windows Movie Maker user interface appear in separate panes. Depending on which tasks you want to complete, you can alternate between using the Collections view and the Tasks views.

•

The Tasks pane lists the common tasks that you may need to perform when making a movie, including importing files, editing your movie, and publishing your movie.

•

The Collections pane displays your collection folders, which contain clips. The collection folders appear in the Collections pane on the left, and the clips in the

selected collection folder are displayed in the Contents pane on the right. The following picture shows the Collections pane:

•

The Contents pane shows clips, effects, or transitions you're working with while you create your movie, depending on the view you're working with. You can change the view to show thumbnails or details.

You can drag clips, transitions, or effects from the Contents pane or a collection from the Collections pane to the storyboard/timeline for your current project. You can also drag clips to the preview monitor to play them. If you make changes to a clip, those changes are only reflected in the current project; they do not affect the source file.

•

The preview monitor allows you to view individual clips or a

n entire project. By using the preview monitor, you can preview your project before publishing it as a movie. You can use the playback controls to navigate through an individual clip or an entire project. You can also use the buttons on the preview monitor to perform functions such as splitting a video or audio clip into two smaller clips or taking a picture of the current frame that is displayed in the preview monitor.

About the story board and timeline

The area where you create and edit your project is displayed in two views, the storyboard and the timeline. You can switch between these two views when making a movie.

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Storyboard. The storyboard is the default view in Windows Movie Maker. You can use the storyboard to look at the sequence or ordering of the clips in your project and easily rearrange them, if necessary. This view also lets you see any video effects or video transitions that have been added. Audio clips that you have added to a project are not displayed on the storyboard, but you can see them in the timeline view. The following picture shows the storyboard view in Windows Movie Maker:

•

Timeline. The timeline view provides a more detailed view of your movie project and allows you to make finer edits. Using the timeline view you can trim video clips, adjust the duration of transitions between clips, and view the audio track. You can use the timeline to review or modify the timing of clips in your project. Use the timeline buttons to switch to storyboard view, zoom in or out on details of your project, narrate the timeline, or adjust the audio levels. The following picture shows the timeline view in Windows Movie Maker:

About the preview monitor

The preview monitor shows the clip or picture you're working on. You can use it to view clips or pictures in your collections folders or in the project you're working on. Use the buttons underneath the preview monitor to play or pause a clip, or to advance or rewind a clip frame by frame. The Split button allows you to split a clip into two parts at exactly the point displayed in the preview monitor.

You can make the preview monitor larger or smaller by clicking View, pointing to Preview Monitor Size, and choosing a size. You can also drag the window to make it larger or smaller.

Understanding Collections, Projects and Movies

Windows Movie Maker makes it easy for you to organize your video clips, pictures, and audio files using a set of folders known as collections. You can see your collections by clicking View, and then clicking Collections.

To learn more about collections, see Work with folders.

When you begin moving your video clips, audio clips, and pictures to the storyboard or timeline, Windows Movie Maker creates a project that contains all the information about the order of your files, along with any transitions or effects you might add. You can save the project so that the next time you open it in Windows Movie Maker you'll see all the information in the order you left it. To learn more about projects, see Work with projects.

When you have all of your videos clips, audio clips, and pictures in the order you like, you can create your movie by clicking Publish Movie. You can publish your movie to your computer, save it to a recordable CD, send it as an attachment in an e‑mail message, or record it on a digital video (DV) tape. If you have Windows DVD Maker, which is included in Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Home Premium, you can also save it directly to a DVD. To learn more about publishing your movie, see Publish a movie.

Device Drivers for Windows Vista

2007-05-09T03:24:00.000-07:00

I found a good list of drivers for Windows Vista.

Start downloading your driver immediately.
If you are not sure which driver is right for you you can try RadarSync software. It detects your devices and shows you list required device drivers.

Logitech

D-Link

RealTek

Silicon Integrated Systems

SigmaTel

SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC

SMC

VIA

Yamaha

Marvell

BENQ

NETGEAR

NETGEAR WG511v2 54 Mbps Wireless PC Card

SMC

O2Micro

Hauppauge

WinTV-PVR-150 Driver/application

EPSON

Atheros

3Com

ALi

ALi SATA/RAID Controller (M5289)

Alps

Alps Pointing-device

AVerMedia

HUAWEI

Microsoft

Yamaha

Yuan

HP Digital TV Tuner

Lexmark

Nokia

AuthenTec

Tabs in Yahoo Messenger Hack

2007-05-06T04:51:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Messenger is getting ready for the next version especially for Windows Vista which is being build up from ground level. The new Yahoo Messenger will have the Vista Aero look as default and lots of other new skins are also supported. One can integrate it with Windows Live Messenger and it also has other features like drag and drop with new emoticons, program icons and alert sounds.

But the most interesting feature is the tabbed IM windows. Like in the new Yahoo Mail beta which keeps all the mails you open in different tabs, you can group the IM windows under tabs in a single window. Though this is not yet officially released, some tweaks are released by Yahoo itself as it is already built in the current Yahoo messenger (Version 8.1).

Two registry files are provided by Yahoo to turn it on and off. But it seems there are some functionality issues like no notification if there are new messages in the new tab and few others and these can be corrected with the utility provided by WackyB. This utility is mentioned by the Yahoo in their messenger blog.

Note: I tried and it is working for me but I don’t guarantee that everything may work properly in your system. If you are not patient enough to wait for the next version you can try this as anyhow you can turn off this tab at any point of time.

DirectX v10 Secret of Graphics in Windows Vista

2007-05-06T04:41:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista had been loved due its excellent real time graphics.But have you ever thought what makes those graphics real ? Thanks to DirectX 10 which is making thses ultra high real time graphics real.Before I dig into Directx 10.Lets get to know little about it.What is Directx ?

Directx is the core which makes the games work.All the graphics designs which you even cant imagine in real time, is possible due to it.When Microsoft launched its operating system in 95 it was quite unfriendly do ue to internal restriction on hardware like audio device video cards and other peripherals.Thus directx made a set of api or functions that can be used in windows.The main advantge was taken by games which had much more freedom

How DX10 makes it so real ?

In real world every point is uinque.Even 2 points on your face is not similar.When Dx stared initially due to restriction on hardware and development part it was restricted on number of unique objects that can show in Scene.But with DX10 you can show hundreds of unique objects.This means if you have to show 100 flowers in a field you need not to create one and copy it to 100 but create 100 different one.That makes it more real.
Displacement Mappings one more technique that makes Humans showing in most of the hi-fi video games so real.More details texture you have much real the image will look.DX10 has something called as geometry shaders.By adding more “triangles” in a particular point it makes them real.

Now think of those graphics u see on your vista’s desktop.Thats what DX10 making it happen

Comparison of DX 9.0 and DX 10

Lets take a look at the images below and You will need no words to say how much they differ:

Above: Image Generated By DX9

Above: Image Generated By DX10

Can it make my CPU slow and system crash.?

It can if you don’t have a separate Graphics card.The gae has gone when the cpu had to all the work.If you have a separate graphics card DX10 will transfer the load on to it while your cpu can still do other things like downloading email checking and browsing.

You can read these topics for DirectX 9L which is going to be DirectX10 for windows XP.I found it through google search DirectX 9.L will be a DirectX 10 for Windows XP

So what does all that mean ?

Over all as the end user you might be more concerned about your system performance.Thus u want to play hi-fi games without ur system crashing down or getting ur screen blank.Keepin this in mind the benefits of DX10 with Windows Vista you might be compelled to upgrade seeing these advantages, specially as a gamer u will.

Download Free Seven Vista Themes and Suit

2007-05-06T04:33:00.001-07:00

Visa is growing everyday and becoming popular among 3d Fanatics. Directx10 , the secret of Vista has been boon to both game players and user experience on desktops. Vista themes are like skin on your default vista. They make vista look amazing by providing different icons or wallpapers and yeah the sound and graphics effect.

I found these 7 amazing themes which all vista users can use on their desktops. You can choose whichever suits your taste. Some of the themes might require Free Theme Manager. Click on the images and it wil take you to download page.

Please Backup Your Vista Before you install these themes. Thats for your safety. The author is not responsible for a third party tools.

BlackLight

Alpha OS Suite

Moon Shadow II

Epsilon

Design II

sotArt

Azure

So what are you waiting for, go ahead and download it

DataStreams component library for .Net developers

2007-05-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

The following is a paid review:

DataStreams is a component library for .Net developers to easily integrate data from various formats like CSV, Excel, and XML into their applications.

Benefits:

Read, write, and bulk load CSV files.

Read and bulk load Excel XLS spreadsheet files.

Read and bulk load XML files.

Check out the demo!

Csv Reader is an extremely fast and stable .Net class for stream based parsing of virtually any commonly found delimited data format, CSV files, tab delimited files, etc. It's usable from C#, VB.Net, ASP.Net, or any other .Net language. It's compatible with the 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 .Net frameworks. The methods are designed for ease of use, while the inner architecture is designed purely for speed and efficiency. Parsing is done using the de facto standard CSV file specifications. It handles quoted fields, delimiters in the data, and even data that spans across multiple lines. This gives you the ability to open csv files, edit csv files, and save csv files all directly from code. Data can be parsed in less than half of the time of any other parser it has been benchmarked against. Rough benchmarks on a 2 Ghz processor, parsing common comma separated columns is 20 MB, or 390,000 rows with 5 columns each, almost 2,000,000 cells total, of data parsing per second. Virtually no garbage collection is needed from the framework because of object reuse internally while parsing. All development is thoroughly unit tested to guarantee fewer bugs and to insure proper handling of extreme cases, currently using 195 test cases and 1308 asserts across 4800 lines of test code. Pricing is extremely cheap and licensing is amazingly open. One license is good across all machines enterprise wide.

http://www.csvreader.com/

SOURCE DATA:

RESULT:

SPEED:

For more details, visit the BENCHMARKS section to see how Csv Reader stacks up against the competition.

CODE SAMPLES:

Look at the several code samples provided in the CODE SAMPLES section to see how the code is used.

DOCUMENTATION:

Download compiled help docs here: dsdocs.zip or view DataStreams docs online.

RECENT CUSTOMER COMMENTS:

"Have installed it and used it and I only wish I had found it and used it earlier. 'Does just what it says on the tin', many thanks."

Charles

"The parser works perfectly - and I've found the online examples very helpful. Suits our needs to a tee."

Lanson

"Thanks for the great tool!"

Phil

"I'm almost done with my import project, in 4 days instead of the 3 weeks I had estimated. Excellent product!"

Josh

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Stream based file parsing allowing for parsing of large files without storing the entire file contents in memory
Simple reader pattern movement through file
Simple access to field data by index or by field name
Internal parsing using arrays instead of strings for fast looping over large files
Uses built in framework functionality to handle most encoding issues instead of guessing or hardcoding
Includes a CSV writer to ease the worries while creating CSV data. No more needing to worry about what to replace with what to match up with delimiters, text qualifiers, etc

HANDLES:

Standard comma and tab delimited data
End of records using Mac, Unix, or Windows end of line markers without predicting or specifying
Quote text qualified fields using double quotes
Alternate field delimiters other than commas, ie. pipe, tab, etc
Alternate text qualifiers
Occurrences of field delimiter within text qualified field
Occurrences of text qualifier within text qualified field using doubled up syntax
Alternate backslash text qualifier escaping syntax
Occurrences of any character, including record end delimiters inside text qualified fields
Automatic trimming of leading and trailing spaces and tabs in a non text qualified field
Using one char that's normally used as a record end delimiter as a field delimiter and a different one as the record end delimiter as commonly used in Unix files with CR as the field delimiter and LF as the record delimiter
All encodings, ANSI, UTF-8, Unicode, ASCII, etc
First record containing field names
Reading data from a System.IO.StreamReader that's wrapped around a System.IO.Stream that can come from anywhere, not just a System.IO.FileStream

If you have an unsupported format, or are unsure whether the format is supported, please email bruce@csvreader.com.

For more info Visit: http://www.csvreader.com/

Vista Shell Styles and Themes List

2007-05-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

Seeing how hard it is to find themes for Vista, I decided to make this Topic. After searching around for quite some time, I have found some good Themes, and some bad ones.

First of all, you need to patch your UXtheme.dll if you haven't already. You can find that here, instructions are included.

When you download the theme, extract the files into C:\Windows\Resources\Themes. Right click on the desktop and go to Personalise, click on Window Colour and Appearance, then click Open classic appearance properties for more colour options. You will see that Windows Aero and Windows Vista Basic have been duplicated. Don't worry, they are the new themes. Click on them and you can change the theme as you wish.

Always read the ReadMe files.

Themes:

VistaRemix new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Aero 4074 Blue Sky new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Tiberium new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Aero MaX Dark Live
Maxximum Aero Live
HilledSE
AeroClear Glass
LunaVista
RedEye Vista
BlueEye Vista
Longhorn Beta 1 Style
Visinti
Aurora Full Glass
Vectrum
Aero 4074 Remix
AeroClear Greaphit

Shell Styles:

Metals Set new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Antique Red new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Pastel new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Four Colored Shells new.gif ( 120bytes ) Number of downloads: 8
Ultimate Vista
WMP11
Energy Vista
ShadowStyle
Longhorn
RedandBlue Aurora

Please post any Themes or Shell Styles here that aren't listed. I will add them to the list asap.

Enjoy

Correct Disk Cleanup shortcut for Windows Vista 64-bit

2007-05-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

If you are using a 64-bit (x64) version of Windows Vista, then this is something you should know. By default, the shortcut in the Start menu points to the 32-bit (x86) executable for Disk Cleanup. While Disk Cleanup will work fine from this shortcut for most things, there is one function that does not work correctly – the cleaning of System Restore points and Shadow Copies / Previous Versions.

Note that if you launch Disk Cleanup from another location in Windows, for instance by clicking the “Disk Cleanup” button on a drives properties window, it will launch the correct executable for Disk Cleanup.

If you want to correct the Disk Cleanup shortcut in the Start menu, follow these steps:

Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then click on System Tools.
Right click on “Disk Cleanup” and from the context menu that appears click on “Properties”.
Change the “Target” from “%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\cleanmgr.exe” to “%SystemRoot%\system32\cleanmgr.exe”.
Click on OK. If User Account Control prompts you for consent, click on Continue or provide the appropriate credentials.

SoloSEO Proffesional SEO Tools Review

2007-05-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

This is sponsored review:

SEO Project Management

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help your site rank higher in the search engines, giving you more traffic and more conversions. There is no quick fix and instant results in SEO, it takes time and a lot of work. But there is hope! SoloSEO helps SEO to be easier, by managing keywords, content, and link building all in one place. With SoloSEO you can use professional SEO tools to track, manage, and optimize your site.

SEO Tools and Reports

Finding keywords is one thing, but managing them is another. Put away that spreadsheet and go to the next level in keyword management. For your site's content, keep track of Backlinks and PageRank for landing pages and other important site pages. Tools for link building help you from start to finish. Find the links, check their strength and quality, manage them from one place, and watch them over time.

Do-It-Yourself SEO™

Webmaster? Small-business Owner? Even if you are new to SEO you can do-it-yourself. SoloSEO provides task lists, tools, and reporting for managing your own SEO. Sure it still takes a lot of work, but much less than without being able to manage everything in one place. Plus, you'll learn a ton as you go that you can apply in any other SEO strategy.

Link Building

Long hours and tedious work is what it takes for effective link building. But link building can be easier. Our Link Search tool makes it easy to create queries to easily find links, then use the Link Build It! tool to analyze the strength of a link, and then easily add the link to Link Manager and track its progress through the link building cycle.

Benefits:

The Right Tools

As with any trade, you need professional tools to get the job done, and done right. SoloSEO provides the professional tools for finding and managing keywords, tracking and optimizing content, and link building. These SEO tools are conveniently integrated into one simple interface for managing each of your SEO projects.

Learning how to SEO

Along with the right SEO tools, you need to know how to actually do SEO. SoloSEO gives you helpful and up-to-date learning resources to guide you through link building, writing optimized content, and finding the right keywords. With every account comes a standard SEO checklist, identifying dozens of items to do for each project. As you get more advanced in SEO, you can modify and create your own Checklists and apply them with all managed projects.

Keeping Track of Progress

Your hard work in SEO will soon pay off, and as you go along SoloSEO helps you keep track of your progress. Site statistics takes a snapshot of your site's indexed pages, backlinks, PageRank, and Alexa ranking every week, and then charts these stats over time to show you where you have been and where you are. SoloSEO also offers informative reports for competitive analysis and keyword rankings.

Low Cost

Hiring an SEO can put you out thousands and thousands of dollars. But if you have the time and willingness to learn how to do SEO, you can literally save yourself thousands. SoloSEO is a monthly subscription packed with professional SEO tools and functions, allowing you to become your own SEO.

Find out why other SEOs can't live without SoloSEO by signing up for your free trial today!

Review of Apogee Search Marketing

2007-05-02T02:15:00.000-07:00

The following is a paid review:

Apogee Search marketing solutions drive qualified, targeted visitors to B2B and B2C websites for more leads, customers, revenues and profits.

Instead of simply counting click-throughs or tracking vague "visibility" metrics, we zero in on the hard numbers that actually determine sales and profits. We're talking about solid, real-world measurements like -

• Specific number of completed lead forms
• Precise conversion rates
• Actual cost per lead, cost per sale
• Comparison of sales against search marketing investments
• Total revenues generated per day, week, month, quarter and year

SEO Services includes:

Paid Search Advertising: Complete Pay-Per-Click campaigns to test and identify the keywords and keyword phrases that drive leads and sales.

Natural Search Engine Optimization: Powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to bring more qualified visitors to your website, more effectively than ever before.

Pay Per Call Management: Drive prospects directly to your phones - and only pay when they call.

Pay Per Call Frequently Asked Questions

Affiliate Marketing: An all-in-one program managed by Apogee to increase revenue through affiliate partner sites.

Search Engine Marketing Training: Detailed, hands on instruction in search engine marketing best practices.

SEM Training Frequently Asked Questions

Search Engine Marketing Analysis: Receive a free analysis of your website's performance in the search engines.

Tweak Indexing Options for more Performance

2007-04-14T12:30:00.001-07:00

The indexing service in Windows Vista is responsible for making those search boxes all over the operating system lightening fast. By default Windows automatically indexes all files in your user profile folders, start menu and any files you have setup for offline access. If you have a lot of files in these locations and the files change often you can be putting a heavy load on the indexing service. For maximum performance when using Windows Vista I recommend disabling indexing for all other locations other than the Start Menu. This will lessen the background work that Windows Vista has to do. It will also slow down your searches of other locations but that is the price you must pay for this performance benefit.

Follow these steps to tweak the indexing locations:

Click on the Start Button and key in Indexing Options and hit Enter. Indexing Options will now load.

Hit the Modify button.
Next, click on Show all locations.
Scroll through the tree-view and uncheck any folders you do not want to be indexed. When you are finished, click OK.
If you want to change advanced indexing settings such as what file types are indexed click on the Advanced button. Otherwise hit Close.
Make XP computers show up in Vista's Network Map

The new Network Map in Windows Vista allows you to easily create a map of all computers on your network and see how they are connected. This works by using the Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) protocol that is only part of Windows Vista.

To help users of mixed environments of both Windows Vista and Windows XP, Microsoft has released the Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder for Windows XP. This will make your Windows XP computers show up in the Network Map in Windows Vista.

This package contains the Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) responder. The network map on a computer running Windows Vista shows a graphical view of the computers and devices on your network and how they are connected by using the LLTD protocol. The LLTD responder must be installed on a computer running Windows XP before it can be detected and appear on the network map. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Enable Vista Glass on Intel GMA 950 Graphics Cards

2007-04-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

1. First, I had to open up device manager. Click on the start menu and type in devmgmt.msc and Enter to load it up.

2. Once there, expand the Display Adapters section and right click on each device and select Uninstall.

3. Reboot the computer.

4. When it restarts, it should install a generic video driver so your screen will still work.

5. Go back into Device Manager, expand the Display Adapters section again and then right click on the device and select Update Driver.

6. This time select Browse My Computer for Driver and then Let me pick it from a list.

7. Go the the intel section and select the Intel® Lakeport Graphics Controller.

8. Hit OK and install the new driver. Restart your computer.

9. Once you have rebooted, right click on your desktop and select Personalize again.

10. Click on Windows Colors and Appearance.

11. Click on Open classic appearance properties for more color options.

12. In the Color Scheme box, select Windows Vista Aero.

13. Hit OK and glass will now load.

Play DivX files in Windows Vista Media Center

2007-04-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

If you've been interested in getting various non-Microsoft third party media codecs (along with video subtitles) working in Vista Media Center, you now have a configurable MCE plug-in which leverages the open-source FFDShow (Microsoft DirectShow compatible) decoder. FFDShow supports MPEG-4 video formats like DivX, Xvid, H.264 and allows users to playback MP3, AAC, Dolby AC3, and OGG Vorbis audio files. Additionally, Media Control for Windows Vista MCE has the capability to set video bookmarks, switch the subtitle language during playback, and provide 3-speed fast forward and rewind.

Requirements:

Windows Vista with Media Center
FFDShow – version 881or greater
Haali media splitter (not mandatory, but required to switch between MKV/OGM streams)

Price:

Free – PayPal donations are being accepted

Windows Vista Speech Recognition Step by Step Guide

2007-04-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista™'s speech recognition is state of the art. Using speech recognition in the operating system, you can dictate emails and documents, and use your voice to control your favorite programs and navigate Web sites. Windows Vista Speech Recognition enables you to create documents quickly, and helps you to work with reduced risk of repetitive stress injuries. The Windows Vista speech recognition experience has an innovative design that places you in control and enables you to become proficient at using speech recognition faster than ever before.

What is Speech Recognition

Speech Recognition technology allows you to control your computer by speaking. When you talk, the software will intelligently decide whether to convert your voice into text, such as to allow you to dictate documents and e-mails, or whether you have given a command that requires it to take an action.

What’s new in Windows Vista Speech Recognition?

Windows Vista Speech Recognition focuses not only on providing world class accuracy, but on providing the most usable end-to-end speech recognition experience. It addresses key issues that currently frustrate or confuse users of existing products. Windows Vista Speech Recognition provides an efficient, enjoyable way to get your tasks done with speech, including:

•	A reduced learning curve, with a focus on making the system "just work."
•	Redesigned user interfaces provide a simple but efficient experience so you can dictate and edit text, and correct any mistakes.
•	An interactive tutorial that teaches you how to use Speech Recognition while the computer learns your voice.
•	Significant improvements to accuracy with speech technology that learns as you use it.
•	Control of your computer with new interfaces that let you use applications in a way that places you in control.
•	Improved clarification and interpretation. When you give a command that can be interpreted multiple ways, the system will prompt you to clarify what you meant to do.

Who should use Speech Recognition

This guide is targeted at the following audiences:

•	IT planners and HR departments providing assistive technology solutions for the employees who have repetitive stress injury, mobility impairments, or vision limitations
•	IT planners for education departments
•	Early adopters

Speech Recognition is intended to address the needs of information workers, particularly those who primarily use e-mail applications, word processing applications, and web browsers.

The following users will have less successful experiences with Windows Vista Speech Recognition:

•	Users in an environment where talking to the computer would have a negative effect on others, such as in an open plan office.
•	Users who often work with text that is not grammatical (programmers, spreadsheet users, computer administrators).
•	Users who need a tightly integrated screen-reader and speech-recognition solution.

Benefits of Speech Recognition

With Speech Recognition, you can:

•	Dramatically reduce the use of the keyboard and mouse by performing tasks with speech.
•	Create documents efficiently by talking to your computer.
•	Control your computer using your voice, including starting or switching applications and selecting menus and buttons.

Key scenarios for Speech Recognition

This guide discusses the simple scenario of dictating a document and giving voice commands.

The Speech Tutorial which is included as part of Windows Vista contains more scenarios that you may wish to try.

Prerequisites

To complete this task, ensure that you meet the following requirements:

•

Use a high-quality microphone. Examples include:

•	A USB headset microphone
•	An array microphone

•

Complete the speech recognition interactive tutorial. This lets the computer begin learning to recognize your voice accurately. Completing the tutorial also ensures that you learn the voice commands needed to perform tasks by voice.

Dictating a document overview

One of the most common scenarios with Speech Recognition is dictating a document, which involves the following:

•	Opening your word processing application
•	Dictating the body of the document
•	Saving the document

Steps for dictating a document

Complete the Speech Tutorial

1.	In the Start Menu, choose All Programs, Accessories, Accessibility. Select the Speech Recognition option
2.	Proceed through the initial set up screens to configure your microphone. The Speech tutorial will then be launched
3.	Complete the Speech tutorial

Create, dictate, and save a document

1.	Say "Start Listening."
2.	Say "Open WordPad."
3.	Say "This is a test of speech recognition period." Note Remember to pronounce punctuation.
4.	To correct mistakes, say "correct" and the word that the computer typed by mistake, and then pick the correct word from the list offered by Speech Recognition, repeat the correct word again. For example, if the computer misrecognized "speech" as "peach," say "correct peach," and then choose the right word from the list, or say the word "speech" again.
5.	To save the document, say "File", then say "Save As."
6.	Say "Test document."
7.	Say "Save."

Known issues

Dictation

You might encounter the following issues when you use Speech Recognition.

•

Speech Recognition dictation will work in a limited set of applications that support a technology called the Text Services Framework. This set of applications includes:

•	Microsoft Word and Outlook
•	Virtually all applications that are part of Windows Vista

•

Dictation will not work in many applications. These include, but are not limited to:

•	Microsoft PowerPoint
•	Excel
•	WordPerfect
•	Eudora
•	Lotus Notes

Poor recognition of voice commands

If you are having difficulty completing a task by voice, the most likely cause is that the computer is accurately recognizing your voice, but you are saying the wrong command..

Refer to the Speech Reference Card to learn which commands are available. To access the Speech Reference Card, right click the microphone control bar.

Logging bugs and feedback

To log bugs, use the instructions on the Microsoft Beta Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=46992). We are also interested in feature requests and general feedback about Speech Recognition.

You may request additional support for Speech Recognition by sending emails directly to the Speech Recognition team at listen@microsoft.com.

Command-Line Tool in Windows Vista

2007-04-14T12:15:00.001-07:00

Perhaps this is ironic for someone who has a heavy focus on beautiful client interfaces, but I've always been a bit of a command-line junkie. Maybe it's a fetish, maybe it's just a legacy of the early DOS, VAX/VMS and UNIX systems that I used in my formative years, but I've always rather liked the uncluttered "get stuff done" experience of a shell.

One particularly common motivation for me to drop back to the Windows Vista command shell is to copy files. For years, robocopy has been an essential part of the Microsoft engineer's toolkit. When I was back in the UK, it was about the only sane way to copy large file structures over the WAN from Redmond, but even now, it's one of the most trusted and useful tools in my toolbox - the first thing I copy over onto a fresh installation to help manage everything that will follow.

Robocopy has been around as an independent tool for a little while (primarily in the Windows Resource Kits), but finally in Windows Vista, someone has seen fit to give the little tool the recognition it deserves, and as a result it now sits on a high pedestal in the \windows\system32 directory on every Windows Vista installation.

Why is robocopy so cool? Well, for starters, it's hard to find a more flexible, configurable tool - with over 80 switches, the chances are it can handle any batch or synchronous copy you have in mind.

Secondly, it's just very robust. If a network link goes down halfway through a lengthy copy, most tools bail out, but robocopy just patiently waits, retrying x times with a y second interval (of course, x and y are configurable). Better still, it can be configured to pick up where the file transfer left off, so you don't have to go all the way back to the start if the network fails 99% of the way through a 2GB file.

Finally, it's perfectly optimized for mirroring large file shares on a slow WAN link. It only copies files that have changed, which is perfect for the occasions when you want to pull down a daily build where only 30% of the files have changed since the last occasion. You can set it to monitor a source and keep the destination updated with changes on a repeated schedule. Lastly, you can even throttle the traffic down by tweaking the inter-packet gap, so that a network link isn't monopolized by the copy process.

I use robocopy for copying new daily builds down from a central server, for backing up my personal and work files to shared locations, and simply for moving files around from partition to partition. Even as I write this, there's a robocopy window mirroring my entire data partition to a removable USB hard drive so that I can transfer my data from one laptop to another.

If you're not running Windows Vista already (shame on you!), you can download robocopy as part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (where there's also a user manual in Word format for the tool). If you're not a command-line junkie, there's a GUI wrapper available from GotDotNet, although it doesn't really provide much more than a shell for the switches. Start with the /mir and /z switches to get a sense of the power of the tool (but be careful with /mir since it will delete as well as copy files to bring the destination folder in sync with the source folder). Run robocopy /? to see the full set of parameters available. Good luck!

by Tim Sneath

Why Vista Uses All you Memory

2007-04-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista has a radically different approach to memory management. Check out the "Physical Memory, Free" column in my Task Manager:

At the time this screenshot was taken, this machine had a few instances of IE7 running, plus one remote desktop. I'm hardly doing anything at all, yet I only have 6 megabytes of free physical memory.

Now compare with this screenshot of Windows XP's Task Manager under similar low-load conditions:

Under "Physical Memory, Available" I have approximately 1.5 gigabytes of free physical memory, as you'd expect.

So what's going on here? Why is Vista using so much memory when I'm doing so very little?

To answer that question, you have to consider what your computer's physical memory (RAM) is for. Just as a hypothetical, let's say you wanted to create a new text file:

You double-click on the notepad icon.
The Notepad executable loads from disk into memory.
Notepad executes.
Notepad allocates free memory to store your text document.

So Notepad clearly needs a little memory for itself: enough to execute, and to store the contents of the text document it's displaying. But that's maybe a couple megabytes, at most. If even that. What about the other 2,046 megabytes of system memory?

You have to stop thinking of system memory as a resource and start thinking of it as a a cache. Just like the level 1 and level 2 cache on your CPU, system memory is yet another type of high-speed cache that sits between your computer and the disk drive.

And the most important rule of cache design is that empty cache memory is wasted cache memory. Empty cache isn't doing you any good. It's expensive, high-speed memory sucking down power for zero benefit. The primary mission in the life of every cache is to populate itself as quickly as possible with the data that's most likely to be needed-- and to consistently deliver a high "hit rate" of needed data retrieved from the cache. Otherwise you're going straight to the hard drive, mister, and if you have to ask how much going to the hard drive will cost you in performance, you can't afford it.

Diomidis Spinellis published an excellent breakdown of the cache performance ratios in a typical PC circa January 2006:

	Nominal	Worst case	Sustained		Productivity
Component	size	latency	throughput	$1 buys	(Bytes read / s / $)
			(MB/s)		Worst case	Best case
L1 D cache	64 KB	1.4ns	19022	10.7 KB	7.91·10¹²	2.19·10¹⁴
L2 cache	512 KB	9.7ns	5519	12.8 KB	1.35·10¹²	7.61·10¹³
DDR RAM	256 MB	28.5ns	2541	9.48 MB	3.48·10¹⁴	2.65·10¹⁶
Hard drive	250 GB	25.6ms	67	2.91 GB	1.22·10¹¹	2.17·10¹⁷

In summary, here's how much faster each cache memory type in your computer is than the hard drive:

System memory	37x faster
CPU Level 2 cache	82x faster
CPU Level 1 cache	283x faster

Those figures explain why I only have 6 megabytes of "free" memory in Windows Vista. Vista is trying its darndest to pre-emptively populate every byte of system memory with what it thinks I might need next. It's running a low-priority background task that harvests previously accessed data from the disk and plops it into unused system memory. They even have a fancy marketing name for it-- SuperFetch:

In previous versions of Windows, system responsiveness could be uneven. You may have experienced sluggish behavior after booting your machine, after performing a fast user switch, or even after lunch. Although too many carbohydrates might slow you down after lunch, your computer slows down for different reasons. When you're not actively using your computer, background tasks— including automatic backup and antivirus software scans— take this opportunity to run when they will least disturb you. These background tasks can take space in system memory that your applications were using. After you start to use your PC again, it can take some time to reload your data into memory, slowing down performance.
SuperFetch understands which applications you use most, and preloads these applications into memory, so your system is more responsive. SuperFetch uses an intelligent prioritization scheme that understands which applications you use most often, and can even differentiate which applications you are likely to use at different times (for example, on the weekend versus during the week), so that your computer is ready to do what you want it to do. Windows Vista can also prioritize your applications over background tasks, so that when you return to your machine after leaving it idle, it's still responsive.

This isn't a new concept, of course. But Vista treats system memory like a cache much more aggressively and effectively than any other version of Windows. As alluded to in the above lunch anecdote-- and as you can see from the Task Manager screenshot above-- Windows XP has no qualms whatsoever about leaving upwards of a gigabyte of system memory empty. From a caching perspective, this is unfathomable. Vista tries its damndest to fill that empty system memory cache as soon as it can.

Although I am a total believer in the system-memory-as-cache religion, SuperFetch can still have some undesirable side effects. I first noticed that something was up when I fired up Battlefield 2 under Vista and joined a multiplayer game. Battlefield 2 is something of a memory hog; the game regularly uses a gigabyte of memory on large 64-player multiplayer maps. During the first few minutes of gameplay, I noticed that the system was a little sluggish, and the drive was running constantly. This was very unusual and totally unlike the behavior under Windows XP. Once the map is loaded and you join the game, the entire game is in memory. What could possibly be loading from disk at that point? Well, SuperFetch saw a ton of memory freed to make room for the game, and dutifully went about filling the leftover free memory on a low-priority background disk thread. Normally, this would be no big deal, but even a low-priority background disk thread is pretty noticeable when you're playing a twitch shooter online with 63 other people at a resolution of 1600x1200.

I'm perfectly fine letting SuperFetch have its way with my system memory. The question shouldn't be "Why does Vista use all my memory?", but "Why the heck did previous versions of Windows use my memory so ineffectively?" I don't know. Maybe the rules were different before 2 gigabytes was a mainstream memory configuration.

The less free memory I have, the better; every byte of memory should be actively working on my behalf at all times. However, I do wish there was a way to tell SuperFetch to ixnay on the oadinglay when I'm gaming.

by Jeff Atwood

Windows Vista Firewall with Advanced Security

2007-04-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

When you think of Windows Firewall, you probably think of the half-baked attempt at a Firewall that was present in XP SP2. You may also still think of it as inferior to many of the free Firewall solutions available because Windows Firewall doesn't support Outbound filtering.

Well, think again - Windows Firewall has been reborn and a lot of work has gone into making it a notable security feature of Vista. Not only does it now have Inbound and Outbound filtering, it also has the concept of Network Profiles, Computer Connection Security rules, Monitoring, and a awesome new UI which will give you FAR more control of the Firewall - "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security".

Windows Firewall with Advanced Security is a new and enhanced version of Windows Firewall. It's a stateful host-based firewall that allows or blocks network traffic according to its configuration and the applications that are currently running to provide a level of protection from malicious users and programs on a network. The new Windows Firewall includes enhancements for better protection and more advanced configuration.

Don't worry, for the non-techy the old XP SP2 UI is still available by running "firewallsettings.exe" (though it has also received a few notable improvements), and there is even a new overview UI for the Firewall which you can see by running "Firewall.cpl" (or by accessing it through control panel. These UI's are more suited to the non-techy user who only needs to see their firewall status (on/off, etc) or wants to enable/disable pre-defined rule groups such as "Remote Desktop". They can also use this UI to quickly add very-basic Firewall rules.

For the more tech-savy user, there is the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security UI. It is an MMC snap-in, which you can access by running "mmc.exe" and then adding it, or by directly running "wf.msc". The first thing that you will notice is that this UI gives you FAR more detail about your Firewall status and rules than ever before. Most notably, you will also see a sections for Inbound and Outbound rules, which is a first for Windows Firewall.

Some of the new features include:

Computer Connection Security (CCS) Rules - Connection security rules force a bilateral authentication between systems before a connection can be established.

Monitoring - Monitoring is extremely useful if you want to see exactly which Firewall rules are being enforced at any given time.

Windows Service Hardening - Prevent attackers from exploiting Windows Services. Any abnormalities that are detected will be blocked.

Inbound/Outbound Filtering - Outbound traffic, as well as inbound traffic, can be filtered.

Granular Rules - More granular rules can be configure for inbound and outbound filtering.

Firewall Profiles - Rules can be created for different profiles. Firewall profiles include: private, public and domain. So for example, you can have a different set of Firewall rules active when you are in a less secure network environment such as at airport or starbucks.

Authenticated Bypass Rules - Rules can be bypassed for specific computers that have been authenticated.

Active Directory support - The firewall can filter based on Active Directory account information.

IPv6 - Provides support for IPv6.

There is really too much to go into in this small article, so I just recommend that you explore the new Windows Firewall and see for yourself what an improvement it is. You can also read a lot more about Windows Firewall with Advanced Security here.

If you want to start scripting the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security from a command line, you will want to look into the new netsh context "netsh advfirewall" which understands the new network profiles and features.

Windows Vista Reliability Monitor

2007-04-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a small series of articles covering a few of the more useful features of Windows Vista that you may not be familiar with (or even know about). There are are some nice little tools tucked away in Vista, and the first one that I will discuss is the Reliability Monitor.

Here's the scenario - you notice that your PC has been getting slower and some of your applications have begun to crash ocassionally. You want to know what's changed on your system to make it less reliable, but you don't have hours to spend investigating logs, process information, registry settings, application installation logs, etc.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a tool that could show you graphically when your system reliabilty began to decrease, and give you a clue as to what may have caused it? Well, now there is - Reliability Monitor.

In the past Windows has provided tools to allow you to monitor the performance characteristics of your computer in real time, and Vista continues to provide such features...but with a new Realiability Monitor tool which is incredibly useful. On the day you install Windows Vista, your system is given the highest possible reliability rating (10) and then over time whenever there is a problem (i.e. application crashes, or hardware fails, etc) your PC's reliability rating decreases. If you have a few days with no problems at all, your reliability rating is likely to slowly increase.

Once you have a few days/weeks worth of data, you can begin to see the reliability of your system charted graphically on a timeline, showing you exactly when your computer had problems. Why is this useful? Let's think of a scenario - how many times have your friends/family told you that they were having computer issues but that they can't remember changing anything on their system or doing anything that could have caused the problems? :) Sound familiar? Well, now you can use the reliability monitor to see exactly when their system reliability began to decrease, and what applications were installed around the same time! If you see that on January 30th the system performance went down, and by some coincidence, January 30th was also the day that someone installed 'eviltrojan.exe' - then you know what the problem is :)

Reliability Monitor is a MMC snap-in, so there are a few ways which you can get to it in Vista. The easy way is by opening the start menu and typing 'reliability' then pressing Enter. You can also get to it by running "perfmon.msc" (either from a run prompt, or from a command prompt) and then going to the 'Reliability Monitor' node. The application requires administrator privileges to run, so you may be asked to elevate when you run it.

I encourage you to experiement with this tool, and keep an eye on it if you are running Vista. This is one of the most useful new features in my opinion and not many people seem to know about it - so please tell your friends ;)

Don't attempt to crack Vista's Activation

2007-04-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

ast couple of days there's been a big fuss about a relatively easy way to crack Vista's activation. I waited a bit before posting about it here, but after reading Robert McLaw's article in which he really explains nicely what it's all about, I decided it's time to write about it.

For a full explanation on how this crack works, check out Adrian's explanation on ZDNet.

Here is what Robert had to say which explains why you shouldn't use this method to activate your illegal copy of Vista. I could not have said it better:

Here's the problem with this, folks. Previous Windows cracks have used leaked corporate activations keys to unlock Windows, which only really hurts Microsoft. This method actively steals a valid Product Key from Microsoft customers, because most keys can only be activated once. Think about that for a second. What if your mom just got home from laying down $150 for Windows Vista Home Premium, only to get it home and install it, and find out that their key has already been activated. Now, Microsoft doesn't get hurt, because the key has been paid for. But now your mom is branded a pirate, and has to go through a giant hassle to get a new legitimate key.

Please, don't be an a$$hole [and] use this method of activating Vista. It's one thing if your target is Microsoft, it's quite another if your target is an unsuspecting consumer who shelled out their hard-earned money to upgrade their home computing experience. And Microsoft, I hope you can shut this one down, for your customers' sakes.

So guys, you heard it - please do not be an a$$ :)

If you really just HAVE to have Vista running more than 30 days which comes as a trial without the activation, use the known method and LEGALLY extend this time limit to up to 120 DAYS! I mentioned it here so read on.

Nice message Robert! Thanks!

Via: Windows-Now.com

Windows Media Player Problem in Firefox on Vista

2007-04-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Missing plugin

A version of Windows Media Player is included with most Windows installations and the WMP plugin files needed for certain webpage content are normally included. In some cases the plugin files may be missing, however, and Windows Vista installations do not include the WMP plugin files [1]). Users may receive a message similar to Unknown plugin (application/x-mplayer2) or may be incorrectly directed to reinstall the WMP program, which is not a solution since reinstalling or updating Windows Media Player does not add the missing plugins [2]). To check for the WMP plugin, type about:plugins into the location bar. There should be an entry for Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library (File name: npdsplay.dll) and two entries for Microsoft® DRM (File name: npdrmv2.dll and File name: npwmsdrm.dll). If you do not see these files, follow these steps:

If some or all of the files are missing, you can download the individual files from dlldump.com and place them in the Windows Media Player directory (usually C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player):
Reopen your browser and see if the WMP plugin is now working. If it isn't, follow these additional steps (Windows Vista users, go to the last step):
A Windows Media Player Plug-in for Netscape Navigator installer (not supported on Windows Vista) can be downloaded here and should resolve the issue [3] but the included files are older versions. After running the installer, copy the more recent versions of npdsplay.dll, npdrmv2.dll and npwmsdrm.dll from dlldump.com to the Windows Media Player directory, if they were replaced by older versions.
If the Windows Media Player plugin still does not work, copy the npdsplay.dll, npdrmv2.dll and npwmsdrm.dll files to the installation directory plugins folder; for example, to the C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins folder in Firefox.

Alternative solution

Instead of restoring the missing WMP plugin, an add-on such as the MediaPlayerConnectivity Firefox extension can be installed to launch embedded media on a webpage in an external player [4] (a version for SeaMonkey is also available).

Testing WMP plugin

You can test the WMP plugin using these test pages:

If the above pages are unavailable, the Testing plugins article links to other audio video and embedded sound test pages that include WMP plugin tests.

Troubleshooting WMP plugin

Video is invisible or disappears when you click a control

When the player is active, right-click on it and select 'Options...'
At the bottom of the window should be a 'Video Acceleration' option. Change it from full to half by moving the slider.

Firefox crashes on exit if the WMP plugin has been used (Windows 2000)

Double-click on the 'My Computer' icon on the desktop, then double-click on 'Control Panel'.
Double-click on the Java icon to bring up the Java control panel.
Click on the 'Update' tab, and then the 'Update Now' button.

WMP6 used even though WMP9 or later is installed

If the player controls look like they are from an older version of Windows Media Player:

Right-click this link and save it to your desktop: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/resources/wmp9.reg
When it has downloaded, double-click it. A pop-up will ask if you want to add the information in it to the registry - click Yes.

If the above registry patch doesn't help then reinstalling a downloaded version of Windows Media Player, such as WMP10 or WMP11 for Windows XP, is reported to fix the problem [5] (details here).

"Cannot create DirectShow Player"

This could be a symptom of this problem. Failing that, try reinstalling WMP and installing the latest version of DirectX. Windows XP users with WMP 9 can try upgrading to WMP 10, and WMP 10 users can also try rolling back to WMP 9. Booting Windows in Safe Mode, deleting WMP, then reinstalling WMP may solve it.

Nothing happens when pressing Play

The players in the test links here have the status bar - it tells you what the player is doing. This is not always the case. Sometimes when you hit play on a player without a status bar, it seems like nothing happens - in fact, the player is probably just downloading enough of the file to start playing it (buffering) and if you give it a moment, it will start.

Illegal operation in Windows Media Player plugin

Illegal Operation in Plugin
Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library
The plugin performed an illegal operation. You are strongly advised to restart Navigator.

This can be caused by having JavaScript disabled. To enable JavaScript:

Firefox: Click "Tools → Options → Content (or Web Features) → Enable JavaScript".
Mozilla Suite: Click "Edit → Preferences → Advanced → Scripts & Plug-ins → Enable JavaScript for → Navigator"

Make sure that any extensions you might have that can block JavaScript are not blocking the site in question or are disabled. These include NoScript[6] and Adblock Plus.

Windows XP Home N or Windows XP Professional N

Because of a recent decision by the European Commission, Microsoft have been required to offer these new European versions of Windows XP Home/Pro in addition to the standard verisons, with Windows Media Player and all built-in media playback abilities removed - including the Windows Media Player plugin. The N stands for 'Not with Windows Media Player'. Because of the scope of the changes, you cannot simply install Windows Media Player to get full functionality back. Microsoft have released an update to convert Windows XP N to regular Windows XP (by restoring all the missing files). Users of Windows XP Home/Pro N will need to install this update to run the Windows Media Player plugin. This update is also avaliable on Windows Update. This cannot be undone. After installing this update, the only way to revert back to Windows XP N will be to re-install Windows.

Player appears, player status bar says 'Ready', no error messages, but nothing happens when you click Play

Internet Explorer needs to be able to connect to the internet for the Windows Media Player plugin to work:

Make sure that Internet Explorer is not set to Work Offline mode: To check if IE is in 'Work Offline' mode, open IE and open the File menu. There would be a tick by the 'Work Offline' option. Click it to take IE off Work Offline mode.
Make sure that Internet Explorer's proxy settings are correct
Make sure that IE and WMP are not blocked by your firewall.

This can also be caused by DSL/cable providers using Network Address Translation (NAT) not forwarding UDP packets properly. The solution is to disable UDP in Windows Media Player:

In WMP, click Tools > Options
Select the 'Network' tab
Deselect 'UDP'

It has also been reported that reinstalling/upgrading/downgrading Windows Media Player can solve this.

Crashes or missing WMP controls while trying to play embedded WMV files

Your browser may crash or, if the video does play, the WMP controls (play/pause/stop) or right-click options may be missing [7]. This can happen when the VLC Media Player is installed and its own browser plug-in takes precedence over the WMP plug-in, causing a conflict. Remove the VLC plug-in file npvlc.dll from the Mozilla Suite or Firefox installation directory plugins folder so that embedded WMV files can play properly.

Player does not appear, but audio (sometimes) still plays - all plugin files are listed in `about:plugins`

If the Adblock extension is installed, the OBJ-TABS setting may hide the WMP plug-in. If you find this happens to you, disable Obj-Tabs in your Adblock options. If that doesn't work, try redownloading the plugin files from dlldump.com as described in the previous section and placing them in your browser's plugins folder. The VLC Media Player plug-in has also been known to do this - try removing the VLC plug-in (see above).

Another problem where file may play audio but the video will play only on the Primary monitor even though both would otherwise have the same view. (Windows control panel, Display, Advanced, Displays)

Firefox 1.5.0.5

Firefox 1.5.0.5 has a bug that interferes with the Windows Media Player plug-in (fixed in Firefox 1.5.0.6).

Windows XP Media Center Edition

Windows XP Media Center Edition does not come with the Windows Media Player plugins so you will need to add them (see Missing plugin, above). If these solutions don't work, the update for Windows XP N (XP with no media playback ability (see Windows XP Home N or Windows XP Professional N, above) is reported to to add back the missing files and settings that allow Windows XP Media Center Edition to support the WMP plugins [8]. Warning: this update cannot be uninstalled. The only way to undo it is to re-install Windows, so attempt at your own risk. The update is here.

ActiveX plugin

Some sites may be coded specifically for the WMP ActiveX control, an Internet Explorer plug-in technology that does not normally run on Mozilla Suite or Firefox. The Mozilla ActiveX Plugin by Adam Lock adds ActiveX support to Mozilla Suite and Firefox. The ActiveX plug-in is currently only available for Firefox 1.5 and below. Don't even try installing it in Firefox 2.0; it won't work.

Warnings:

If you use the Adblock extension, you need to disable the Obj-Tabs setting. Otherwise, the ActiveX plugin will run almost any ActiveX control regardless of how it is configured. Potential fixes are being discussed in Bug 340852 and may be included in furture Mozilla browser releases.
For some versions of the ActiveX plugin, the Flash plugin will not load unless it was already loaded after you install the ActiveX plugin. You will need to reload the plugins by typing about:plugins into your Location Bar upon starting Firefox.
If you later update your browser, the ActiveX plugin will likely remain installed and it may not be compatible with the new browser version. You should uninstall the ActiveX plugin before upgrading your browser, unless it is known to work with the next version.

Security Info

ActiveX support is considered to be one of Internet Explorer's larger security flaws. This is because IE can automatically download, install and run ActiveX controls without informing the user. ActiveX controls, unlike plug-ins, have all the same permissions as any Windows program so they have full access to Windows, giving a virus disguised as an ActiveX control a lot of damaging power. The ActiveX plugins are capable of downloading and running any control[9], but the Firefox versions come preconfigured not to download controls, and to only use the Windows Media Player controls - bypassing the security issues. The ActiveX plugins for Mozilla Suite do not - they will download missing controls.

Installing ActiveX plugin

The ActiveX plugin can be downloaded and installed from this page.

Important: Each version of the ActiveX plugin is only compatible with a small number of browser versions. If installed in an incompatible browser, the ActiveX plugin will not function properly and you may experience conflicts with the Flash plugin.

Firefox 1.5.0.x: Install the plug-in for Firefox 1.5.
All other releases: Install the plug-in for your specific version of Firefox.

After installation, restart Firefox.

SeaMonkey 1.0 release

SeaMonkey 1.0 users can install the Firefox 1.5 version of the plugin, which seems to work [10].

Mozilla Suite and other Firefox builds

Install the Mozilla ActiveX Plug-in and then exit the browser.
Download the browser.xpi file from Netscape's ftp site. Do not click on the link. Instead, right-click it and select "Save Link As..." Rename it to browser.zip, open the ZIP file, and extract the npmozax.dll file to the plugins folder of your Mozilla Suite or Firefox Installation directory. The file will be located within the ZIP file under the ZIP's plugin folder. [11]
It it also recommended that you edit activex.js and replace it with the text below to enable only Windows Media Player to run unless you need to run other ActiveX controls. The activex.js file is located in your installation directory \defaults\pref folder.

pref("general.useragent.vendorComment", "ax");
pref("security.xpconnect.activex.global.hosting_flags", 9);
pref("security.classID.allowByDefault", false);
pref("capability.policy.default.ClassID.CID6BF52A52-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6", "AllAccess");
pref("capability.policy.default.ClassID.CID22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95", "AllAccess");

Testing ActiveX plugin

Once you have installed WMP and ActiveX, you can test it on this site. If you can play both the audio and video players, the ActiveX plugin is installed and working.

Uninstalling ActiveX plugin

Close all instances of your browser.
Go to the installation directory.
Go into the plugins folder and delete the file npmozax.dll.
Go back to the installation folder, and then go into the components folder, and delete the files nsIMozAxPlugin.xpt and nsAxSecurityPolicy.js.
Go back to the installation folder, and then go into the \defaults\pref folder and delete the file activex.js.

Keyboard shortcuts in Windows Vista

2007-04-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you like to use the keyboard for most, if not all, of your OS navigation tasks. It's merely a personal preference, but I'd much rather use a keystroke sequence than have to remove a hand from the keyboard (I use my right hand for mousing), move the mouse, and return it. It just seems faster to me -- and maybe it allows me to rely less on hand-eye coordination, which, admittedly, is less sharp now that I have much less time to spend gaming :(

Here are just a couple keyboard shortcuts that I've learned of from colleagues or come across on my own:

Ctrl+Esc Opens the Start menu

Windows Logo Opens the Start menu

Ctrl+Alt+Delete Then - Displays the Windows Security window

Now – Displays LogOn screen including Lock Computer, Switch User, LogOff, Change a Password and Task Manager

Print Screen Copies the full screen image to the Windows Clipboard

Alt+Print Screen Copies the selected window's image to the Windows Clipboard

Alt+Double-Click Displays property sheet for the selected item

Alt+Enter Displays property sheet for the selected object

Shift Hold when loading disk to prevent AutoPlay application

Shift+F10 Same as right-click

Shift+Right-Click Shows alternative commands for the selected object

I now find myself using many of these more and more often, especially given my inclination toward using the keyboard instead of the mouse whenever possible.

One of the great things about Windows Vista is the context-sensitivity applied to many actions. For example, think of how the Slide Show command appears in a window's toolbar when viewing a window containing photos; or, how right-clicking a photo displays rotation options in the resulting menu. In the case of the shortcuts above, notice that when you Shift+Right-Click an .XLSX spreadsheet or .DOCX document, the Open as Read-Only option appears, which is not the case when doing the same to a .PPTX slide deck. And for all of these file types, the Copy as Path option is displayed upon Shift+Right-Click, which can be very handy if you're looking for the fully-qualified path to the document -- say, in the case of creating a hyperlink to it.

There are surely more shortcuts that I've yet to discover. What are some of the keyboard or other shortcuts you rely on regularly in Windows Vista? Share your tips in the Comments section and give us a chance to learn from one another!

Readyboost on Motherboard

2007-04-12T09:39:00.001-07:00

Another way to utilize ReadyBoost is to buy a motherboard with flash memory installed. The first of these are already on the market, introduced by ASUS a week before Vista's official birthday on January 29, 2007.

New motherboards from ASUS include flash memory on the board that can be allocated as a ReadyBoost cache.

There are four models in the series: a Plus and a Premium model each for the Intel Core 2 Quad and the AMD Athlon 64 FX processors. All include several Vista-specific features, but most important in the current context is their ASAP ("ASUS Accelerated Propeller") feature which is, essentially, a 512MB flash drive soldered to the board. The flash is recognized by Vista as an external drive, and can be used for whatever you'd use a flash drive for, including, of course, ReadyBoost.

ReadyDrive: Bringing The Boost To Hard Drives
ReadyDrive does for hard drives and flash memory more or less what ReadyBoost does for system memory and flash drives. This new feature of Vista takes advantage of equally new hybrid hard drive technology that combines conventional rotating storage with flash memory.

All hard disks have some RAM built into them as a cache, but it's there just to buffer reads and writes, and it's volatile -- its contents evaporate when the drive powers down. Adding nonvolatile flash to the drive does something entirely different from buffering I/O. It means that, in effect, the drive can be on even when it's off. This can save not only time but battery power, if the PC running Vista happens to be a laptop (and increasingly, they are -- laptop sales have equaled or bettered desktops in recent years).

That's why the first hybrid hard drives just beginning to reach the market are 2.5-inch laptop drives. Samsung announced early in March that it had begun shipping samples of its first H-HHD, and Seagate is expected to follow suit any day.

Samsung's FlashON hybrid hard drives combine rotating storage with 256MB of flash memory to enhance the speed of laptops running Vista. (Click image to enlarge.)

The Samsung drives in the 2.5-inch FlashON series will combine 80, 120, or 160 gigabytes of rotating storage with 256MB of flash memory. Seagate's first drives will be in the same configuration -- 2.5-inch drives with 256MB of flash, and the company has said it will produce drives with larger flash buffers of 512MB and 1GB in the second half of 2007.

That 256MB of flash will be shared among several separate cache functions, according to Ruston Panabaker of Microsoft's Windows Hardware Innovation Group, who gave a presentation on ReadyDrive at last year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC 2006):

About 10MB of it will be devoted to caching the hard drive's firmware.
The next 32MB will be used as a write cache. Laptop drives spin down to save power, and a write cache in flash means that writes can be accumulated and the disk left off longer.
Another 32MB will be available for caching data and program code that supports hardware features and Vista's new Windows HotStart function. (HotStart ties a program function to a hardware button so that users can do things like run a media player, or browse and play files from the hard disk, or open an e-mail program with one click, whether the laptop is on, sleeping, in hibernation, or off.)
Whatever flash memory is left is set up as a ReadyBoost that SuperFetch will use to cache code pages while it works to maintain optimal memory content, and to accelerate the boot and resume processes.

This not only improves the laptop's performance, according to Panabaker, but it can save 4 to 12 percent of the machine's battery by allowing the hard drive to power down while the flash cache stays on to serve cached code to the CPU and aggregate writes to the disk.

ReadyBoot: A Flash Booster Rocket For Boot-Ups
ReadyBoot may be a little too much like ReadyBoost to be clearly differentiated, but maybe that's the point. After every boot-up, the ReadyBoost service does an analysis of the files read during the last five boots, then builds a list of the files it predicts will be used in the next boot in what order, and their locations on disk. When the PC boots up, the ReadyBoost service creates a compressed cache of those files. That serves the right files in the optimal order to boot the machine faster.

If the computer is equipped with an H-HHD, ReadyDrive can accelerate the boot process even more. When a shut-down or hibernation is initiated, ReadyDrive loads data required early in the boot process to the H-HHD's flash cache. When the disk is powered on again, even though it won't spin up for 2 to 4 seconds, data can start flowing from the flash memory almost immediately.

Ready? Boost!
ReadyBoost isn't a magic bullet for Vista performance. There is no substitute for system memory, so if you're going to run Vista, load up on as much as your machine will hold or you can afford, depending on which limit you hit first. But if you've got a machine with a limited amount of system RAM -- an older PC or a laptop -- flash memory and the ReadyBoost technology that's in every copy of Vista can make a difference. An "Enhanced for ReadyBoost" flash drive or card can give you an immediate shot in the arm -- and, when they get here, hybrid hard drives could help as well.

Those technologies aren't the end of the line, by any means. As Panabaker pointed out, with ReadyBoost there's a direct relationship between flash memory performance and Vista performance gains -- and the performance of flash memory interfaces has been doubling every year. As Vista is adopted by more and more PC users, the result will undoubtedly mean more flash in our future.

Putting ReadyBoost To Work

2007-04-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

Testing, like the thorough review of ReadyBoost done by Tom's Hardware Guide, proves there's no substitute for system RAM. But, particularly on PCs with minimal system memory (around 512MB or so) nothing helps more than plugging in a ReadyBoost-compatible flash drive.

Setting up a flash device for ReadyBoost is simple: In the device Properties, set the amount of space to set aside as a cache, and select "Use this device." (Click image to enlarge.)

Setting up ReadyBoost on a PC is about as hard as feeding a hamburger to a hungry dog. The most important thing to remember is to get your fingers out of the way. All you need is a flash device fast enough to support ReadyBoost (more on that later). Plug the flash drive into a USB port, or the memory card into an appropriate slot, and Vista will open an Autoplay window inviting you to "Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost." All you have to do is accept the suggested size for the cache.

Once the cache file (it's named ReadyBoost.sfcache) is configured on the device, it will be used by Vista whenever it's available. This mean if you need to use the device for something else and remove it from the PC, you can do it without causing a problem -- just remember to click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" applet in the system tray. You can even delete the cache file (simply go back into the device's properties and select "Do not use this device") and then reconfigure it again later on.

Picking A Flash Device For ReadyBoost
You can use just about any kind of flash device that you can insert directly into your PC. That includes USB flash drives, Secure Digital cards, CompactFlash cards, and Memory Stick cards. You can't use cards inserted into external USB readers, or anything on a USB 1.0 or USB 1.1 port.

To work with ReadyBoost, a flash device has to have more than 256MB with 230MB of free space. It must also be faster than the average flash drive has been in the past -- it must perform random 4K reads at 2.5 megabytes per second or faster, and perform random 512K writes at 1.7MB or faster. You can use devices as large as 32GB for ReadyBoost and format it as either FAT or NTFS, but Vista will use a maximum of 4GB for the cache file because of compatibility with FAT32 file format restrictions. ("Enhanced for ReadyBoost" devices have to meet a higher standard: 5MB per second for random 4K reads and 3 MB for random 512K writes.)

If a flash device is too slow for ReadyBoost you'll see this message. Vista will retest a device each time you connect it unless you instruct it otherwise. (Click image to enlarge.)

Flash device makers have rushed "Enhanced for ReadyBoost" devices to market, but it's still early days for ReadyBoost compatibility. If you've got a device you'd like to try, Vista will let you know pretty quickly whether it's ReadyBoost-ready or not: Just plug it in and check the ReadyBoost pane in its Properties listing. If the device is not compatible, Vista hands out three kinds of gentle rejection: You'll be told the device is "plugged into an unsupported interface" (meaning something about it is probably USB 1.x), or that the device "must be greater than 256MB" (as with other things in life, size does matter), or you'll see the message below, which indicates it's just plain too slow:

There may be some work-arounds for slow drives. Vista will retest devices that fail the speed test, but once a device passes, it's good forever. One blogger claims to have squeeked a marginal flash drive past the test by formatting it as NTFS and compressing it. But you use slow devices at your peril.

Not all compatible devices are marked as such, and if you're looking to buy a flash drive to use as a ReadyBoost device and want to know whether it's compatible, a British Web designer has started a community-driven Web site to capture information and opinions on which ones are and which ones aren't.

ReadyBoost: Better Windows Vista Performance In A Flash

2007-04-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

In all of the commotion over the introduction of Vista and since, one thing is obvious: Vista needs speed more than Mars needs women. Early reports from Vista users can make it sound like they're dealing with two different products: a Good Vista and a Bad Vista. Some users talk about how fast it is, how quickly it boots up, while other complain about how slow it feels.

The key seems to be that Vista's performance is extremely hardware-dependent. Running Vista on a 2GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and a 256MB video card can be a very pleasant experience. But Trying to run Vista on a marginal hardware set-up can be an exercise in frustration. Getting good performance out of Microsoft's Windows Vista requires more of everything -- more system memory, a faster CPU, more hard-disk space, and much more graphics processing power.

Of all these, system memory is the most important, because it impacts the performance of the others. For example, the graphics subsystem might borrow system memory, which in turn diminishes memory available for caching data and program code pages, which could force the processor to wait . . . and wait . . . for data to be read off the hard drive.

Vista does what it can to optimize this digital choreography. Caching technology, in particular, has been pushed beyond anything available in previous versions of Windows. A new memory-management technology called SuperFetch works like a combination of fortune teller and inventory clerk to predict the data the CPU will ask for next, and make sure it's on the system memory shelves, where it can be delivered to the CPU fastest.

"Ready" For Vista
But software optimization can only do so much, and Vista also includes technology to support some relatively new hardware solutions for improving its performance. The names of some of these functionalities were in flux during Vista's long development process, but with the OS finally shipping, the list has settled on a common family name: "Ready." It has three main members:

ReadyBoost uses flash memory in external devices -- USB drives and memory cards, for example -- to supplement system memory with a special cache that takes advantage of flash devices' very quick random read times to boost system performance.
ReadyDrive takes advantage of new hybrid hard disk drives (abbreviated H-HHD) that combine conventional rotating disk storage with flash memory. Vista treats the flash and disk as one memory space, so that it can be used for caching frequently-needed data, for ReadyBoot data, or as a disk-write cache when the disk is spun down, in order to save battery power.
ReadyBoot uses the ReadyBoost services to tackle one particular problem -- speeding up the processes of booting the system and recovering from hibernation. It keeps track of the files most often needed when the system boots and builds a temporary cache -- sort of a "Boot-Up's Greatest Hits" -- when the system starts. It can use flash wherever it finds it in either external flash devices or H-HHDs.

ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive are matched to new kinds of hardware products. In addition to H-HHDs, flash drives marked "Enhanced for ReadyBoost" are making their way to the market, fast flash memory cards popular for digital cameras are finding new uses, and embedded flash memory is even appearing on special "Enhanced for Vista" motherboards.

Firewall Software Compatible with Vista

2007-04-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Free

PC Tools Firewall Plus from PC Tools (32 Bit)
Windows Firewall from Microsoft Corporation - Windows Firewall is part of Windows operating system (32 and 64 Bit)

Free and Full Feature Pay Versions

BitDefender family from SOFTWIN - BitDefender Professional Plus, BitDefender Internet Security (32 Bit)
Jetico Personal Firewall from Jetico, Inc. *BETA* (32 and 64 Bit)

Pay Versions

BullGuard family from BullGuard Ltd. - BullGuard Firewall, BullGuard Complete Internet Security (32 and 64 Bit)
G DATA AntiVirusKit InternetSecurity from G DATA Software AG (32 Bit)
Kaspersky family from Kaspersky Lab - Kaspersky Internet Security, Kaspersky Anti-Virus (32 and 64 Bit)
McAfee family from McAfee, Inc. - McAfee Internet Security Suite, McAfee Total Protection, McAfee PC Protection Plus, McAfee VirusScan Plus (32 Bit)
Norton family from Symantec Corp. - Norton Personal Firewall, Norton Internet Security (32 Bit)
Panda family from Panda Software - Panda Internet Security, Panda Antivirus + Firewall, Panda Antivirus (32 and 64 Bit)
PC-cillin Internet Security from Trend Micro Incorporated (32 and 64 Bit)
Windows Live OneCare from Microsoft Corporation (32 Bit)

Extend Vista Activation period past 180 days

2007-04-12T05:35:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of news about a new technique to extend the activation period of Windows Vista past 180 days. It all started when Brian Livingston posted a story on his site, WindowsSecrets.com, about a registry key that can be modified to allow the slmgr -rearm command to be run more than three times. This allows you to use Windows Vista without having to activate it for longer than 180 days.

Activation has always been more of burden for licensed Windows users than an effective deterrent for piracy. There are already many cracks for Windows Vista that bypass activation completely. The end result is a bad experience for those that legally buy the product.

For me, this is an issue that I am always fighting with. I am constantly building, installing and re-configuring my two computers with multiple vista virtual machines. I don't want to deal with the burden of having to activate my legal copies of Windows Vista every time since none of my workstations seem to last for more than a few months before I reinstall. If I actually activated my Vista Ultimate licenses every time I reinstall I would already have to use the slow phone based system where you have to type in that super long code. Sorry Microsoft, that is a horrible experience that I'm trying to avoid.

Using Brian's registry key and the old 180 day trick, it is possible to setup Task Scheduler to automate these changes to extend the period before you need to activate beyond 180 days. Follow these steps to automate the registry change and activation reset using Task Scheduler:

Click on the Start Button, type in Task Manager and hit Enter.
When Task Scheduler loads, right click on Task Scheduler Library and select Create Task.
Enter in a name for the new task such as "Activation Period Reset". Also, make sure that the user this account is run under is part of the Administrators group and the Run with highest privileges box is checked.
Click on the Triggers tab and hit the New button.
On the New Trigger tab, select Daily and Recur every 29 days (since activation is required 30 days after a reset) and hit OK.
Click on the Actions tab and hit New.
Enter in slmgr.vbs in the program/script box.
Enter in -rearm in the arguments box and hit OK.
Hit OK to save the settings for the new task you created.
Now you are ready for the second registry key change that will allow you to run the slmgr.vbs -rearm command more than three times. To do this, right click on the Task Scheduler Library folder again and select Create Task.
Enter in a name for the new task such as "Slgmr Reset ". Also, make sure that the user this account is run under is part of the Administrators group and the Run with highest privileges box is checked.
Click on the Triggers tab and hit the New button.
On the New Trigger tab, select Daily and Recur every 179 days (since slmgr needs to be reset after 180 days) and hit OK.
Click on the Actions tab and hit New.
Download and save this registry file to your computer.
Enter in regedit in the program/script box.
Enter in /s "full path to reg file" in the arguments box and hit OK.
Hit OK to save the settings for the new task you created.

Your computer is now configured to automatically reset the activation period every 29 days and reset your ability to reset the activation period every 179 days.

3D Cube Virtual Desktop for Vista

2007-04-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

Yod'm 3D is a virtual desktop manager that allows you to have 4 different desktops arranged on a 3D cube. Holding down CTRL+SHIFT and using the left or right arrow keys rotate the cube showing the virtual desktops. Alternatively, you can click and drag your mouse to switch desktops.

Video: TweakVista.com demo of Yod'm 3D *

* Because of the capture software I used, the video is very choppy. Normally, the cube spins very smoothly.

Download this free desktop manager from Chris' Soft.

Disable System Restore in Windows Vista

2007-04-11T03:36:00.002-07:00

The Windows Vista System Restore feature will make sure that software installations, drivers, and other updates can be rolled back. The only price to this feature is some disk usage. If you want to disable System restore, which is a bad idea, it’s really pretty simple.

Just to make sure you understand… Windows Vista has just been released. There are bugs. Things will crash. Disabling System Restore will keep you from rolling back changes.

So, you’ve read this far. Now let’s disable it. Type system into the start menu search box, and pick the 4th item down, just labeled “System”. (You could also right-click the computer icon and choose properties)

Now click the System protection link:

You’ll see the checkboxes next to your different disks:

Once you uncheck the drive, click the “Turn System Restore Off” button.

Now you’ve got system restore disabled. Living on the edge, eh?

How to Delete a System File in Windows Vista

2007-04-11T03:36:00.001-07:00

Warning: Do not delete system files. Bad things will probably ensue.

If you need to delete or overwrite a system file in Windows Vista, you’ll quickly notice that you cannot delete system files, even as administrator. This is because Windows Vista’s system files are owned by the TrustedInstaller service by default, and Windows File Protection will keep them from being overwritten.

Thankfully, there’s a way that you can get around this. You need to take ownership of the files, and then assign yourself rights to delete or modify the file. For this, we’ll use the command line.

Open an administrator command prompt by typing cmd into the start menu search box, and hit the Ctrl+Shift+Enter key combination.

To take ownership of the file, you’ll need to use the takeown command. Here’s an example:

takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui

That will give you ownership of the file, but you still have no rights to delete it. Now you can run the cacls command to give yourself full control rights to the file:

cacls C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui /G geek:F

Note that my username is geek, so you will substitute your username there.

At this point, you should be able to delete the file. If you still can’t do so, you may need to reboot into Safe Mode and try it again. For the filename in the example, I was able to overwrite it without safe mode, but your mileage may vary.

Disable Power Management on Windows Vista

2007-04-11T03:22:00.000-07:00

If you are using a desktop computer, chances are that you don’t want the computer to go to sleep automatically. This is even more the case if you are running Vista in a virtual machine for testing purposes.

Disabling power management is simple and easy. First go to the start menu and click on the Control Panel.

Click on the System and Maintenance link:

Then click on the Power Options link:

Then select High Performance:

This will disable the automatic sleep mode, but will still turn off the display. You can click on Change Plan Settings to disable that as well if you want.

Registry Hack to Disable Writing to USB Drives

2007-04-11T03:21:00.001-07:00

A common security concern at organizations is allowing users to plug in a usb flash drive, because they could so easily copy corporate data.

Since Windows XP SP2, you can disable writing to USB devices altogether using a simple registry hack. Here it is:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies]
“WriteProtect”=dword:00000001

You can also just download one of the following registry tweaks to enable or disable writing to USB drives.

Enable USB Write

Disable USB Write

Once you use the registry hack, you will have to reboot for the changes to take effect. One should also note that if you are using this trick, you should make sure that the users are not administrators on the computer, because they could easily change this setting back.

This works on Windows Vista as well. Here’s the window you’ll get when you try and write to a USB drive:

Make Windows Vista Log On Automatically

2007-04-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

If you are just running a home computer for gaming or something unimportant, you might not want to have to log in every single time you reboot your computer. There’s an easy tweak that will let you autologin.

First, we’ll need to get to the Advanced User Accounts Control Panel to get to this setting. I think there’s a registry tweak as well, but that seems like too much work.

Type in netplwiz into the start menu search box, hit enter, and you’ll see this screen:

Uncheck the box that says “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”, and then hit Apply. You’ll see a username and password box. Enter in the appropriate information here and hit OK

Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista

2007-04-11T03:04:00.000-07:00

The Windows Vista BootScreen is pointless, but Microsoft decided to hide a more visually appealing boot screen that can easily be enabled with very little trouble. I’m not sure why they didn’t make the boot screen better.

If you really want a better boot screen, you can check out my article on creating a custom boot logo.

Here’s the default boot screen

And here’s the hidden one, called “Aurora”

All you have to do is type msconfig into the start menu search box, and hit enter.

Click the Boot tab, and then check the “No GUI boot” checkbox.

Custom Boot Logo for Windows Vista

2007-04-11T03:02:00.000-07:00

If you are a desktop customization kinda guy, one of the first things you’ll want to figure out is how to create a customized boot logo. There’s a little utility that you can use to create the boot logo formats.

First you’ll need to download the Vista Boot Logo Generator 1.1 utility, which we’ll use to create the correct logo image type. Once it’s installed, you need to make sure that you run the application as administrator:

We should choose an appropriate logo file. Since I’m a big fan of linux, and not as big a fan of Windows Vista, I chose an image of Tux making windows suck that I found over here.

Choose two versions of the image, one needs to be 800×600 at 24 bit color, and the other 1024×768 at the same color depth. Both files must be in Bitmap(BMP) format. Save the file somewhere like your desktop, because we can’t yet copy directly to the correct directory, until we take ownership of the file.

To take ownership of the file, you’ll have to open an administrator command prompt. (type cmd into the start menu search box, and hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter), and then run this command:

takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui

Now run this command, substituting geek for your username:

cacls C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui /G geek:F

Now copy the file that you created into the C:\windows\system32\en-US\ directory. Make sure you choose the overwrite option.

Now you’ll need to use the msconfig utility. Just type msconfig into the start menu search box, and then click the Boot tab:

Check the “No GUI boot” option, and we’re all ready to reboot and test it out. Sweet!

Snipping Tool in Windows Vista Assign Key

2007-04-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista includes a screen capture/screenshot tool that is actually pretty decent. You can take region captures or full screenshots and easily save them using this tool.

The only problem with this tool is that there’s no hotkey to bring up the window. But we’ll fix that…

Bring up the Start Menu, and then click on All Programs. Click the Accessories folder, and you’ll see the Snipping Tool. If you don’t see it, it’s probably because it’s not installed or didn’t come with the version of Vista that you have. There’s like 83 different versions of Vista, from what I understand.

Right click it and go to the Properties screen. You’ll see a Shortcut key text box:

The only annoying thing with this trick is that you can’t use the PrintScreen key… but no big deal. I assigned Ctrl + F12 because that’s something easy to remember that I don’t use for anything else.

Add Home Directory Icon to the Desktop in Windows Vista

2007-04-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

One of the new changes in Windows Vista is that each user has a “Home” directory that is actually accessible and meant to be used. In XP and 2k, you had a hidden home directory that you weren’t meant to muck around in.

Some of the new features, like the Downloads directory, are only accessible through your Home directory, which is why it makes sense to put an icon for it right on the desktop.

To do this, click the Start button, and then right click on your User name. Choose the Show on Desktop option:

Now your home directory icon should show up on your desktop

Defrag Faster Windows Vista

2007-04-10T13:18:00.000-07:00

Instead of using the standard Windows Vista Defrag Tool, use the combination of Contig and PowerDefragmenter to make the process ten times faster.

Steps:

1. Download Contig here.

2. Download PowerDefragmenter here.

3. Save both files in the same directory.

4. Run PowerDefragmenter and click next.

5. Choose options appropriate for you:

Defragment File(s): Defrags up to 4 files
Defragment Folder(s): Defrags up to 4 folders
Defragment Disk: Defrag disk
PowerMode(TM) Disk Defragmentation: Defrags two consecutive defragmentations while keeping the time the same.

6. This pops up Windows Disk Defragmenter…

7. That’s it!

Note: Contig works on OS version NT and above which means this may work for Windows 2000.

Download Apple iPod Fix for Windows Vista

2007-04-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

You may download the Apple iPod fix here.

The fix is described as follows (from Ms description):

Install this update to resolve an issue where an Apple iPod may be corrupted by using the Safely Remove Hardware feature on a system running Windows Vista. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

This update is provided to you and licensed under the Windows Vista License Terms.

Microsoft says that iTunes is a great product and is important that Windows Vista users would have no problems with it.

Video capture your Windows Vista desktop into an Animated GIF

2007-04-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to record your desktop activity into an animated GIF file?

I always thought this idea was kinda cool. The problem was that there are a number of tools out there that accomplish this but they're all kinda pricey for something I just wanted to mess around with.

And let's not kid ourselves: I'm just a simple blogger. I'm not getting paid to do any of this and I certainly don't intend of spending any money on tools that I just want to mess around with and have no hope of ever getting reimbursed for. (For example, DemoCharge 2005 does this and does it really well. The only problem is the tool is $100 and I really don't want to pay $100 for something I may never use again. If I did use this stuff for actual work, I'd certainly consider buying the tool because it's a great product but being that I'm just messing around...)

So anyway what if there was a tool that did this for free?

Enter Cropper & it's Animated GIF plug in:

Cropper Screen Capture Tool v1.9
Download: http://blogs.geekdojo.net/brian/articles/Cropper.aspx
Animated GIF plug-in for Cropper
Download: http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/11/07/Animated-GIF-Plugin-for-Cropper-_2B00_-some-.NET-Animated-GIF-code.aspx
Microsoft GIF Animator v1.0
Download: http://www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?ID=288

WHAT IS CROPPER?
Cropper is a free .NET 2.0-based Windows Vista-compatible tool that will screen capture adhoc segments or windows on your desktop. The Animated GIF plug in is a set of files that you can drop into the plugin directory that will wnable Cropper to record your
actions within a windows or a predefined area of space on the desktop. The recording will be placed into an animated GIF.

WHY ANIMATED GIFS?
Why is this cool? Well, since you can post pictures on to public blog sites or photo sites like Flickr, it's now possible to easily... and cheaply... record desktop demonstrations and post them onto your blog space, without resorting to doing a Windows Media screen capture, posting the video clip to Soapbox, then embedding the video as an object into your blog. Instead, you just upload the "picture" which is really an animated GIF, and you're done. And if you need to edit the recording/animated GIF, you can use the freely available Microsoft GIF Animator.

Of course, there's a few limitations:

NO AUDIO
There's no audio, unlike a Windows Media recording. If you want to record your on-screen demo and annotate it with your voice, you'll still want to download and install the free Windows Media Encoder 9.0 from Microsoft.com. Because there's no audio, this is really only good for quick demonstrations of simple actions that require no verbal explanation.
JERKY MOVEMENT
Movement can be jerky because the frame rate of these animated GIFs aren't great. For smoother movement you'll want to look at Windows Media screen capture codec using Windows Media Encoder 9.0.
LARGE FILES
File sizes can get big. The compression of animated GIF files aren't as good as I thought they'd be relative to Windows Media frames... I guess progressive morphing between Windows Media video frames really provide a lot of super high quality compression relative to frame by frame captures like with animated GIFs.
NO MEDIA CAPTURING
While Cropper will capture most everything on the desktop, it won't capture anything in Windows Media Player or anything projecting video leveraging hardware acceleration overlays. This is because the media "feed"/"stream" for this content goes directly to the display on your system using DirectX and completely bypasses the display system interface that Cropper uses to capture data from.

Install Windows Vista via high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive

2007-04-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about writing a post about "How to install Windows Vista from a USB Flash Drive" for a while but just never got around to doing it. What got me thinking about it was a post on Josh's board (windowsconnected.com) about running WinPE from a bootable USB Flash drive and it seems to me like there's be a lot of folks that would want to install Windows Vista entirely from a USB Flash drive as well.

I should probably give a shout out to my co-worker & friend Microsoft Account Technology Specialist Lance Lillie of Microsoft Orange County who originally helped me 'envision' a reliable method of installing from high-speed USB Flash this during the early beta phases of Windows Vista - it wasn't always this easy folks. We used to have to reinstall Windows Vista Beta/RC builds all the time on to different laptops & desktops back in 2006 and this was the fastest way to do it.

(And yes, I know that photo has the word "Enchanced" at the top of it. I thought it was a funny misspelling though being that I took it straight from the Apacer web site so I left it there.)

WHY INSTALL FROM USB FLASH DRIVE?
Why would someone want to install a client OS from a thumb drive instead of a DVDROM or over the network? One reason: Performance. Installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive is in my experience the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install. This is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit ethernet, or possibly even some external USB 2.0 hard drives, due to differences in access speed & transfer rate. To put this into perspective, y'know how installing Windows on a Virtual PC virtual machine from an .ISO CD image is really, really, really fast? Imagine something roughly just as fast, except for doing installations of the OS on to actual workstations.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS
Here's some step-by-step instructions on how we do this, some of which was adapted from Josh's instructions, again, kudos to Josh.

Acquire an ultra-fast USB 2.0 flash drive
The drive I and my coworkers recommend is the Apacer 4GB Handy Steno USB Flash Drive HT203, 200X Hi-Speed USB 2.0. It's the fastest USB 2.0 Flash Drive that we've found - it has a read speed
of 25MBytes/sec. & a write speed-14MBytes/sec and also works great as a ReadyBoost cache. You can get them from $56.99 each:
http://www.directron.com/ht2034g.html

Incidentally, once you've got Windows Vista up and running, you may want to consider getting an ultra-fast SDFlash card, installing it into your laptop or desktop, and leaving it there as a ReadyBoost cache. Why? It can't hurt and they're so cheap that it's worth getting. I personally got a SDFlash card for every one of my machines - the A-DATA 2GB Secure Digital Memory Card, 150X Turbo SD Card has a read speed of more than 22.5MB/s and a write speed of more than 15MB/s. You can get them for $19.99 each:
http://supermediastore.com/adata-2gb-sd-secure-digital-card-150x.html
Format the Apacer Flash Drive
Run CMD.EXE and type the following. Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as "disk 1". you should double check that by doing a list of the disks (type "list disk") before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives, like an SDFlash drive or a Multibay drive, you could end up wiping your second drive using this command.
(This was a warning that Josh added to his post along with the following commands that I copied from him, so kudos to Josh)
1. diskpart
2. select disk 1
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit
Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive
Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.
- xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

And that's it. Boot up the machine, have it boot off the USB drive, and watch how fast the installation completes. If you thought Windows Vista installed quickly before (usually 20-25 minutes per install of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition) then let's see how you like having Windows Vista install in less than 5-10 minutes. The slowest part of the install will probably be the computer waiting for you to type in information in the setup fields, and even that can be automated using the Windows Automated Installation Kit.

Using Windows Vista Easy Transfer

2007-03-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

For those of you buying Windows Vista PCs today (or thinking about buying Windows Vista PCs in the future) and wondering how best to move all the information on your old PC to your new one, I'd like to update you on some of the new ways Windows can help transfer all your personal stuff: documents, photos, music, email, address book entries, Windows settings, and now, even programs.

The good news is that we've made this process much easier for the millions of people who will buy Windows Vista-based PCs in the coming years. Read on to see how we designed Windows Vista's transfer features to work together with special cables from hardware partners, and to learn about the beta release of our new tool for transferring programs, based on the Alohabob PC Relocator software we acquired last year.

Windows Easy Transfer

This wizard is built into Windows Vista and will automatically transfer your personal data from a Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista based-PC to a Windows Vista-based PC. It gathers up the data from your old PC and then applies it on your new PC in the right places. It will move user accounts, files and folders, email messages and settings, address book entries, and Windows settings. It does not move programs.

Windows Easy Transfer supports a number of ways to connect the two PCs to actually move the data:

Easy Transfer Cable (more info below)
Home or small business network
Removable or external hard drive
Writable CD or DVD

Easy Transfer Cables

In the past, one of the most difficult parts about the transfer process has been connecting the two computers if you don't have a home network. Fortunately, we've worked with hardware partners to create a really cool new product called Easy Transfer Cables. These are specially designed to work together with Easy Transfer to move all your data in the easiest and fastest way possible.

They're USB 2.0 cables with a special chip that enables them to connect two PCs. (A standard USB cable cannot do this, even if the USB connectors fit). The cable will come with a CD which has the Easy Transfer software on it -- you just install it on your Windows XP-based PC and then plug the cable into both PCs. That's it! The Easy Transfer wizard will popup automatically on both PCs and you can begin transferring right away.

These cables are being manufactured worldwide by a number of partners, including Belkin International, Vivanco Group AG and Bafo Technologies. They will be sold at retail stores, online retailers and from PC manufacturers. Look for the Certified for Windows Vista or Works with Windows Vista logo to know that the cable is supported.

Windows Easy Transfer Companion (Beta)

Although the standard Easy Transfer wizard does not move installed programs, this is a very important capability that's been requested by our customers. Because of this we have been working on a new tool called Easy Transfer Companion, which will transfer programs and program settings from a Windows XP-based PC to a Windows Vista-based PC. When used together with Easy Transfer, you will be able to move everything you need to your new PC running Windows Vista. Easy Transfer Companion has been designed to transfer many of the most popular programs for consumers and small businesses, as well as many others. You can transfer programs with either an Easy Transfer Cable or a network. We've released the tool in Beta so that we can take feedback on the overall functionality and get more information about the experience of transferring specific applications outside of those that we've tested internally. At this point the Easy Transfer Companion is only available in English and designed for use in the US. It is available for download here.

Easy Transfer Companion is based on technology we acquired from Apptimum, Inc. last year -- makers of the popular Alohabob PC Relocator software. For reference, here is the original press release on this acquisition.

Because this tool is in Beta, at the end of the transfer process it will ask for your feedback on how well it worked so we can continue improving its performance and bring it to a wider number of users in the future.

I hope these features help you and your family quickly and easily set up your new Windows Vista-based PC.

Restore Files from a Windows XP .BKF file in Vista

2007-03-07T05:49:00.001-08:00

1) create a folder somewhere, call it ntbackup just so you can keep track of
what you’ve done
2) from an existing XP installation, copy these 3 files into the new folder:
ntbackup.exe, vssapi.dll, ntmsapi.dll. Optionally, copy the files
ntbackup.chm and ntbackup.hlp. Do not overwrite any Vista files that have
the same names.
3) run ntbackup.exe. dismiss the error dialog concerning removable storage
if it appears.
4) catalog the backup file as you normally would (select the Restore tab,
then select Tools/Catalog) then select and restore your files. Remember to
restore them to an alternate location using the drop-down box in the
lower-left corner of ntbackup.

If you don’t have a running XP installation, then extract the listed files
from the XP installation CD. If you don’t know where these files are, you
can use search to find them; they will have the same filename except the last
character will be an underscore (e.g., ntbackup.exe will be ntbackup.ex_ on
the CD). i have not done an exhaustive search of every version of XP’s
installation CD to determine their locations.

Since you are (presumably) not running as an administrator under Vista as
you probably were under XP,
1) some extraneous errors may occur during the restore. check the results
of the restore to ensure that you got all the files you needed from the
backup, and apply the appropriate security settings to the restored files
manually if necessary
2) You might need to turn off the option to restore file security. (Hit the
“Advanced” button in the restore dialog).

ntbackup also appears to work for backing up files, but I wouldn’t trust it
to do so correctly without extensive testing.

Run a Program that Doesn’t Recognize Vista

2007-03-07T05:44:00.000-08:00

Lots of apps check the operating system during installation to make sure the version of Windows is supported. This is designed to prevent the user from installing it in an old version of Windows that doesn’t have the necessary files or features. Sometimes, however, it’ll also block a new version of Windows–such as Windows Vista.

Fortunately, you can configure a program to run in compatibility mode, which causes Windows Vista to lie about the version of Windows. To trick a program (usually a Setup file) into thinking you’ve got Windows XP, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the program and then click Properties.

2. Click the Compatibility tab.

3. Select the Run this program in compatibility mode for check box. Then, select Windows XP (Service Pack 2) from the list.

4. Select the Run this program as an administrator check box (just to help further reduce compatibility problems).

4. Click OK.

Now, re-run the program. It should work this time.

Trace Application Activity with Process Monitor (ProcMon.exe)

2007-03-07T05:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, an application gives you a generic error that a file or setting is missing or unavailable, but doesn’t give you enough information to identify exactly what it’s trying to open. With this free download from Microsoft, Process Monitor, you can monitor all activity on your computer, including the exact registry keys and files being accessed, and whether or not each access attempt was successful.

Process Monitor replaces FileMon and RegMon (tools made by the SysInternals guys, who are now part of Microsoft) by duplicating the functionality of each. To use it, follow these steps:

1. Download Process Monitor and extract the .ZIP file to a folder.

2. Double-click the ProcMon.exe file to run it. It doesn’t add a shortcut to the Start menu, but you can manually add one.

3. Run the application that’s having a problem, and duplicate the error.

4. Return to Process Monitor. Click the File menu, and then clear the Capture Events check box.

5. Browse the list of events. Right-click any entry with your process name, click Include, and then click Process Name. Now, you can easily see the events that your application created.

6. Look for events with a result other than SUCCESS. To hide the success events, right-click any successful event, click Exclude, and then click Result. Process Monitor shows just those events that had problems.

7. Once you determine the registry key or file that can’t be accessed, replace it (you might copy it from another computer) or, if it’s a security problem, change the permissions so that your application can access it.

If you continue to have problems, you might have more than one unavailable resource. Just repeat these steps to solve the additional problems.

Tweaking Vista Visual Effects

2007-02-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

Right click on Computer, select "Properties" then chose "Advanced System Settings", and, on the "Advanced" tab, click the "Settings" button under the "Performance" section. Go to the "Visual Effects" tab; there you can choose options to enable or disable certain visual effects, very similar to the User Interface of Windows XP.
Significant performance gains in this build have been seen when using the "Adjust for best performance" option, although the benefit of the snappy new interface will be partially lost.

Note: Disabling certain Visual Effects will also disable Aero Glass effects.

Improve the visual aesthetics of the Basic theme

As Basic stands, there is a lot of border padding on each of the windows; the same width if you had Aero is solid blue with basic.
To make this a much better width aesthetically, go to:

Personalization> Window Color and Appearance, Select "Basic" and Click "Advanced". From the Drop Down box, select "Border Padding" and change the value from 4 to 0 or 1.

Virtual Memory

Go to the "Advanced" tab; click the "Settings" button under the "Performance" section. This will open the "Performance Options" dialog. Select the "Advanced" tab there, go to the Virtual Memory section, and click on the Change button; uncheck the box that says "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives", highlight the drive you want your page file to be located on, which is usually the drive you installed Vista on (if you have a secondary drive you may be able to increase performance by putting the page file there but make sure you don't already have a page file from another OS there!), then click the radio button that says "Custom size" and set both the minimum and maximum to the desired size (it is usually recommended this be at least one and one half times the amount of ram you have), then click "Set". This will help reduce fragmentation of the page file and your drive.

A large paging file can also significantly improve performance of Vista, and if possible, where you have more than one physical hard drive, we would recommend putting a large enough paging file on each separate drive (NOT on each partition, but one only per physical drive. If you are unsure what this advice means, then you should NOT follow it, as you may decrease performance instead of increasing it.)

Insufficiently large paging files on the other hand, will hinder the performance of Windows Vista, which uses a technology called SuperFetch to store boot information, Graphic User Interface (GUI) data, and other essentials in the paging file(s) between work sessions. It has been found that an overly small paging file can also cause GUI mishaps, especially at higher screen resolutions.

Ideally, paging files should be located on faster hard drives, for performance gains.

Startup and Recovery

On the "Advanced tab", click the "Settings" button under the "Startup and Recovery" section. In the "Write debugging information" combo box, select "(none)".

Run Command

To put the Run Command back on the start menu:

Right click on the Start button, and click "Properties".
In the Dialog box that opens, make sure the Start Menu tab is selected, and click the "Customize" button next to Start Menu.
Scroll down the list and check the box next to "Run command next to it.
Click OK to close the second dialogue, and then OK to close the first.

Run will now show up on your start menu.

The Vista Scripting Host

Is a handy tool to view your licensing & activation information.

To view all the options:

at the command prompt right click and chose "Run as Administrator" then type in "slmgr /?" (without the quotes).

Command line defrag

This will give you the status of the drive plus the results when done.

To view all the options:
at the command prompt right click and chose "Run as Administrator" then type in "defrag /?" (without the quotes).

Place the IE icon on your desktop

Paste this in a reg file and merge it then refresh the desktop (F5):

Note: The code line directly under the Windows Registry Editor Version must all be on one line, including NewStartPanel]. It is split in the code box below to avoid page distortion.

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\
NewStartPanel]

"{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000

If one just makes a shortcut then you don't get the properties dialogs that one does from the IE icon in XP

Resize Partitions With Vista Disk Manager

2007-02-16T07:57:00.000-08:00

Windows Vista Tips & Tricks: Resize Partitions With Vista Disk Manager

The release of Windows Vista will bring a number of welcome enhancements to the built-in set of system tools, including the ability to dynamically resize partitions. Prior to Windows Vista, the ability to shrink and extend disk volumes has only been available through third party tools such as Partition Magic.

Although not as full featured as some third party partition management applications, Windows Disk Management console will allow users to shrink, extend, create, and format partitions. The new resizing features will allow users to shrink a single partition with unused space, and then create a new partition in the resulting free space, as well as extending a current partition if there is available free space after it.

To access Disk Management, right click on My Computer, and select Manage from the context menu – this will open the Computer Management console (alternatively, Disk Management may be accessed from Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Computer Management).

From the Computer Management console, click on Disk Management which is located under the Storage section in the left hand pane. To shrink a current volume, locate the partition to be resized from the Disk Manager, right click on it, and from the context menu select Shrink Volume.

A Shrink dialog box will open from which you can enter the amount of space in MB to shrink the partition. This dialog box will also show the current size of the partition, the size of available shrink space available, and the total size after shrinking. Once you have selected the amount of space to shrink the partition by, click on the Shrink button.*Note: the size of the available shrink space can be restricted due to page files, restore files, and hibernation files.

Once the Shrink operation has completed, you will now have the selected amount of unallocated free space available immediately following the shrunken partition.

To extend a current volume, locate the partition to be resized from the Disk Manager, right click on it, and from the context menu select Extend Volume. The Extend Volume Wizard will then open, click Next. You will then be given a dialog box to select the disks to extend. Select the amount of space in MB to extend the volume, and click next. The selected partition will then be extended by the amount of MB selected. *Note: If the partition you want to extend is a boot or system, or cannot be converted to dynamic, you will only be able to extend the volume to the immediately adjacent free space.

Once volumes have been resized, a new partition can be created and formatted in any unallocated free space by right clicking on the unallocated space in the Disk Manager, selecting the type of volume to create, and completing the New Volume Wizard.

With the new enhancements to Windows Vista Disk Management, shrinking and extending partitions is now easily accomplished. As always, when making changing to the partition structure, users should ensure that all important files and data are backed up.

Show Administrator on Welcome Screen

2007-02-14T04:25:00.001-08:00

start > run = " control userpasswords2 " select administrator account, click reset password (input new pass) / Ok

start > run = " regedit " create the key below

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

create "DWORD (32bit) Value"
Value Name: Administrator
Value Data: 1

Enable DWM on None supported Video Cards

2007-02-14T04:23:00.000-08:00

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DWM]
"perUser"=dword:00000000
"DebugDumpTree"=dword:00000000
"DebugMessages"=dword:00000000
"DebugMouse"=dword:00000000
"DebugZOrder"=dword:00000000
"EnableMachineCheck"=dword:00000000
"ForceSoftwareD3D"=dword:00000000
"Glass"=dword:00000001
"UseAlternateButtons"=dword:00000001
"Animations"=dword:00000001
"AnimationsShiftKey"=dword:00000001
"Blur"=dword:00000001
"Composition"=dword:00000001
"UseDPIScaling"=dword:00000001
"RenderClientArea"=dword:00000001
"MagnificationPercent"=dword:00000064

Enabling addition Avalon effects

2007-02-14T04:22:00.000-08:00

Once you have the new Aero engine enabled on your build of Windows codename Longhorn, you can enable additional transition effects that are currently turned off in builds. Follow the steps below to add some additional desktop and explorer effects:

1. Open up regedit.
2. Navigate thru HKEY_Local_Machine, Software, Microsoft, Windows, Current Version, and Explorer.
3. Create a new DWORD and call it MILDesktop.
4. Set the value of MILDesktop to 1.
5. Create a new DWORD and call it MILExplorer.
6. Set the value of MILExplorer to 1.
7. Exit explorer and restart.

I hope your system and drivers can handle the new effects!

5 Essential Vista Performance Monitoring Gadgets

2007-02-01T04:28:00.000-08:00

The new sidebar in Windows Vista provides many opportunities to present the user with information. For those of you that like to monitor your system performance, the sidebar is the perfect place to run various performance monitoring gadgets. Windows Vista ships with a simple CPU and Memory usage gadget, however, there are many more gadgets out there that are much more useful and help you monitor almost every aspect of Windows.

1. Wireless Signal and IP Address Gadget

This gadget displays your wireless network information such as it's status, signal strength and security. This gadget also displays your internal IP and gives you a direct link to your router's / wireless gateway's web based control panel.

2. Battery Meter Gadget

Monitor the battery level of your laptop with this gadget. This gadget provides a much more accurate level reading than the tiny system tray icon.

3. Multi-Meter Gadget

Info shown: - Cpu usage % ( 2 cores ) - Ram Usage % - Ram info ( Total, used, left size) - Status bars animated above 90% - 100 Skins + background selection

4. Uptime Gadget

This gadget allows you to see how much time has passed since you last restarted your computer.

5. Free Space Gadget

This gadget monitors your PC's drives and shows you the available space for those you've selected

Speed up aero by disabling min/max animations

2007-02-01T04:25:00.000-08:00

The new animations in Windows Vista look great for the first month or so but then they can become an annoyance since they feel like they increase the amount of time it takes to minimize and maximize a window. If you can live without the minimize and maximize animations that you can bring back the super fast feeling of your windows instantly disappearing and appearing by disabling the min/max animations.

Follow the steps below to make your windows faster:

1. Click on the Start Menu and key in SystemPropertiesPerformance and hit Enter.
2. On the Visual Effects tab uncheck Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing.
3. Click OK.

Easy File & Folder Access

2007-01-29T02:58:00.000-08:00

Windows Vista has introduced an updated version of Windows Explorer which has a number of new features. Sometimes, new features can be confusing and take a while to get used to. One of the most common complaints of Windows Explorer is the fact that by default, it opens to you Documents folder. While this behavior is fine if that is the folder you want, it often means a number of clicks to get anywhere else.

There are actually a number of ways to quickly and easily access the files and folders you want, without having to go through all of the expanding and clicks that opening the default Explorer view demands. Some of these tips & tricks have been around for a while, but here we show you how to easily accomplish them in Windows Vista.

File and Folder Tips & Tricks:

1.) To access any drive or path in explorer, type the drive letter, or full folder path in the search bar or address bar.

2.) To easily access any drive directly in explorer, you can customize your start menu to show a menu for your computer drives.

Right click on the Vista Start Button and select Properties

On the Start Menu tab, click on the Customize button

In the first entry, under Computer, select the radio button that says Display as a menu

3.) To directly access all your files and folders from the task bar, you can create a custom Toolbar for your Computer.

Right click on an empty part of your task bar, select Toolbars>New Toolbar...

From the 'New Toolbar - Choose a folder' dialog box, select Computer from the favorite links, or type in Computer in the Folder text box at the bottom.

Click the Select Folder to add the toolbar to your taskbar

Once you have added the toolbar, you can scroll navigate through context menu's to any file or folder on your computer. To open a file, just click on it. To open a drive or a folder, right click on it and select explore.

Video Game Performance Boost

2007-01-29T02:45:00.000-08:00

Hopefully this will help some people who are getting unacceptable performance while playing games in Vista. I found it just makes the difference in BF2 between playable gameplay and unplayable gameplay.

Heres what you can try:

- Find the games .exe file in the instalation directory
- Right click on the icon
- Click on Properties
- Click on the Compatibility tab
- Check the "Disable visual themes" and "Disable desktop composition"
- Click ok

Hopefully this helps anyone who needs a little performace boost

Also another little tip, if anyone is playing a game with Punkbuster, and are getting kicked from the server for no apparent reason, try running the game as administrator (right click, select "Run as administrator")

Flip 3D Shortcut

2007-01-29T02:41:00.000-08:00

If you want a shortcut that launches the Flip 3D feature in Vista, heres how you do it:

- Right click on your desktop
- Select "New"
- Select "Shortcut"
- Type (or copy/pase) "RunDll32 DwmApi #105" into the location box
- Click "Next"
- Enter a name for your new shortcut
- Place it wheve ever you want

i find it to be usefull in the quicklaunch bar

EDIT: if you want to bind this shortcut to a key on your keyboard heres what to do:

- Right click on the shortcut
- Click "Properties"
- Click on the "Shortcut" tab
- Copy the Target of the shortcut
- Use the target of the shortcut instead of the actual location of the shortcut

I found that if you simply direct the program that binds your keys to a .exe it doesn't work, but if you use the target it works just fine

enjoy!

Accessing Blocked Files in Vista

2007-01-29T02:29:00.000-08:00

Let's say a friend sends you an executable file (and you run antivirus on it and find that it is safe). But you try to run the file and you receive the following error message:

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.

Try the following:

Right-click on the file and choose properties. At the bottom of the General tab, look for a section for Security that says "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer." Click the Unblock button.

You should be able to run the file now.

Vista Compatible Software

2007-01-29T02:26:00.000-08:00

I searched on Vista software, or some such thing, and turned up this set of lists:

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

As best I can tell, it's the "Contents" section (and its realted listings below it) that is pertinent to RC1.

Contents

* 1 Works
o 1.1 Academic
o 1.2 AntiSpyware
o 1.3 AntiVirus
o 1.4 Backups
o 1.5 CD/DVD Authoring
o 1.6 Compression
o 1.7 Defragmenting
o 1.8 Developer Tools
o 1.9 Emulators
o 1.10 File Sharing
o 1.11 Firewalls/IDSs
o 1.12 FTP
o 1.13 Games
o 1.14 Graphics
o 1.15 Media
o 1.16 Messaging
o 1.17 Office Tools
o 1.18 VPN Clients
o 1.19 Web Browsers and Plug-Ins
o 1.20 Miscellaneous
* 2 Has problems, but they can be solved
o 2.1 Academic
o 2.2 AntiSpyware
o 2.3 AntiVirus
o 2.4 Backups
o 2.5 CD/DVD Authoring
o 2.6 Compression
o 2.7 Defragmenting
o 2.8 Developer Tools
o 2.9 Emulators
o 2.10 File Sharing
o 2.11 Firewalls/IDSs
o 2.12 FTP
o 2.13 Games
o 2.14 Graphics
o 2.15 Media
o 2.16 Messaging
o 2.17 Office Tools
o 2.18 VPN Clients
o 2.19 Web Browsers and Plug-Ins
o 2.20 Miscellaneous
* 3 Heavy problems, currently incompatible
o 3.1 Academic
o 3.2 AntiSpyware
o 3.3 AntiVirus
o 3.4 Backups
o 3.5 CD/DVD Authoring
o 3.6 Compression
o 3.7 Defragmenting
o 3.8 Developer Tools
o 3.9 Emulators
o 3.10 File Sharing
o 3.11 Firewalls/IDSs
o 3.12 FTP
o 3.13 Games
o 3.14 Graphics
o 3.15 Media
o 3.16 Messaging
o 3.17 Office Tools
o 3.18 VPN Clients
o 3.19 Web Browsers and Plug-Ins
o 3.20 Miscellaneous

Vista Fast Shutdown

2007-01-29T02:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a neat one I fell over somewhere on the web:
Open Regedit (WINDOWS KEY + R on your keyboard, or by clicking Start and typing on the search bar "regedit" without quotes. Hit Enter

Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l] On the right panel look for the "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" string and change it value to 1000 by right clicking the string and selecting Modify...

Default Value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=20000

Modified value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=5000
Modified value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=1000 (extreme, use it at your own risk)

I found 3000 worked nicely but try the 5000 first. 3000 does sometimes leave some programs lagging which then need a further key click.

Windows Vista Test Drive

2007-01-28T11:48:00.001-08:00

Microsoft has created a test drive website to allow people to tinker with Windows Vista before they decide to purchase the software.

The online test drive is powered by Microsoft Virtual Server Labs and requires at least IE6, enabled Javascript browser, and installation of Virtual Server VRMC Advanced Control ActiveX control.

The test drive emphasizes on Vista’s Safe, Efficient, Connected and Collaborative strenghts.

Start the Test Drive here.

Test Your Hardware for Windows Vista

2007-01-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

The most troubling part of your decision to purchase Windows Vista is your PCs hardware capabilities. Worry no more because PC Pitstop makes your life easier through their Vista Readiness Scanner.

Get you PC tested now here.

Disable Hibernation And Free Up Space

2007-01-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Windows places a file on your hard drive that it uses when your computer goes into hibernation mode. If you do not use hibernation mode, or your computer does not properly support it, you may want to disable hibernation and clear the file off your hard drive to free up some space (the file will use as much space as you have in physical memory, so if you have 1GB of RAM, it’s going to use 1GB of your hard drive space).

Disable Hibernation:

1. Click Start, All Programs, and then right click on "Command Prompt".
2. From the context menu click on "Run as administrator".
3. If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on Continue.
4. In the command prompt window, type "powercfg –h off" (without the quotes).
4. Close the Command Prompt window.

Delete the Hibernation File:

1. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click "Disk Cleanup".
2. If prompted to choose a drive, select the drive in which Windows Vista is installed on to and press OK.
3. Disk Cleanup will scan the hard drive and present you with a list of options.
4. Check "Hibernation File Cleaner", and then click OK.
5. When asked "Are you sure you want to permanently delete these files?" click on the Delete Files button.

Disable Welcome Center

2007-01-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

As soon as you install Windows Vista you are bombarded by the Welcome Center that is designed to help beginner Windows users easily configure their new computer. This new welcome screen is a nice feature the first time you start using Windows vista but quickly becomes annoying.

Disabling the Welcome Center is very easy to do and can speed up your boot as well.

1. Start Regedit.

2. Navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Run.

3. Right click on the WindowsWelcomeCenter key and select Delete.

The next time you restart the Welcome Center will be gone.

Tweak User Account Control (UAC) with Security Policies

2007-01-27T07:56:00.000-08:00

To cut down on malicious software applications and beginner computer users from changing critical computer settings, Microsoft has included a new feature called User Account Control, primarily known as UAC. UAC is a great step in the right direction. It can be used to prevent a beginner computer user from making changes to their computer by restricting them from accessing or even saving any changes to critical areas. UAC is also helpful against Spyware and other malicious software because it will require the user to consent to the action, before any system changes are made.

UAC is a good feature but sometimes it is necessary to tweak it a little so that it is less annoying for more experienced users. For example, an advanced user may be overwhelmed by the number of pop up authorization they receive. By tweaking the settings they can reduce the number of those they see as well as completely disable UAC. Although I do not recommend you completely disable UAC, you can fine tune it to be easier to get along with.

1. To get started, open up the Local Security Settings MMC to show the local security policies by running secpol.msc.

2. Navigate through Local Policies and Security Options.

3. Scroll through the list on the right of the various security settings until your reach the User Account Protection settings. Refer to the list below of the various settings, to change them, just right click and select Modify. Items in bold are the default values.

* User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account
o Enabled
o Disabled

* User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode
o Elevate without prompting
o Prompt for credentials
o Prompt for consent

* User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users
o Automatically deny elevation requests
o Prompt for credentials

* User Account Control: Detect application installations and prompt for elevation
o Enabled
o Disabled

* User Account Control: Only elevate executables that are signed and validated
o Enabled
o Disabled

* User Account Control: Only elevate UIAccess applications that are installed in secure locations
o Enabled
o Disabled

* User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode
o Enabled
o Disabled

* User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation
o Enabled
o Disabled

* User Account Control: Virtualize file and registry write failures to per-user locations
o Enabled
o Disabled

How to replace Vista's startup sound

2007-01-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

Vista is the first version of Windows to include a non user-customizable startup sound. This is played while the Pearl (or Orb) animates. By default, the sound either plays or it doesn't. Changing this sound cannot be done using the Sound control panel. Instead, follow these steps:

1) For best results, boot out of Vista and into an alternative OS, such as XP. (This is assuming you dual boot.)

2) Locate the file "imageres.dll" in Vista's System32 folder. For instance, E:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll. Copy that file into a different location, i.e. your desktop.

3) Download ResHacker.

4) Open ResHacker. Open the imageres.dll file in ResHacker.

5) Find the folder that reads "WAVE" and expand everything below that. This is what it should look like:

6) Right click 1033 (this could have a different name depending on your locale), and click Replace Resource. Click "Open file with new resource", and find the wave file you want to replace it with. Once you're done, in Resource Type, type "WAVE", in Resource Name type "5051", and under Resource Language type "1033" (or whatever number you have). Once done, click Replace.

7) Click File, then click Save. Now you can copy this file to Vista's System32 folder. Keep the imageres_original.dll file ResHack left behind in case you want to revert back to the original sound.

Disabling Services Guide

2007-01-27T07:44:00.000-08:00

I suggest we use this thread to suggest to each other which services can be turned off, because we do not need them. This is a work in progress. I did not follow this post 100% and neither should you. Change services according to your computer config. If you do not have one of these services, chances are you already disabled the option in 'Turn Windows features on or off' or you are running a different edition of Windows Vista.

Start > services.msc > Enter
Winkey + R > services.msc > Enter

Application Experience - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Application Information - Default: Manual (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Application Layer Gateway Service - Default: Manual
- Used for certain software services | If this service is started already, leave on Manual (Safe) | If it is not, set to Disabled

Application Management - Default: Manual
- If you don't "deploy software through Group Policy", Set to Disabled

Background Intelligent Transfer Service - Default: Automatic (Delayed Start) (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is (unless you don't use Windows Update)

Base Filtering Engine - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Disabling this service reduces security of the OS (needed for firewall, some unusual protocols, remote access, and internet connection sharing), Safe: Leave as is

Block Level Backup Engine Service - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Certificate Propagation - Default: Manual
- If you don't use Smart Cards, Safe: Set to Disabled

CNG Key Isolation - Default: Manual
- This service may be needed if you are on Wired/Wireless Lan Autoconfig Since and will be using EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol), Otherwise: Set to Disabled

COM+ Event System - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Responsible for many things including the Backup and Restore Center, Safe: Leave as is

COM+ System Application - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Computer Browser - Default: Automatic
- If you aren't on a network, Safe: Set to Disabled

Cryptographic Services - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Needed for some connections/websites (Microsoft/Windows Update?), confirms signatures of windows files, Safe: Leave as is

DCOM Server Process Launcher - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Desktop Window Manager Session Manager - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use the advanced Aero Glass transparency interface, Safe: Set to Disabled

DFS Replication - Default: Manual
- If you aren't on a network, Safe: Set to Disabled

DHCP Client - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Typically needed for most Internet Connections (maybe not if you have a static IP), Safe: Leave as is

Diagnostic Policy Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't care for Windows finding solutions to problems (including fixing internet connection problems in vista and ie7), Safe: Set to Disabled

Diagnostic Service Host - Default: Manual
- If you don't care for Windows finding solutions to problems, Safe: Set to Disabled

Diagnostic System Host - Default: Manual (Started)
- If you don't care for Windows finding solutions to problems, Safe: Set to Disabled

Distributed Link Tracking Client - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't have links between NTFS Files, Safe: Set to Disabled

Distributed Transaction Coordinator - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service (Set to Disabled)

DNS Client - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Needed once in a while, Safe: Leave as is

Extensible Authentication Protocol - Default: Manual
- Disabling this service reduces security of the OS (needed for firewall, some unusual protocols, remote access, and internet connection sharing), Safe: Leave as is

Fax - Default: Manual
- If you don't use a fax or a scanner, Safe: Set to Disabled

Function Discovery Provider Host - Default: Manual (Started)
- If not on a network (needed for certain uncommon network components), Safe: Set to Disabled

Function Discovery Resource Publication - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If not on a network (needed for certain uncommon network components), Safe: Set to Disabled

Group Policy Client - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is (can technically be disabled if not used, will look into possible problems later)

Health Key and Certificate Management - Default: Manual
- Safe: Set to Disabled

Human Interface Device Access - Default: Manual
- If you don't use the extra buttons on your keyboard or use the software for it, Safe: Set to Disabled

IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules - Default: Automatic
- Safe: Set to Disabled

Infrared Monitor service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't have/use infrared, Safe: Set to Disabled

Interactive Services Detection - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) - Default: Disabled
- Possibly not needed (will look into), Safe: Leave as is

IP Helper - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't want IPv6 support, Safe: Set to Disabled

IPsec Policy Agent - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Possibly not needed (will look into), Safe: Leave as is

KtmRM for Distributed Transaction Coordinator - Default: Automatic (Delayed Start)
- Possibly not needed (will look into), Safe: Leave as is

Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Microsoft .Net Framework NGEN v.20.50727_X64/X86 - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service - Default: Manual
- If you don't use iSCSI, Safe: Set to Disabled

Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Multimedia Class Scheduler - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Needed for Windows Audio, Safe: Leave as is

Net.Tcp Port Sharing Service - Default: Disabled
- Safe: Leave as is

Netlogon - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Network Access Protection Agent - Default: Manual
- Safe: Set to Disabled

Network Connections - Default: Manual (Started)
- Unless you aren't using the internet, Safe: Leave as is

Network List Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Unless you aren't using the internet, Safe: Leave as is

Network Location Awareness - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Unless you aren't using the internet, Safe: Leave as is

Network Store Interface Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Unless you aren't using the internet, Safe: Leave as is

Offline Files - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Unless you use them, Safe: Set to Disabled

Parental Controls - Default: Manual
- Unless you use them, Safe: Set to Disabled

Peer Name Resolution Protocol - Default: Manual
- Unless you use Windows Meetings, Safe: Set to Disabled

Peer Networking Grouping - Default: Manual
- Unless you use such applications, Safe: Set to Disabled

Peer Networking Identity Manger - Default: Manual
- Safe: Set to Disabled

Performance Logs & Alerts - Default: Manual
- Needed for many features of Windows, Safe: Leave as is

Plug and Play - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Unless you don't connect various devices often, Safe: Leave as is

PnP-X IP Bus Enumerator - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

PNRP Machine Name Publication Service - Default: Manual
- Safe: Set to Disabled

Portable Device Enumerator Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you do not own a portable device, Safe: Set to Disabled

Print Spooler - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If no printer (including virtual ones) is present on the computer, Safe: Set to Disabled

Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support - Default: Manual
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled

Program Compatibility Assistant Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use the Program Compatibility Assistant, Safe: Set to Disabled

Protected Storage - Default: Manual
- If you don't save passwords, Safe: Set to Disabled

Quality Windows Audio Video Experience - Default: Manual
- If you don't need it, Safe: Set to Disabled

ReadyBoost - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use USB drives as a memory boost, Safe: Set to Disabled

Remote Access Auto Connection Manager - Default: Manual
- If you won't be connecting to your computer remotely, Safe: Set to Disabled

Remote Access Connection Manger - Default: Manual (Started)
- If you won't be connecting to your computer remotely, Safe: Set to Disabled

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Vital, Safe: Leave as is

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator - Default: Manual
- Possibly not needed (will look into), Safe: Leave as is

Remote Registry - Default: Manual
- Recommended: Set to Disabled

Routing and Remote Access - Default: Disabled
- Typically not needed, Safe: Leave as is

Secondary Logon - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you are only running vista with one user, Safe: Set to Disabled

Security Accounts Manager - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use Global Policy Editor, Safe: Set to Disabled

Security Center - Default: Automatic (Delayed Start) (Started)
- If you don't use the Security Center, Safe: Set to Disabled

Server - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't plan to send files or print them over a network, Safe: Set to Disabled

Shell Hardware Detection - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use Autoplay, Safe: Set to Disabled

SL UI Notification Service - Default: Manual
- Not required on most setups (needed for Tablet Input Panel) but, Safe: Leave as is

Smart Card - Default: Manual
- If you don't use Smart Cards, Safe: Set to Disabled

Smart Card Removal Policy - Default: Manual
- If you don't use Smart Cards, Safe: Set to Disabled

SNMP Trap - Default: Manual
- If not on a network with SNMP, Safe: Set to Disabled

Software Licensing - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Needed for the Control Panel and other parts of Windows to function (Tablet Input Panel for Tablets), Safe: Leave as is

SSDP Discovery - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't have such devices, Set to Disabled

Superfetch - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

System Event Notification Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Typically not needed (event log may display an error if disabled) Safe: Leave as is

Table PC Input Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't have a tablet PC, Safe: Set to Disabled

Task Scheduler - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Needed for various Windows and 3rd Party Programs, Safe: Leave as is

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you won't be sharing files between computers, Set to Disabled

Telephony - Default: Manual (Started)
- Needed for dial-up and certain DSL connections, Safe: Leave as is

Terminal Services - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't plan to administer remote computers, Safe: Set to Disabled

Terminal Services Configuration - Default: Manual
- If you don't plan to administer remote computers, Safe: Set to Disabled

Terminal Services UserMode Port Redirector - Default: Manual
- If you don't plan to administer remote computers, Safe: Set to Disabled

Themes - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you are using Windows Classic, Safe: Set to Disabled

Thread Ordering Server - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

TPM Base Services - Default: Manual
- Used for hardware certificates, Safe: Leave as is

UPnP Device Host - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use UPnP, Safe: Set to Disabled

User Profile Service - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Virtual Disk - Default: Manual
- Since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

Volume Shadow Copy - Default: Manual
- Needed for some integrated backups, since this service is on manual and does not start, it may be needed at some point, but it isn't a critical service

WebClient - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use web folders, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Audio - Default: Automatic (Started
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Audio Endpoint Builder - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Backup - Default: Manual
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled, Recommended: Leave as is

Windows CardSpace - Default: Manual
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Color System - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Connect Now - Config Registrat - Default: Manual
- Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Defender - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled, Recommended: Leave as is

Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Error Reporting Service - Default: Automatic
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled, Recommended: Leave as is

Windows Event Collector - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Event Log - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Firewall - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled, Recommended: Leave as is

Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) - Default: Manual
- If you don't have a scanner/camera, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Installer - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Management Instrumentation - Default: Automatic (Started)
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Media Center Extender Service - Default: Disabled
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Media Center Receiver Service - Default: Manual
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Media Center Scheduler Service - Default: Manual
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Media Center Service Launcher - Default: Automatic (Delayed Start) (Started)
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service - Default: Manual
- If no portable device is owned, Set to Disabled

Windows Modules Installer - Default: Manual
- Certain Windows Updates require it, Safe: Leave as is

Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0 - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) - Default: Manual
- If you don't plan to administer remote computers, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Search - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled, Recommended: Leave as is

Windows Time - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you don't plan to sync the clock with a server, Safe: Set to Disabled

Windows Update - Default: Automatic (Delayed Start) (Started)
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled, Recommended: Leave as is

WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service - Default: Manual
- Almost always not needed, Safe: Set to Disabled

Wired/WLAN AutoConfig - Default: Manual
- If you don't use it, Safe: Set to Disabled

WMI Performance Adapter - Default: Manual
- Safe: Leave as is

Workstation - Default: Automatic (Started)
- If you plan on being on a LAN, Safe: Leave as is

Please inform me about mistakes, what you have found and what you would change.

Six Quick Vista Tricks

2007-01-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

Work Vista like a pro with these shortcuts and secrets.

By Brian Livingston and Paul Thurrott

Dual-boot the right way. Installing Windows Vista in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP is a great way to test the new operating system while still retaining the comfort and compatibility of the old one. But if you install Vista from within XP, the new OS is installed on a new partition with a new drive letter, typically D:. A better idea is to create a dual-boot setup by booting the PC with the Vista DVD and installing at that point. This way, both Vista and XP—whichever one you're running at the time—will appear to be on C:, not D:. Applications that automatically default to C: will run without confusion, and any you install while using Vista will show up on your primary partition.

Get network drivers that work. Microsoft tested more than 100 XP-era hardware drivers that work fine in Vista but that are not included with the operating system for various reasons. Most affected are Ethernet cards and Wi-Fi adapters. If one of these devices doesn't work after you've installed Vista, it more than likely will if you download the XP driver from the manufacturer's site. Microsoft engineers prepared a list of drivers they found to be compatible with Vista, but the document was never posted. We've posted the list ourselves at WindowsSecrets.com/vista.

Edit TV shows and skip commercials. Only the Vista edition of Windows Movie Maker lets you edit Media Center-recorded TV shows. That means you can edit out the commercials (although you're limited to standard-definition television content). You can also archive your favorite shows in WMV (Windows Media Video) format, which creates much smaller files than Media Center's MS-DVR format.

Use Virtual Folders. Vista's new Virtual Folders feature has been downplayed to the point that it's almost invisible in the user interface. But it's still there and highly usable. Look for prebuilt examples in C:\Users\username\Searches. In a search window (Windows-F) click Save Search to create a search folder, such as "documents by Jack that mention the Nexus project." Your folder dynamically updates its view to include any such file that's added, changed, or removed.

Keep malware at bay. To get better security defenses than are possible in XP, leave Vista's User Account Protection enabled and select a Standard User account. You must enter an admin password occasionally, but it's worth the trouble in the interest of keeping Trojan horses and other malware from silently infecting your system. For even better security, apply Parental Controls to your Standard User account, even though you're an adult. Power users do this to get a pop-up reminder when they're about to visit a suspect Web site or run a rogue application.

Get the best 3D rendering. The new OS includes striking 3D effects. But you won't get the best rendering in, say, Vista's new chess game unless you know the trick. Click Game, then Options, and push the Graphic Quality slider all the way to the right. When you click OK, you'll notice the game instantly becomes smoother and less jagged-looking. To get the opposite effect, push the slider all the way to the left. The game then downshifts to a 2D mode that's just right for older PCs.

Essential Freeware

2007-01-27T04:52:00.000-08:00

These are must to have freebies for each and every system:

Advanced WindowsCare 2 Personal (All-in-one system utility)

AVG AntiVirus Free Edition (Anti-virus)

Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition (Remove spyware)

PCWizard 2006 (Hardware management)

IObit SmartDefrag (Disk Defragment)

Top 10 Tweaks, Tips and Tricks for Windows Vista

2007-01-27T03:39:00.000-08:00

1. If you’re annoyed by Internet Explorer’s incessant barking that you’ve lowered your security settings (like, if you’re a non-paranoid expert), launch “gpedit.msc” from either the Run command or Start Search field, navigate through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Turn off the Security Settings Check feature” and set it to Enabled.

2. If Internet Explorer’s Information Bar also annoys you, you can turn it off (again) in the Group Policy Object Editor (gpedit.msc) through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer / Security Features. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Internet Explorer Processes” and set it to Disabled. Hallelujah!

3. I’ve just mentioned two tweaks that are buried inside the Group Policy Editor. Jim Allchin pointed out that there’s a Group Policy Settings Reference spreadsheet available. Makes for great weekend reading.

4. Read the Background on Backgrounds if you’re a performance junkie. Don’t set your wallpaper through Internet Explorer ever again! Now that Windows supports JPG wallpapers, there’s absolutely no need (or excuse) for using BMPs anymore.

5. If you insist on keeping UAC (User Account Control) turned on for yourself, you might care to make the elevation prompts a bit less visually jarring. Brandon told me about this one, even though I have UAC turned off. Launch the Local Security Policy manager (secpol.msc), and navigate through Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options. In the rightmost pane, scroll to the bottom and double-click “User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation.” Disable it, and you can keep UAC turned on without getting turned off by the embarrassingly craptacular Aero Basic theme.

6. Vista can send you emails! The Computer Management tool can still be accessed by right-clicking “Computer” and selecting “Manage” from the menu. However, now you can attach a task to any event. Try navigating through System Tools / Event Viewer / Windows Logs / Application. Now, go ahead and select an event - then look to the rightmost pane and click “Attach Task to This Event.” Name it whatever, describe it however, click through the next step, then in the Action step, you’ll see the “Send an e-mail” option.

7. The Windows Task Manager gives you a lot more troubleshooting information in Vista. Flip to the Processes tab, and in the View menu, click “Select Columns” and add Description, Command Line, and Image Path Name. Moreover, when you right-click a process, you can select either “Go to Service(s)” or “Open File Location.” These are all long overdue options.

8. This one’s interesting. Open up the Date and Time Control Panel applet. Flip to the “Additional Clocks” tab. There, you can configure two more clocks from different time zones. They’ll appear in the tooltip when you hover over the Taskbar clock. No additional software (or silly sidebar widgets) necessary.

9. Applicable in other versions of Windows, I’m going to throw it in here for good measure. Create a shortcut to RegSvr32.exe in your SendTo folder. To get there quickly, enter “shell:sendto” in the Run command dialog or Start Search field. Now, when you wanna register a DLL or OCX file with the system, you can select it/them and “Send To” the RegSvr32 shortcut.

10. I figured I’d round out my first set of Windows Vista tips and tricks with a tiny bit of eye candy. It doesn’t beat Picasa, but the Windows Photo Gallery is better than nothing. Once it’s indexed all your photos, click the icon next to the Search field and turn on the “Table of Contents.” That’s kinda nifty.

Ctrl+Esc	Opens the Start menu
Windows Logo	Opens the Start menu
Ctrl+Alt+Delete	Then - Displays the Windows Security window
Ctrl+Alt+Delete	Now – Displays LogOn screen including Lock Computer, Switch User, LogOff, Change a Password and Task Manager
Print Screen	Copies the full screen image to the Windows Clipboard
Alt+Print Screen	Copies the selected window's image to the Windows Clipboard
Alt+Double-Click	Displays property sheet for the selected item
Alt+Enter	Displays property sheet for the selected object
Shift	Hold when loading disk to prevent AutoPlay application
Shift+F10	Same as right-click
Shift+Right-Click	Shows alternative commands for the selected object

Windows Vista Help

Recover your files quickly with File-Saver

File-Saver Recovery Features:

Disable useless Vista Features

Review of 123-reg eCommerce

Review of Anglian Home Improvements

How to reduce disk space used by System Restore

Reducing the Allocated Space

Advanced Searches and Natural Language Search

Enable support for 4GB of RAM (or more) in Vista 32-bit

Cheap Dedicated Hosting Reviews

VMware Workstation 6 on Windows Vista

Automate your repetitive tasks to a single mouse click or a keystroke

Windows Movie Maker Overview

Device Drivers for Windows Vista

ATI

NVidia

Creative

Texas Instruments

Intel

Conexant

Dell

C-Media

Logitech

D-Link

RealTek

Silicon Integrated Systems

SigmaTel

SMC

VIA

Yamaha

Marvell

BENQ

NETGEAR

SMC

O2Micro

Hauppauge

EPSON

Atheros

3Com

ALi

Alps

AVerMedia

HUAWEI

Microsoft

Yamaha

Yuan

Lexmark

Nokia

AuthenTec

Ralink

Chicony

Wacom

Tabs in Yahoo Messenger Hack

DirectX v10 Secret of Graphics in Windows Vista

Download Free Seven Vista Themes and Suit

DataStreams component library for .Net developers

Vista Shell Styles and Themes List

Correct Disk Cleanup shortcut for Windows Vista 64-bit

SoloSEO Proffesional SEO Tools Review

SEO Project Management

SEO Tools and Reports

Do-It-Yourself SEO™

Link Building

The Right Tools

Learning how to SEO

Keeping Track of Progress

Low Cost

Review of Apogee Search Marketing

Tweak Indexing Options for more Performance

Enable Vista Glass on Intel GMA 950 Graphics Cards

Play DivX files in Windows Vista Media Center

Windows Vista Speech Recognition Step by Step Guide

What is Speech Recognition

What’s new in Windows Vista Speech Recognition?

Who should use Speech Recognition

Benefits of Speech Recognition

Key scenarios for Speech Recognition

Prerequisites

Dictating a document overview

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