Posts filed under 'Vista'
So you decided to download a pirated copy of Windows XP, and accidently downloaded the Windows Updates- only to witness the below image. You can either buy a valid Windows License, or use my method to remove this naggy Window. You rather use my method? Of course, here’s what you need to do:
- Lauch Windows Task Manager.
- End wgatray.exe process in Task Manager.
- Restart Windows XP in Safe Mode.
- Delete WgaTray.exe from c:\Windows\System32.
- Delete WgaTray.exe from c:\Windows\System32\dllcache.
- Lauch Regedit (Start > Run > “regedit”.
- Browse to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\
Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify
- Delete the folder ‘WgaLogon’ and all its contents
- Reboot Windows XP.
Moving forward, check what’s in the Windows Update before installing. If you see “WGA Notifications”, uncheck it. You can also buy a legit copy, cheap ass.
July 28th, 2009
We all know to stay clear of Vista– it is a failure, which constantly breaks itself with its own updates and fixes. There are however, small registry tweaks you can make to improve usability until Windows 7 hits the shelves– here they are:
1: Disable AutoPlay
I always find it a bit annoying to insert a CD and have Windows open Internet Explorer and display a bunch of information I don’t care about. I would rather just be able to navigate through the disc’s file system and go directly to what I need. Fortunately, it’s easy to create a registry setting that disables AutoPlay:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
2. Create a DWORD named NoDriveTypeAutoRun.
3. Set the value to 000000FF.
2: Increase the maximum number of simultaneous downloads
As a technical writer, I’m constantly downloading files. Sometimes I need to download a lot of files, and Windows’ limit on the number of files that can be downloaded simultaneously gets in the way. If you’re in the same boat, you can tweak the registry so that Windows will let you download 10 files at a time:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings.
2. Create a new DWORD named MaxConnectionsPerServer and assign it a value of 0000000a.
3. Create a new DWORD named MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server and assign it a value of 0000000a.
3: Change the name of the registered user
When you install Windows, you’re prompted to enter a username and a company name. But since it’s fairly common for companies to merge, you may want to change the name of the company Windows is registered to by using this hack:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion.
2. Change the values that are assigned to the RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization keys to reflect the new ownership information.
4: Prevent the Recycle Bin from being deleted
If you’ve ever right-clicked on the Windows Recycle Bin, you know there’s a Delete option, which can be used to get rid of it. If you want to prevent the Recycle Bin from accidental deletion, follow these steps:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCR\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}.
2. Create a new registry key called Shell.
3. Create a new registry key named Delete and put it beneath the Shell key. The path should look like this: HKCR\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\Shell\Delete.
4. Modify the Default key and assign it a value of Recycle Bin.
5: Eliminate cached logons
Windows is designed to allow users to log on using cached logins if no domain controller is available to authenticate the request. If you want to make sure that a login request is always authenticated by a domain controller, you could change the number of cached logons that are allowed from 10 to 0 (or you could increase the number of cached logins allowed to 50). To do so, follow these steps:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\winlogon.
2. Create a new REG_SZ setting named CachedLogonsCount.
3. Assign this new setting a value that reflects how many concurrent cached logins you want to allow.
6: Encrypt and decrypt from a shortcut menu
Normally, when you want to encrypt or decrypt a file in XP Pro or Vista, you just right-click on the file or folder and choose the Properties command from the shortcut menu. When the properties sheet appears, click the Advanced button on the General tab and then use either the Encrypt or the Decrypt option.
If all that seems like a lot of work, you can add those options to the shortcut menu you see when you right-click on a file:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
2. Create a new DWORD called EncryptionContextMenu and assign it a value of 1.
7: Delay Windows Activation
Typically, when an organization deploys Vista, it will create a master image, run SYSPREP, and deploy the image. The problem is that it might be a while between the time that SYSPREP is run and when Vista is actually deployed.
Microsoft will allow you to extend the activation period by 30 days, but you can do that only three times. You can, however, use a registry hack to get around this limitation:
1. Navigate through the registry to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SL.
2. Change the value associated with the SkipRearm key to 1.
3. Open a Command Prompt window and enter the following command: slmgr -rearm.
8: Relocate your offline files
When you use Vista’s Offline Files feature, the offline file cache is automatically placed on your C: drive. But my laptop has two hard drives in it, and I wanted to configure Vista to place my offline files onto my secondary hard drive. I accomplished the task by following these steps:
1. Open the Control Panel and click on the Network And Internet link, followed by the Offline Files link. Windows will display the Offline Files properties sheet.
2. Disable offline files if they are currently enabled.
3. Click OK and reboot the machine.
4. When the computer reboots, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC.
5. Create a new string value named Parameters.
6. Assign this value to the Parameters key:
\??\e:\csc
where e: is the drive letter you want to use.
1. Exit the Registry Editor and reboot the computer.
2. When the machine reboots, enable offline files.
3. Reboot the computer one last time. Now, you can start making folders available offline.
9: Disable User Account Control
One of the things about Vista that seems to irritate a lot of people is the User Account Control feature. In essence, an administrator is treated as a standard user. Administrators who attempt to perform an administrative action receive a prompt asking whether they initiated the action. I think that this prompt is a valuable safeguard against malware, but since a lot of people don’t like it, here’s how to use the registry editor to suppress the prompt:
1. Navigate through the registry editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
2. Change the value of the ConcentPromptBehaviorAdmin key to 00000000.
10: Don’t display the last user who logged in
Windows Vista is designed so that when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to log in, it will display the name of the user who logged in most recently. This can be a bit of a problem if multiple users share a common PC. They may forget to check to see who was logged in previously and key in their own password in association with another user’s login name. If they try this enough times, they could lock the other user out. You can get around this problem by using a simple registry tweak to tell Windows not to display the name of the user who was logged in previously:
1. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
2. Set the DontDisplayLastName key to a value of 1.
And that’s all I got for now- please share your tips in the comments section below!
July 28th, 2009
If you have a Windows Update that you just can’t install, this post is for you. If you have a pirated copy of Windows, and can’t download updates, this post is also for you (yet I don’t condone it!). Using the following method, you can install all the updates, manually. Read on:
Windows Update Downloader can manually download any update for Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000, Office 2003, and even Exchange 2003. It’s also great to use in conjunction with a Windows Vista Unattended Installation CD and Windows XP Unattended Installation CD so the updates are installed with the OS. Just follow these steps to get started.
Step 1: Download Windows Update Downloader and install it.
Step 2: Download the Update List for the product you wish to download updates for and double click it to automatically import it.
Step 3: Open Windows Update Downloader and select the updates you wish to download. You can change the location in which the updates are downloaded by clicking “Change” next to Download Folder. Click the “Show Options” button and select “Product as subfolder” to separate the downloaded updates into subfolders based on the product name. This makes them much easier to sort through if you are downloading updates for multiple products.
Step 4: Click “Download” to start downloading updates.
Step 5: Once the updates have finished, you can navigate to your download folder to retrieve your updates.
You are now ready to install the updates with a simple double click. If you have any experience with downloading Windows Updates manually, please feel free to share.
[Thanks EmergingTechs]
July 27th, 2009
If for some reason, you have no need for a password on your Windows machine, you can logon automatically by following this simple guide:
Firstly start by opening up Start > Run and enter control userpasswords2
When the user accounts window opens uncheck the box which states ‘Users must enter a username and password to use this computer’ and apply the setting. You will be requested for the username and password of the account you wish to automatically logon as for following reboots of your system.
If at a later stage you want a password back on your system, follow the same steps but recheck the box. In order to open user accounts you must be using an Administrator level account
July 27th, 2009
If you’re a power-user who wants more out of CTRL+ALT+DELETE- then Extended Task Manager is for you! It’s like an extended version of the Windows utility we use everyday.
Check out these features:
The Extended Task Manager provides additional Windows process management features and information about disk activity and network port usage.
The new “Disk I/O” chart allows you to monitor which applications utilize most of your disk at the moment:
The network port monitoring feature allows you to see who is connected to your computer and from which IP address, and who you are connecting to:
Another useful feature is the ability to locate Windows processes that lock a specific file. For example if you are unable to delete or rename a file, you can quickly find how it is used and possibly exit or kill the application that locks it:
The free Extended Task Manager includes various other features that make it a great alternative to the standard Windows Task Manager.
Extended Task Manager features:
- Displays disk input/output activity with information about related applications
- Displays network port activity with IP addresses of external computers
- Displays information about applications that utilized most of the CPU or memory at any time presented on the charts
- Displays all files locked by a select process.
- Finds all processes locking a specified file.
- Includes “Summary” tab for quickly assessing the overall state of the Windows system
- Allows freezing individual Windows processes
- Offer various visual and functional improvements over the standard Windows Task Manager
Download Extended Task Manager
July 21st, 2009
If you’ve ever plugged in a USB device into your PC, and received an error- then read this:
To rule out issues with the USB device itself, try plugging it into
another computer– if you still get errors, then the device is most
likely the problem.
If the USB device works on another computer, then the problem is with
the configuration of the computer where the USB device didn’t work.
Follow these steps below to troubleshoot:
1) If you’re using a USB cable with your device, check the cable to
make sure it matches the speed of the device. Use USB 2.0 cables with
USB 2.0 devices and USB 1.1 cables with USB 1.1 devices. Swap cables
and check the device, if this does not work, proceed to Step 2.
2) Next, open Device Manager and look under the heading for USB Serial
Bus Controllers. If there is a device with a yellow exclamation mark
next to it such as USB Mass Storage Device. Double-click on the entry
and check the Device Status. If the status shows something like:
“This device cannot start. (Code 10)”
proceed to Step 3:
3) The easiest way to solve a USB error code 10 in Windows XP
is to follow the steps below to remove and reinstall all USB
controllers.
A. Click on Start
B. Right Click on My Computer, click on Properties
C.Click on the Hardware tab
D. Click the Device Manager button.
E. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers section.
F. Right-click every device under the Universal Serial Bus controllers
node, and then click Uninstall to remove them one at a time.
G. Restart the computer, and allow the computer to reinstall the USB
controllers.
H. Plug in the removable USB storage device, and then test to make sure
that the issue is resolved.
For more information on Troubleshooting USB device problems, visit the
Microsoft Support Article on this subject.
July 21st, 2009
Is your Add and Remove Programs applet empty? That does not mean you lost your programs, nope– it may have something to do with Internet Explorer. IE is so tightly integrated into Windows (unfortunatly), that if it was ever to become corrupted, it could lead to other issues all around Windows.
To correct the problems with Internet Explorer, use IEFix. Follow these steps to correct the issue:
1) Download IEFix to your desktop and unzip it
2) Double-click on the file to open it
3) Click Apply to fix any Internet Explorer errors
4) After running IEFix, reboot your computer.
It always works for me– in case it doesn’t, try these:
1) To rule out an infection, you should run a thorough scan of your system using your favorite anti-virus and spyware programs.
2) Try running a check for corrupted Windows files by clicking on Start > Run > and typing sfc /scannow and pressing Enter.
The system will scan Windows for any problematic system files and reinstall them using your Windows CD.
3) You may want to try to register the control panel file by clicking on Start > Run > and typing REGSVR32 APPWIZ.CPL and pressing Enter. This will re-register the program with Windows.
Please post your results in the comments section below.
July 17th, 2009
Working in IT, there are times I reformat a PC I’m not familiar with, and have a bit of trouble finding hardware drivers. The reason being is that I don’t know every piece of hardware in the machine, since I didn’t build it.
Here is how I find out the model number of the peripheral. Below, you will see a picture of the network card driver info. The NIC card is installed just fine, but let’s say it wasn’t– we would still have the “Details” tab.
To get to this screen:
Right-click My Computer > Properties > click the Hardware tab > click the Device Manager button > click Details
By clicking the details tab, I am able to see the device ID.
In the beginning of the line PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10BD&SUBSYS…. VEN stands for the Vendor, this being Intel and DEV for the device in question. All I have to do is go to pcidatabase.com and enter the DEV id 10BD into the device search.
As you can see, we now have the model details of the card, all I have to do is go over to the vendor’s (Intel) website, and do a search for 82566DM on their drivers page, and download.
July 17th, 2009
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