When you click on the Shut Down option, your computer restarts instead of shutting down.
1. Click Start > Run and type REGEDIT
2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then System
then CurrenControlSet
then Control
then click CrashControl
3. Double-click on AutoReboot on the right side and change the value from 1 to 0.
Close regedit and restart the computer. Now the computer should shut down normally instead of restarting.
How to connect your blackberry device to your Windows Vista computer.
To connect a Bluetooth Blackberry device to your computer, make sure that you first make the Blackberry discoverable (visible) and (if necessary) give the Blackberry a name. Complete the following steps:
1. Right-click the Bluetooth Device Notification area icon and choose Add a Bluetooth Device. Or open the Bluetooth Devices dialog box from the Control Panel or its notification icon and click the Add button at the bottom of the Devices tab.
2. Make sure that the Blackberry option for Discoverable is set to Yes under the Bluetooth settings.
3. From within Vista, check the box My Device is set up and ready to be found and then click the Next button.
4. Follow the remaining steps in the wizard including setting the passkey so that your computer and Blackberry can communicate.
After the wizard completes, Windows may prompt for additional software to be installed. You can tell Windows to look locally and on the Internet or to load the software for the device from a CD provided by the vendor.
Source: Alan Simpson’s Windows Vista Bible
A common virus disables the Show hidden files and folders function in Windows XP. Here is how to enable it again.
The symptom of this problem is every time you select the Show hidden files and folders options under Folder Options, the screen just flashes when you click OK and the hidden files and folders are not unhidden. You can fix this problem with a registry hack:
1. Click Start > Run and type REGEDIT
2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then SOFTWARE
then Microsoft
then Windows
then CurrentVersion
then Explorer
then Advanced
On the right side, double click the hidden value and give it a value of 1.
You should now be able to enable hidden files and folders.
When you try to use Internet Explorer under Windows XP you get the error:
The page cannot be displayed. Additionally, you may have no IP address or no Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address, and you may be receiving IP packets but not sending them.
Fixing Winsock 2 may fix this problem.
1. Click on START>RUN
2. Type the following command:
netsh winsock reset catalog
This should reset Winsock 2 registry entries. See if you have the same problem.
After getting off my plane at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, I came across this nice environmental kiosk provided by the City of Chicago. It was blue screened for everybody in the airport to see.
Sorry for the bad quality of the pics, I used a cheap camera phone, but I think you get the idea.
This registry hack forces the use of the classic windows start menu and disables the Windows XP style menu. Good hack for admins.
1. Click START–>RUN and type REGEDIT. Click OK.
2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then SOFTWARE
then Microsoft
then Windows
then CurrentVersion
then Policies
then Explorer
3. Double-click on NoSimpleStartMenu if it exists.
If it doesn’t, right-click on ADVANCED and Select NEW–>DWORD VALUE and name it NoSimpleStartMenu
4. Set this value to 1 to disable the XP menu.
This setting will permanently disable the Windows XP style Start Menu unles the policy or registry is changed.
You receive an error message when launching Disk Defragmenter:
“The Disk Defragmenter is not installed on your computer”
1. Click START–>RUN and type REGEDIT
2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then SOFTWARE
then Microsoft
then Windows
then CurrentVersion
then Explorer
then MyComputer
then DefragPath
In the right-pane, double-click (default) and set its data as follows:
%systemroot%\system32\dfrgui.exe
You should now be able to launch Disk Defargmeter.
Make a windows folder icon have an image or photo appear over it in the Thumbnails view.
This tip is especially useful to use with folders that contain your MP3 or iTunes music files like this example at Paul Thurott’s site. When you view the folder in the Thumbnails view, they will have a photo over the folder. You can include the album art for each folder of your music files.
To do this, just place the image you wish to appear for that folder within that folder and name the image folder.jpg.
Now whenever you are looking at your folders with the selection enabled under VIEW–>THUMBNAILS, that folder will appear with that image over the folder.
List of environment variables used in programming and batch files.
%ERRORLEVEL% - System returns the error code of the most recently used command. A non-0 value usually indicates an error.
%HOMEDRIVE% - System returns which local workstation drive letter is connected to the user’s home directory. This variable is set based on the value of the home directory. The user’s home directory is specified in Local Users and Groups.
%HOMEPATH% - System returns the full path of the user’s home directory. This variable is set based on the value of the home directory. The user’s home directory is specified in Local Users and Groups.
%HOMESHARE% - System returns the network path to the user’s shared home directory. This variable is set based on the value of the home directory. The user’s home directory is specified in Local Users and Groups.
When installing an application, you might get “Error 1324 The Folder Path Contains an Invalid Character”. This is usually caused by an invalid character in the User Profile.
Determine if your user profile contains an invalid character by navigating to C:\Windows\Profiles\Your Profile, where Your Profile is the name of your user profile, such as James Jones. If your profile contains characters, such as “/”, for example, James/Jones, your profile may be damaged. Windows should not allow you to create a user name with invalid characters.
There are two possible fixes: You can turn off user profiles and then run the installation or you can install the software under a different user profile. Turning off user profiles installs the software for all users of the computer. Installing the software under a different profile may install the software for only that profile.
To turn off user profiles, follow these steps:
Read more… »
Here’s how to trick your system into thinking Internet Explorer is not installed so that you can reinstall it.
Problem description: When you try to reinstall Internet Explorer 6 in Windows XP, you get a message that says:
?Setup has detected a newer version of Internet Explorer already installed on this system. Setup cannot continue.?
You can trick the Windows registry into thinking Internet Explorer 6 isn?t installed by doing the following.
1. Click START–>RUN–> and type REGEDIT in the open box.
2. Go to the following registry key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
3. Double click on the {89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383} folder and set the value data to 0.
4. Download the ie6setup.exe and launch it to reinstall Internet Explorer 6.
Windows Installer errors are perhaps the most annoying and hardest to figure out. Here are a few steps to try when encountering these errors. Read more… »
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