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!