Fix Windows Vista Errors

The borders on Windows Vista have been set large by default so their new graphics and design can be shown off, but if you don’t like the large borders you can adjust the size of them;

• Right click your desktop
• Click personalize
• Click windows color and appearance
• Click advanced
• From the dropdown select border padding
• Change the size (I suggest 2)
• Click OK
• Done

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

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 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

You should all now know about the cool new Vista power options feature where you can use very low power to sleep your PC and wake up ready to go at a moments notice. But what we are hearing from many of our users is that quite often they will come back to their computer to find it on, burning electricity.

There are a few things that may be causing Vista to wake up out of a nap, hopefully these tweaks should let your Vista PC sleep well and not burn up energy.

A Device is Waking Your PC Up?

Your PC may be getting woken up by a device that is set to wake up your PC. To check what devices are waking up your computer and how to fix the problem just read the following;

• Open cmd (run as administrator)
• Type this at the command prompt;
  • powercfg –devicequery wake_armed
• This will show you a list of devices that will wake up your PC

You can disable a device from waking up your PC by doing this;

• Open device manager
• Find your suspect device
• Right click and press properties
• Click the power management tab
• Uncheck ‘allow this device to wake the computer’
• Click OK

Stop Your Network Card From Waking Up Your PC

Just like your devices your network card can also wake your Vista machine up, you can disable this feature by doing this;

• Go to device manager
• Expand network adapters
• Right click on your network card and click properties
• Make sure ‘allow this device to wake the computer’ is unchecked
• Click OK

Edit Multimedia Power Options

You may want to perform this tweak so your multimedia features won’t wake up your PC;

• Type power options in your start bar
• Click change plan settings on your power plan
• Click change advanced power settings
• Scroll down and expand multimedia settings
• Expand when sharing media
• Choose allow the computer to sleep (you can decide if you want this on battery, plugged in or both)
• Done

I have written a few posts before about editing your task bar so I was suprized when I found out I had not said anything about resizing it.

This is a quick tweak you can perform that will make your task bar larger, enabling you to access more shortcuts etc from your task bar.

• Right click in your task bar
• Uncheck lock the task bar
• Use your mouse and at the top of the task bar drag the bar up to your desired height
• Now lock the task bar again
• Done

If you are running a public machine or many people use your PC you may want to stop anyone from accessing the control panel where they could change settings etc.

I know of people who have had trouble in the past with ‘idiots’ changing all sorts of settings on the computers at places like libraries and were rather happy when I gave them this tweak.

To restrict control panel access just do this registry edit (remember to backup first);

• Open regedit
• Navigate to these locations
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\Explorer
• Create a new DWORD value
  • NoControlPanel
• Set the value to 0
• Close regedit
• Reboot
• You should find the control panel can no longer be accessed

Whenever you save an Office document the saved file also keeps information about your computer, this can include things like your name.

If you want to remove this information on files you may be emailing out then you can do this easy tweak that will remove all personal information;

• Navigate to your Office file
• Right click on it
• Select properties
• Select the details tab
• Click on remove properties and personal information
• Select remove the following properties from this file
• Select the items you want removed
• Done