Fix Windows Vista Errors

This happened to me recently and at first I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I looked into more and found that the solution was easy.

Basically what happens is that in an explorer folder it shows the files icon but does not show the name, so I had a bunch of similar icons with no names.

What the problem here is that Windows believes you have set the folder as a pictures folder and selected to hide the files names. I have no idea why this happens (unless you have selected that option), but the fix is quite easy;

• Navigate to the folder
• Right click and select customize this folder
• Click the customize tab
• In the top dropdown select pictures and videos as your folder type
• Apply and OK
• Now back to the folder and select view (you may need to hit alt first)
• Uncheck hide file names
• Your file names should be back again

If you are unsure what a notification balloon is then look at this image and I’m sure you have seen it a bunch of times before on your Vista desktop;

To disable these notification balloons you need to perform a basic registry edit;

• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
• Now create a new 32-bit DWORD and name it
  • EnableBalloonTips
• Set the value to 0
• Reboot your computer

What does that title mean? Basically I’m going to explain here how to add a link to your control panel on the right click menu from your desktop, it is just another handy shortcut to the control panel.

You need to do a registry edit here so backup your registry;

• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell
• Create a new key here called Control Panel
• In the Control Panel key create a new key called command
• Modify the default value in the command key and put this;
  • rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL

You will now be able to see the shortcut if you right click your desktop. If you need to get rid of the shortcut for any reason just go and delete the Control Panel key.

I don’t really know why they still make a caps lock button a vital button on the keyboard, when it probably gets used less than that squiggly line button.

If you want to disable the caps lock button you will need to to a registry edit so backup your registry;

• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
• In the right hand blank section right click and select new > binary value
• Call it Scancode Map
• Right click Scancode Map and select modify
• You now have to type these number in exact this order with no commas
  • 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 3a 00 00 00 00 00
• It should now look like this;

• Now click OK
• Close regedit and reboot your computer

If you want to enable your caps lock again just go back into that location in your regedit and simply delete the Scancode Map binary value.

If you are anything like me and use the control panel endlessly then you will love this little trick that allows you to make a shortcut to the control panel. I have looked around and as yet I cannot find a normal shortcut to the control panel so I used this trick.

First you need to make a control panel shortcut in the quick launch menu;

• Open start
• Click on control panel
• Drag the icon to your quick launch area

Once you have setup a shortcut to the control panel in your quick launch area you can now use a direct shortcut to the panel from your keyboard.

In Vista they have set shortcuts from your quicklaunch using the windows key, with winkey+1 being the first quick launch button and so on.

So if your control panel icon is the third quick launch icon then just type winkey+3 and you have a shortcut to the control panel.

Here is a great tweak that I used to use on XP but completely forgot about when I upgraded to Vista, it reduces the shutdown speed using WaitToKillServiceTimeout.

This setting in the registry allows you to specify a length of time that the service control manager must wait for services to complete the shut-down request before shutting down.

So if a value of 20,000 is set then your PC waits 20 seconds for your services to finish before shutting down. This is great to speed up shutdown just don’t go to crazy and try to make it too fast first go - and backup your registry.

• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
• Find this string - WaitToKillServiceTimeout
• Right click and select modify
• Now as I said earlier don’t put down 1000 first time, try using 10,000
• Reboot and test it

You may want to try and reduce the value of WaitToKillServiceTimeout, but just do it by a 1000 at a time.

You may not release this but in Internet Explorer you can only download a maximum of 2 files at once, so if you have a good internet connection you may want to up this for faster downloading.

This is a registry tweak so backup your registry.

• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location;
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
• Create a new DWORD;
  • MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
  • Set the value to 10
• Create another DWORD
  • MaxConnectionsPerServer
  • Set the value to 10
• Exit regedit

You will now find the the maximum amount of files you can download in your Internet Explorer has incresed from 2 to 10.

If you are into a flash looking Vista and don’t care at all about speed/performance then you may want to try enabling the avalon effects.

Before you turn on avalon you need to turn on the Aero desktop.

Once you have enabled Aero then you can turn on avalon;

• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer
• Create a new DWORD and call it
  • MILDesktop
• Set its value to 1
• Create another DWORD and call it
  • MILExplorer
• Set its value to 1
• Reboot your computer

Some of you will know it as the F3 search button and some of you will know it as the ctrl+f button but whatever you use it does the same thing, search the page in IE and explorer for certain letters/words.

Now personally I love this feature and use it daily (I’m still a ctrl+f man), but I have heard that some people want it gone due to security and privacy reasons.

This is an easy tweak to perform but as usual whenever you perform a registry edit it is a good idea to backup your registry.

• Open up Regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions
• Create a new DWORD
  • NoFindFiles
• Set the value to 1
• You will need to reboot to see it active

There are so many types of tweaks you can perform on your computer that will speed it up, and some are more unknown than others.

Here are a few of these type of tweaks, they don’t involve RAM or drivers but every small tweak you make can improve the overall performance of your PC.

Remove Unwanted Fonts

Believe it or not, the more fonts you have installed the slower your computer will perform. It may not be a drastic slowness but everything help, so you should go through and delete any unwanted fonts.

Note: Windows uses many fonts for menu bars etc. so don’t go deleting all your fonts, just ones you know are useless.

• Open control panel
• Click appearance and personalization
• Open fonts
• Find the fonts you want to delete, right click and delete
• Done

Disable System Sounds

I didn’t believe this at first, but turning off your system sounds can make a slight improvement of your PC’s performance.

• Open control panel
• Click hardware and sound
• Open sound
• Select the sounds tab
• Under sound scheme in the drop down select no sounds
• Apply and OK