Fix Windows Vista Errors

You will notice in Vista (also in XP) that whenever you make a shortcut the word ’shortcut’ appears in the icon, like this;

There is an easy registry hack you can perform that will take off the word ’shortcut’ on all new shortcuts you make, just do this;

• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
• Find the key called link
• Change the value from 1e 00 00 00 to 00 00 00 00
• Reboot your PC
• Done

If you are sick of Windows Media Player opening up the whole player every time you run a song then you can do this tweak that will set it to just open the mini player when you play a song;

• Open windows media player
• Click now playing > more options
• Click the player tab
• Make sure ’start the mini player…’ is checked
• Now you have to add something in the line underneath, basically any word that will be in music files that you start (examples below)
  • add mp3 if all your music files are mp3’s
  • add the drive name if all files are kept in the one drive (eg. C:)
• Click apply
• Done

Do you need to lock down your computer in a hurry (don’t want your boss to see your game of solitaire!), then here are a couple of shortcuts you can use;

Keyboard

Simple, just use this shortcut

• Win key + L

Mouse

• Right click your desktop and select new > shortcut
• Type the following in the first screen
  • rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

• Now click next
• Now select a name for your shortcut (ie. SHUTDOWN)
• Click finish
• Done

You may have noticed the ease of access button on your Vista logon screen in the bottom right hand corner, this is designed so that anyone with a disability can change setting etc so they can easily use the PC.

But what this also means is that even though no one can access your computer unless they know the password, anyone can walk up and still change your ease of access settings.

You may want to disable this button, you do this by;

• Download the software here
• Run the software as an administrator
• Now click OK
• You will now come to a screen with an option to disable ease of access
• Click disable
• You should still be able to see the ease of access button on logon screen, but it will not be active

Now this tweak probably sounds useless to many of our users out there, but it is actually a handy hack for some.

If you do design or work with images etc you would have encountered a time where you needed to move the arrow 1 or 2 pixels but found it tough with the mouse, this is where Mouse Keys is useful.

Mouse Keys is a small application that allows you to control your mouse arrow with your numbers keys, thus allowing you to easily move it 1 pixel at a time.

To activate Mouse Keys just follow this;

• Open control panel
• Click ease of access
• Click change how your mouse works
• Click setup mouse keys
• Here you can change the setting to your liking
• Click apply
• You should use the shortcut of Alt+Shift+Num Lock

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

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.

I was playing around with some settings in Vista today trying to find anything ‘new’ to tell you guys about, I didn’t have too long so I didn’t find the ultimate tweak but I did find 2 useful shortcut tweaks.

They both involve the start menu;

Add Run Command to Your Start Menu

• Right click in your task bar
• Select properties
• Click the start menu tab
• Click customize
• Scroll down and check run command
• Click ok
• Your run command will now be in your start menu

Add a Regedit Shortcut to Your Start Menu

• If you are like me and love regedit then you will love this tweak
• Click on your start menu and type regedit
• On the regedit.exe program right click
• Select pin to start menu now reopen your start menu and you will see the shortcut

If you have ever tried to download large amounts of data on a USB stick you will have noticed just how long it takes, well this is a tweak that will improve the speeds that you can download things onto your USB drive.

Warning: If you take your USB stick out of your PC a lot you may lose data if you perform this tweak.

• Click start
• Right click on computer and select manage
• Select device manager
• Expand disk drives and select your USB drive
• Right click and select properties
• Select the policies tab
• Select optimize for performance
• Select OK
• Done

Here are a couple of tweaks you can perform that should increase the speed of your hard drive, just take note of some of the warnings before you perform these tweaks.

Low Disk Space Warning

• You need to disable your Low Disk Space Warning
• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer
• Select a new DWORD and call it NoLowDiskSpaceChecks
• Set the value to 1
• Done

Enable Advanced Performance

• Open your control panel
• Click system and maintenance
• Click device manager
• Expand disk drives
• Double click on your drive
• Select the policies tab
• Check enable advanced performance
• Click OK, done