I discovered something today which I found quite useful, and I think you might as well – built in hotkeys for the first 10 items in the Quick Launch toolbar.
The first 10 items in toolbar are assigned a number automatically from 1 to 9 with 0 representing 10.
For example, here is my toolbar:
1. Show Desktop
2. Flip 3D
3. My Computer
4. Microsoft Outlook
5. Firefox
With that in mind, say I wanted to open up My Computer which is in position 3 – I would simply press the Windows Key + 3 on the keyboard. If I wanted to open Firefox, I would press the Windows Key + 5 and so on.
Now, considering you can easily use Show Desktop by pressing the Windows Key + D and Flip 3D with the Windows Key + Tab, you might be able to make better use of the Quick Launch hotkeys by removing these and adding in two others that don’t already have shortcut keys assigned to them.
Instead of having to use the keyboard (Windows key + Tab) to access the Flip 3D window switcher, you can actually add the option to the right-click context menu. I can imagine this being absolutely useless to most as it isn’t exactly hard to access the Flip 3D window switcher as it is.
Anyway, if you’re still interested in adding it to the context menu, here’s how it’s done:
1. Open Notepad and Copy the following text into it:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Window Switcher]
@=”{3080F90E-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}”
2. Save the document to your Desktop as flip3d.reg.
3. Go to your Desktop, and double click on the flip3d.reg file.
4. Continue through the UAC prompt and confirm that you wish to perform the action.
Now when you right-click on your Desktop and you should see the Window Switcher option.
If you’ve ever clicked on a file with an unknown extension before, you would have seen a dialog box asking if you would like to “Use the web service to find the correct program“. Now, I don’t know about you, but personally I find this really annoying! If you’re unsure which one I’m talking about, maybe this image will help:
Everyone I know of simply selects “Select a program from a list of installed programs“. If you select this option, the following dialog box will appear:
So, considering that first dialog box is virtually useless, lets make a small change to our registry which will get rid of it.
Changing the Registry
Open regedit.exe by typing it into the Start menu search or run box. Browse down to the following key (if the key doesn’t exist, create it):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Right click on the key Explorer and select New, and then DWORD Value.
Name: NoInternetOpenWith
Value: 1
What you should have now is something that looks similar to this:
If it all looks correct, exit the Registry Editor and try opening a file with an unknown extension. You should be asked straight away which program you would like to use. You don’t have to restart your computer – the registry edit takes effect immediately.
There is one thing that is missing from the Windows Vista Start menu which has existed on every other version of Windows – the Run dialog.
Before you go trying to add it back into the Start menu, you should know that there are a couple of ways to Run commands which don’t require you to have the Run dialog on the Start menu.
1. Press the Windows Key + R on your keyboard and the Run dialog box will appear.
2. Simple press the Windows Key (or click the Start button) and start typing your command.
Yes, the field that says Start Search in it can also be used to run commands.
Still want your Run dialog to appear on the Start menu? Ok, here is how to do it.
Right-click on the Start button, select Properties, and then click the Customise button. You’ll be taken to the Customise Start Menu screen.
Find and check the “Run command” checkbox in the list and then click OK to exit. It should now appear on your Start menu:
Note the addition of the Run… button.
Windows Vista has a nice built-in security feature called User Access Control, or UAC. The UAC basically forces users that are part of the local administrators group to run like they were regular users with no administrative privileges.
Whenever a user that is a member of the local administrators group tries to perform a task that requires administrative privileges (add/remove programs for example), the operating system halts the operation and prompts the user to acknowledge it prior to running the task.
This is a great security feature, not only for beginners but also for advanced users, as it lets you know when something is requiring administrative privileges, and gives you the option to run it or not.
Although I don’t recommend it, a lot of people have asked how they turn this feature off, so here’s how:
Method 1
1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Under User Account and Family settings click on Add or remove user account.
3. Click on one of the user accounts. You can use the Guest account if you want.
4. Under the user account click on the Go to the main User Account page link.
5. Under Make changes to your user account click on the Change security settings link.
6. Untick the box that says Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer. Click on the Ok button.
7. You will be prompted to reboot your computer. Do so when ready.
Method 2
1. Click on the Windows button (start button) and type in MSCONFIG and then press Enter.
2. Click on the Tools tab and scroll down till you find “Disable UAC” and click on that line once.
3. Press the Launch button.
4. A command window will open. When the command is completed, you can close the window.
5. Close MSCONFIG. You need to reboot your computer for changes to take effect.
If you have used Windows Vista for more then a couple of minutes, you have probably discovered the UAC (User Access Control) by now. If you are here reading this article, chances are you want to disable the UAC before it drives you mad!
Note: Disabling the UAC will lead to a less secure system – be warned!
Disable UAC
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
Enable UAC
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pol icies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
After you enable or disable UAC, you will have to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.
Note: If you don’t want to use the command prompt, I wrote an article some time ago which explains how to Enable/Disable the UAC using the Control Panel. This article can be found here!
Many people don’t know it, but there is actually a way to extend the trial period of Windows Vista from 30 days to 120 days (roughly).
If you haven’t activated Vista yet, press the Windows Start + Pause/Break buttons on your keyboard. This should open a window which will display basic information about your computer. Down the bottom you see something similar to this:
As you can see, I have 10 days left to trial Vista… for the time being anyway!
Type cmd into the Start menu search box and then press Crtl+Shift+Enter. This will open the command prompt in administrator mode.
Now run the following command from the prompt:
slmgr -rearm
It will take a minute or two but eventually you will see this prompt:
Click OK and then restart your computer. After it has restarted, press the Windows Start + Pause/Break buttons on your keyboard and you should see that your trial period has now gone back to 30 days:
Note: If you want to get a full 120 days trial, you will need to use this command on day 29 or 30 of your trial. You can only use this command 3 times before Microsoft ends you Vista trialling experience and chucks you into Reduced Functionality Mode, which you can’t do a great deal with!
If you are already locked out (Reduced Functionality Mode)
Good news, you can still reactivate Vista if you have more resets left. If you’ve already used up all 3, then you are out of luck, but if not, you can follow these steps to unlock your computer again.
- Open up Internet Explorer and type C:\ into the address bar. You’ll be prompted by the UAC.
- Now type in C:\Windows\System32\ into the address bar, and find the cmd.exe file. Right-click it and choose Run as Administrator.
- Now use the same command as mentioned above.
- You should see a message saying that the computer is rearmed. Restart the computer at this point.
