Customize the Manufacturer Support Info

If you have a computer with pre-installed Windows Vista, most likely you'll notice the manufacturer's support information when you look in the system properties window. If you'd like to customize this information or use a picture of your own in this space, you can do so easily.

Right-click on Computer and choose Properties or use the Win+Break key combination to bring up the System properties screen:

If you have a computer with pre-installed Windows Vista, most likely you'll notice the manufacturer's support information when you look in the system properties window. If you'd like to customize this information or use a picture of your own in this space, you can do so easily.

Right-click on Computer and choose Properties or use the Win+Break key combination to bring up the System properties screen:

Close-up view:

To edit the information in this screen, you'll need to open up your registry editor and navigate down to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OEMInformation

Note: If this key does not exist, you can download the following registry file, which you will want to edit before double-clicking to add into the registry.

You can modify the following fields and put any values you'd like into them, with the exception of the Logo key, which you probably shouldn't change.

• Manufacturer
• SupportHours
• SupportPhone
• SupportURL
• Logo

The last important step is to either create or modify a bitmap file stored at the location specified in the Logo key, usually set to:

C:\Windows\System32\oemlogo.bmp

For best results, you'll want to use a small logo file, preferably somewhere around 100×100 height/width. Also note that copying the file to that folder will require administrative permissions.

Share Your Windows Vista Experience Index Score

ShareYourScore.com is a site where you can upload your Windows Vista Experience Index assessment and share it with the world. You can also take a look at other people's top scores, and even see average scores for a particular component. This site could be useful for troubleshooting, since you can see what other people with the same components scored. I'm hoping they expand the site's functionality in the future, but it's a good start.

If you are unfamiliar with the Windows Experience Index, just open Control Panel, and type in performance into the search box. You should already see your score, calculated when you installed Vista for the first time.

Once you've uploaded your score, they will even give you the html so that you can put the score as a badge on your own site:

Looks like my computer is really not too bad, I just need a faster processor. So how well did my video card stack up? Here's my performance information from Windows Vista:

And here's what ShareYourScore has to say for the average scores on my video card:

Looks like I'm in the same range, good stuff.

Speed up External USB Hard Drives in Windows Vista

If you have an external hard drive that is always plugged into your computer, you can enable write caching to speed up performance significantly when writing to the disk.

Write caching isn't enabled by default for external drives because removable devices could lose data if you unplug them too quickly, so take care when using this setting.

To change this setting, just type Device Manager into the start menu search box, and hit enter.

Browse down to the external hard drive that you wish to enable write caching on, and double click it to open up the properties screen.

Just change the setting to "Optimize for performance" and hit OK to continue. You'll have to reboot for the setting to take effect.

Use "Command Prompt Here" in Windows Vista

A very popular registry hack for Windows XP was the "Command Prompt Here" hack, that would automatically open a command prompt window in the directory that you had clicked on.

Windows Vista includes this ability right out of the box, it's just not immediately obvious, because it's hidden behind a shortcut key.

To activate this, just hold down the Shift key when you right-click on a folder, and you should see the Open Command Window Here menu item:

Just like that, a command window opens with that path as the working directory

Enable Slow-Motion Aero Animations in Windows Vista

This tip really isn't very useful, but it's an interesting hack to show your friends. You can enable a "Slow Motion" animation that will only activate if you are holding down the Shift key while you minimize/restore/close/open a window.

To start with, you should note that this will only work if you are already able to run Windows Aero glass theme.

To activate this hack, you'll need to first download and unzip this registry file, and then double-click it to add to the regisry. It will add two new values to the registry.

Now you can reboot to see the effect…

…or you could just open an administrator mode command prompt by typing cmd into the start menu search box, and then using the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut to launch it in administrative mode. We'll want to restart the Desktop Window Manager with these two commands:

net stop uxsms
net start uxsms

Now you can see the slow motion animations by holding down the Shift key while minimizing or restoring a window. It's a pity there's no way to configure the speed of the animation.

I wish I had a picture or video to show here, but I don't have the right setup yet to do that. I'll probably update this article once I do.

Disable User Account Control (UAC)

I've previously written about a way to enable or disable UAC. This is an easier method that you can use to do the same thing from the GUI interface. To recap my earlier article, UAC is ANNOYING.

Note: Disabling UAC will lead to a less secure system, so be warned.

Open up Control Panel, and type in user account into the search box.

You'll see the link for "Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off". Click it.

Uncheck the box, and reboot your computer. You should be done with obnoxious prompts!

Vista Parental controls

Vista Parental Controls let u decide how ur children use the PC. U can use Parental Controls to set the time limit that ur kid(s) can use the computer, the types of games they can play, the internet websites they can visit, and programs they can run.
By setting time limits on ur kid's computer, u prevent them from logging on during certain hours. U can set different log on hours for every day of the week. If they are logged on when their alloted time ends, they will be automatically logged off.
U can also control the games ur kids will be allowed to play. U can control access to games, choose an age rating level, choose the types of content you want to block, and decide whether you want to allow or block specific games.
U can restrict websites ur kids visit, check age rating, indicate whether they'll be allowed to download files, and set up filters to block and allow content. U can even block or allow specific websites. Additionally, u can prevent your kids from running specific applications on their PCs.
And finally, u can setup activity report so you can track what they are doing when using their PCs.
1. To run Parental Controls click Start and type Parental Control on search box.
Note that that u must set a password for accounts with admistrative privilege to prevent others for turning Parental Control off.
2. Create an acount if it has not been created.
3. Turn Parental Controls on.
4. Select whether or not u wanr an activity report.
5. On Windows Setting, select the controls for Internet, time limits, games and programs allow.
Will ur kids be upset about their settings? They might, especially teenagers, but as parents, it's our responsibility to make sure they stay safe while using a computer. Will they be able to hack the controls? When there is a will, there's a way. You should never rely solely on the software...check and know what they are doing.

Change the Number of Recent Items

If you've ever wondered how to configure the number of documents shown on the Recent Items menu, you've found the right article. The default value is set to show 10 documents, but you can increase that with a registry tweak.

What we are changing here is the amount of documents shown in this menu (I changed mine down to 1 for illustration)

Manual Registry Tweak

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then navigate down to the following key, creating it if it doesn't exist.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Add a new DWORD 32-bit value named MaxRecentDocs into the right-hand pane, and then double-click to open it up.

To set the value, you'll first need to change Base to Decimal, and then you can enter any value you want. For instance, if you want to set it to 50, enter that into the Value data field.

Now I'm not entirely sure what will happen if you set it to a huge number… I'd stick with something like 20.

Hide Desktop Icon Text on Windows Vista

Some icons are just obvious enough that nobody should need text below them to tell them what the icon is for. A good example of this is the icon for Internet Explorer. We're all really used to it by now, and the text just makes it ugly.

Just right-click on the shortcut, and choose Rename. Now hold down the Alt key and type in 255 on the keypad to the right of the keyboard. You can't use the number keys right above the keyboard, they won't work. If you have a laptop, you can turn on numlock and then use the little number keys next to the regular letters. (You know you always wondered what they were for)

For the first shortcut on the desktop, a simple Alt+255 will do. For the next shortcut, you'll have to enter the combination twice (Alt+255, Alt+255). For the third, 3 times… you get the idea.

The way this works is that the Alt+255 character is blank, so the shortcut filename is actually just named with a character that is completely blank. Since you can't have two shortcuts or files named the exact same thing, the second shortcut will have to be named with two blank characters.

Now we have a sweet looking icon on the desktop, with no bothersome text beneath it.

This tip should actually work on any version of Windows, but it works a lot better on Vista, because Vista has beautiful icons.

If you use this tip to rename a folder, you will not be able to rename the folder back using the right-click rename. I’m not sure why this is. What you’ll have to do is open a command prompt and change directory into the containing folder (For instance, the desktop folder), and run this command:

ren “Alt+255” “NewFolderName”

You will need to actually type the Alt+255 characters where illustrated in the command. It will appear as a space.

Note that the Recycle Bin icon won't work this way

Disable Windows Update's

So you're in the middle of doing something important on your computer when the "Restart your computer to finish installing important updates" dialog comes up, and asks you to restart your computer.

Sure, you can postpone it up to 4 hours, but then the dialog will just come up again. If you were downloading some important files you might not want the computer to reboot automatically.

The quick way to disable the reboot for the current session is to stop the Windows Update service from running. You can do this by opening an administrative mode command prompt.

Type cmd into the start menu search box, and use Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open in administrative mode. You could also right-click the item in the menu and choose Run as Administrator.

Once at the prompt, just type in the following:

net stop "windows update"

Don't worry, the service will start right back up when you reboot your computer, but at least you don't have to deal with the restart dialog.

How to Delete a System File in Windows Vista

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 Logon When Not Connected to a Domain

Important Note: The previous article titled "Increase the Cached Logon Count" was incorrect, this is an updated version.

The default behavior in Windows when connecting to a domain is to cache the domain credentials locally so that they can be used to login even when the domain isn't available. You can set this value to 0 in order to disable logons to the computer while not connected to the domain.

Note that this will only work for computers that are configured to login to a domain, not for Home editions.

Disable Cached Logons

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the following key:

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

On the right-hand pane you'll see a key called cachedlogonscount, which you can change to 0 in order to disable logging in when not connected to the domain.

This should work on either Vista or XP.

Using Windows Vista System Restore

Windows Vista has a feature called System Restore that automatically backs up registry and system files whenever you install new software or drivers. This feature is useful when you install evil software that makes your computer run really slow. But don't worry, System Restore won't remove Windows Vista.

Using System Restore in Windows

There are two places that you can use the system restore feature from. From within Windows, you can just type restore into the Start menu search box, and you'll immediately see System Restore at the top of the start menu:

Or you can type rstrui into the search box and hit enter. Your choice.

Update

For best results, you should run System Restore from safe mode. If you receive an error while restoring, then use it from safe mode and it should work fine.

Note: If you choose the more geeky way of launching System Restore, you will be rewarded with unlimited credit to Newegg. I'm lying, but wouldn't that be sweet?

You will immediate see a screen where you can choose to roll back the system to the last restore point. You can select "Recommended restore", and just click next, or you can choose a different restore point.

If you do choose a different restore point, you will see a list of restore points that you can choose from. How many times have I typed the word choose at this point?

You'll notice in the screenshot below that the last thing I did was install Virtual CloneDrive to mount ISO images, but right before that I installed the NVIDIA drivers.

Click one of them, and you will have to confirm and then restart your computer to roll the system back.

If your system won't boot

If you can't even get into windows, you can boot off the installation dvd, and choose the "Repair your computer" option on the lower left hand side. Click next on the next screen.

Now choose System Restore from the System Recovery dialog. It will take a few seconds to come up, and you will see the same screen that you would see in Windows:

Click next, and on the next screen select the drive that your copy of Windows Vista is installed on.

Click Finish, and Vista will roll back to the previous restore point. Really pretty simple stuff.

Speed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoost

Windows Vista includes a new feature called ReadyBoost that lets you plug in a flash memory stick or SD card to store commonly used files for quicker access than off the hard drive.

Turning this feature on couldn't be simpler. Just stick the flash drive, SD card, or whatever flash device you want into your computer. You'll see this dialog pop up:

Click the "Speed up my system" link, and you'll be taken to the ReadyBoost panel for the flash drive:

Install ISS in vista

If you are a developer using ASP.NET, one of the first things you'll want to install on Vista is IIS (internet information server). Keep in mind that your version of Vista may not come with IIS. I'm using Vista Ultimate edition.

First, go to Control Panel, and then click on Programs. You'll see a link for "Turn Windows features on or off"

If you expand the Internet Information Services tree node, you can see that there are a lot of options beneath it. You will probably want to explore these options, because even if you click on IIS, some of the necessary options for doing development aren't checked.

Once you've gone ahead and checked the items you want, and clicked OK, you'll see this dialog for a while….

Now when you navigate in your browser to localhost, you'll see the new default page… slick!

Registry Hack to Disable Writing to USB Drives

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:

Customize boot logo!!

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!