Computer trivia

In Windows Vista Home Edition, Group Editing Policy is disabled by default. Group Editing can be used to tweak Windows in many ways like disabling balloon pop ups as described in the previous post. Though disabled in Home Edition, it is possible to enable this functionality with a simple registry hack.

- Open RUN box and type regedit

- The registry editor will be opened and  in the left pane traverse to the following location

“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa”

- Now,  on the right pane create a DWORD value (by right clicking) and name it ‘LmCompatibilityLevel’. Do not create this DWORD if it already exists.

- Open this newly created DWORD by double clicking it and enter 1 in the value section

- Close the registry editor and reboot the machine to enable gpedit.msc (group policy editor)

Windows is known for the balloon tips which pop up from the tray bar to alert the user about any required actions or in some cases just to provide some information. Usually, the balloon tips need to be closed manually and this can be irritating in cases. There is a way to quickly disable the balloon tips in Windows. Follow these steps.

- Click the start button  and type gpeedit.msc in the start search and then press Enter

- A group policy editor window will open

- In this window, expand User Configuration

- Under User Configuration, expand Administrative Templates and then ‘Start Menu and Taskbar’

- Under start menu items, right click on ‘Remove Balloon Tips’ and open its properties

- In the properties window, select Enable and click on OK

- Close the group policy editor window and you will not see any balloon tips on your machine.

Note that gpedit.msc is disable by default in Vista Home Edition. The instructions to enable gpedit.msc in Vista Home Edition can be found in tomorrow’s post.

Switching users is a great utility provided in all the versions of Windows since Windows XP. Using this utility, it is possible for more than one user to logon to the machine at a time without requiring to logoff the first user. This is very handy when you are working on a machine and some one else needs to access his account for a brief period. You can just switch users, which means that all your programs will be running (note, they will be running and not saved in memory like hibernation) and the second user can logon and work as he would under a normal circumstance.

The following are the steps to create a short cut to switch users quickly.

- Open the folder where you want to have the shortcut

- Rightclick and select New -> Shortcut

- A new window asking for a location will pop up. Type ‘c:\windows\system32\tsdiscon.exe’ in the location field and proceed

- In the next field give a proper name for your shortcut, say UserSwitch

- Click OK and you can use this shortcut to quickly switch between users

Windows Vista is equipped with a new feature which makes selecting multiple files very easy. Earlier, to select multiple files, one has to hold the Ctrl key and then select all the required files. If, by chance you release the Ctrl key (unintentionally) and click on a file, all the files selected will get deselected. I guess, everyone would have encountered this problem at least once. So, Vista has this new feature which enables checkbox selection of multiple files.

In this method, Vista will place a checkbox at the top left corner of all the files and folders and multiple files and folders can be selected by just checking the boxes next to the files. Do not worry, the checkboxes will be visible only when the mouse is hovered over the file. To enable the checkbox selection, follow these steps.

- Open any windows explorer window

- Press Alt+T+O

- The ‘Folder Options’ window will pop-up

- In this window, click on the View Tab

- Under Advanced Settings, select ‘Use check boxes to select items’

- Click OK

- Close all explorer windows and the next time you open them, you can use this new feature

This is a tip to enhance the computer performance, in case you are using a SATA harddisk. With SATA disks, the performance of the hardisk can be enhanced slightly by enabling write caching which is disabled by default. Note that, enabling write caching can cause dataloss in case of sudden power loss and thus it should be enabled only on machines with a power backup. Laptops anyway have power backup and on desktops enable write caching, only if you have a UPS power backup.

The following are the steps to enable write caching

- Right Click on ‘My Computer’ and select ‘properties’

- Click on ‘Device Manager’

- Expand ‘Disk Drives’ and right click on the hard disk and select ‘properties’

- Click on ‘Policies’ tab and check the box against  ‘Enable Write caching on Disk’

Click OK and you are done.

Though most of the general file formats will already be associated with certain programs, you might encounter file formats with no specific program associated with them (say, .MTS format). In such cases, when you try to open the file, Windows gives a screen with two options - To choose a program from a list of available programs or use the web lookup service to know which program is to be used to open the file.

For novice users who do not know which program to use to open a specific file, Web Lookup service is useful. But for more advanced users, this service is not needed as the user might already be knowing what program to use to open a specific file. In that case, you can disable the web lookup service and directly goto the list of applications and choose one. Following is the registry hack to achieve this.

- Open RUN box and type ‘regedit’ to open the registry editor

- In the left pane of the registry editor, traverse to the following location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

- In the right pane, right click and create a new DWORD. Name this DWORD as ‘NoInternetOpenWith’ and set its value to 1.

- Close registry editor and reboot the machine for the changes to take effect.

Windows Vista is a resource monger. However, it comes with a great feature to make up to the low RAM systems and this new technology is called ReadyBoost. Using this, you can convert a flash drive to work as a RAM. This is possible because of the high speed nature of the flash drives.

 There are certain requirements for ready boost to work, but you do not need to know all the requirements. Just plug in the USB drive and see the properties of the drive after it is inserted (by right clicking and selecting properties). If the device supports ReadyBoost you will see a ReadyBoost tab in the properties windows. Click on this tab and select the device for ready boost. Click OK and it is done!

Did you ever notice the small network icon in the traybar which shows the current status of the network. It has three states, each for connected, local access only and disconnected states. However, in Vista the animation effects of this icon are disabled by default. In Windows XP you could see the icon blinking whenever there is a transfer of data and the icon would not blink when the connection is idle. Though this may not be very useful, its good to know when there is actual data transfer going on.

To enable the network icon animation in Vista, simply right click on the network icon in the traybar and you will find  ‘TurnOn Activity Animation’. Select this option to enable animation.

Do you know of the start utility on Windows? Well, it is not Start button, but the start utility. All the versions of Windows a command line utility called ’start’ which can be used to launch programs on a specified CPU with a specified property. Suppose you wanted to start the ‘Calculator’ program on the third CPU with a low priority, the following is the syntax.

start /affinity 3 /low calc.exe

 Here ‘3′ represents the processor number on which the program must be run and should be the number of the processor in Hex format.

‘low’ represents the priority to be given to this program and can have one of the following values

- Low

- Normal

- High

- Realtime

- Above Normal

- Below Normal

The following are some useful tips while working with Windows Command Prompt.

- Quick Edit mode is very useful for editing capabilities in Command Prompt. See how to enable it here

- Printing directly from the command prompt is possible with the following syntax   ‘copy filename.doc prn’

- Use the Up and Down arrow keys to traverse through the already typed in command in the session

- Some times the output scrolls out of the visible range and the output redirection operator will be helpful

syntax: command > file.txt will put the output of the command in file.txt

- While typing in file names and paths, type the name partially and hit ‘Tab’ to see the available suggestions. If you crossed a required suggestion by chance, use ‘Shift + Tab’ to go back.