A few simple tweaks can cut down on the irritation—and drastically alter your views on Vista. Let's take a look at some of the best ways to tame the Vista beast and make it a less naggy operating system to work on.
Stop Losing the Sleep Button to Windows Update
Use Compatibility Mode to Make Applications Work
Fix File Copying Problems
Stop Hard Drive Grinding
How to Make Windows Vista Less Annoying
Monday, May 25, 2009
Vista Explorer Send To Menu
You right-click a file and choose Send To, and then have to wait for about 30 seconds for explorer to respond again. Annoying! so how do we fix it?
Open up Explorer and then type in the following into the address/location bar:
shell:sendto
You'll see the contents of the Send To folder, where you can delete anything that shouldn't be there or you don't use.
Hide Drive Letters With Registry Hack
You can remove the drive letters in the Send To menu with a quick registry hack.
Download DisableSendToDrives Registry Hack
source : http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/why-does-my-windows-vista-explorer-send-to-menu-hang-or-open-slowly/
Open up Explorer and then type in the following into the address/location bar:
shell:sendto
You'll see the contents of the Send To folder, where you can delete anything that shouldn't be there or you don't use.
Hide Drive Letters With Registry Hack
You can remove the drive letters in the Send To menu with a quick registry hack.
Download DisableSendToDrives Registry Hack
source : http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/why-does-my-windows-vista-explorer-send-to-menu-hang-or-open-slowly/
Friday, May 22, 2009
Invalid MS-DOS function occurs on Microsoft® Windows Vista™
The error Invalid MS-DOS function occurs on Microsoft® Windows Vista™.
Symptom
To add the CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo registry entry, follow these steps:
Symptom
The Invalid MS-DOS function error occurs when a file is copied on Windows Vista through a dynamic view where the following is true:
- The file is greater than or equal to 256 KB
- The file is under source control
- The file is checked-in.
The error occurs whether you try to copy and paste or drag and drop from ClearCase Explorer or from Windows Explorer.
Note: The error Invalid function occurs if you try to copy from the command-line.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941673To add the CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo registry entry, follow these steps:
- Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
- Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System
- On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
- Type CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo to name the new entry, and then press ENTER.
- Right-click CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo, and then click Modify.
- In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
- Exit Registry Editor.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
What Will The World Do With More Search Engines?
Microsoft says it will introduce its new search engine within the next few days. The world's largest software company has called the project "Kumo."
Microsoft argues that if its search engine brings back more relevant results than Google or Yahoo! that people will eventually migrate to the "best" product. That may not be true. Google has become a habit for more than two-thirds of the people who use search engines in the United States. It is generally considered the best product, but in the final analysis that decision is subjective. Google is certainly the search program that gets the most positive votes if use means anything.
"Kumo" may be just as good as Google, although the largest search engine keeps improving and adding to its functions. It is far too early to tell whether Microsoft can pick up a single new user even if its product is 99% as good as Google in the eyes of most people who look for things online.
Loyalty is not always the by-product of function, although function often creates loyalty.
The trouble with the search business is that its future may have almost nothing to do with whether search results get more accurate. Google's information is already more than adequate for the huge majority of people who are trying to find information online. At some point, and that point has probably been reached, people cannot tell the difference between flying in an airplane that is at 32,000 feet and one that is flying 1,000 feet higher. The change in perspective means nothing to them. All they know is that they are as high as they have to be to get where they are going.
Microsoft argues that if its search engine brings back more relevant results than Google or Yahoo! that people will eventually migrate to the "best" product. That may not be true. Google has become a habit for more than two-thirds of the people who use search engines in the United States. It is generally considered the best product, but in the final analysis that decision is subjective. Google is certainly the search program that gets the most positive votes if use means anything.
"Kumo" may be just as good as Google, although the largest search engine keeps improving and adding to its functions. It is far too early to tell whether Microsoft can pick up a single new user even if its product is 99% as good as Google in the eyes of most people who look for things online.
Loyalty is not always the by-product of function, although function often creates loyalty.
The trouble with the search business is that its future may have almost nothing to do with whether search results get more accurate. Google's information is already more than adequate for the huge majority of people who are trying to find information online. At some point, and that point has probably been reached, people cannot tell the difference between flying in an airplane that is at 32,000 feet and one that is flying 1,000 feet higher. The change in perspective means nothing to them. All they know is that they are as high as they have to be to get where they are going.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
AptDiff
AptDiff is a visual text / binary files comparison and merging utility for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista. It is highly useful for web designers, software developers, and other professionals.
AptDiff features a double-pane view that allows for side-by-side comparisons, with customizable color-coding indicating whether each line/byte is added, deleted, or changed. AptDiff can also export the side-by-side comparison to a nicely formatted HTML page for publishing on the web.
AptDiff can be installed on FLASH or other portable drives. All user configurations are saved in the movable drive. You can carry AptDiff with you wherever your travels or business take you and run it on almost any computer.
Web Site :http://www.aptedit.com/aptdiff.htm
Vista Services can be disabled
The most effective ways to secure a Windows workstation is to turn off unnecessary services. This reference sheet lists the Windows Vista services, describes each service's function, specifies whether you can safely disable the service, and outlines the ramifications of disabling it
Download here
Download here
Change User Profile Folder Location in Vista
Moving my entire User Profile folder structure, including Default, Public, and any local users.
In my search for a solution, the only two easy ways I found to move the user profile directory locations from the system drive is to
- Set the User Profile folder during setup using an unattended install file.
- Move the individual folders inside your user profile, which can be done using explorer (which will update the registry keys HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders).
However, this was not good enough for me, I wanted my actual user profile folder to be moved to a seperate partition/volume, including registry settings. I discovered that it is not actually that hard, provided you’re comfortable with mass replacing registry keys and values.
Here is how I moved my user profile location. Please note that I wanted all of the profiles moved, included Public and Default, so some of these steps can be skipped if you do not want that:
- Make sure you have a complete backup of your system!
- Copy the original Default Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Default to D:\Users\Default).
- Copy the original Public Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Public to D:\Users\Public).
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
- Change the value of the Default key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Default).
- Change the value of the Public key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Public).
- Change the value of the ProfilesDirectory to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users).
- At this point, you need to restart and log back in as a different user that has never logged in before and therefore does not have a profile created. In my case, the Administrator user had never logged in before so I enabled it so that Administrator could log in and used that. You can enable Administrator login by loading Computer Management and then go to User Accounts, edit the properties for Administrator, and then uncheck Disable Login.
- After logging in for the first time with the new user account, you will see “Creating Desktop” and other things like that while Windows is creating your profile. Note that the new profile should be created in the new location.
- After logging in, try to close as many applications as possible. This will prevent most files from being locked so that you cannot copy them.
- Copy the entire original user profiles folder from the original location to the new location (e.g. C:\Users\* to D:\Users\). (See next step after copy starts).
- There are a few things to note during this copy. There were thousands of .TMP files that were locked and would not copy. I just skipped these files. I held down Alt-S so that I could see all of the skipped files and make sure that there were only .TMP files being skipped. Yes, this took a little while, but at least I was confident that I got all of my files copied. This process could probably be made easier using the command prompt or powershell.
- If, in your case, there are some files that will not copy, you can run procexp.exe, which is file provided by sysinternals. Then do a Find Handle and search for part of the filename. procexp will tell you which programs are locking the file. As long as you closed as many programs as you could, though, this should not happen.
- Find and download a program that will do a Search & Replace on the registry. I will not suggest one because I did not find one single program that worked perfectly. I ended up downloading a few different freeware applications and using all of them.
- Using the Registry Search & Replace program, do a search for the original user profile folder and replace it with the new user profile folder (e.g. search for “C:\Users” and replace with “D:\Users”. Note that some of the applications I used would only change values and not key names. However, the keys that needed to be chagned were all related to MuiCache. I do not know if these actually need to be updated. I did just to make sure.
- Log out. Log back in with the same user. Repeat step 14 until there is nothing left to replace. The reason for this step is that on logout, some programs seem to update the registry using the old user profile path.
- Run regedit.exe and do a search for the original user profile path and make sure it does not exist. The reason for this step is because (as noted in step 13), I did not trust any of the Registry Search & Replace programs I used. I ended up needing to update about a dozen of the keys and values manually, since the search & replace missed them.
- So that you can easily find programs that do not use the registry and hard-coded profile paths, rename your original profile folder (e.g. rename C:\Users to C:\~Users).
- Log out. Log back in as your usual user. Everything should be working correctly except for programs that use a “hardcoded” user profile location.
- There are two easy methods that can be used to find programs that use a “hardcoded” profile location and are still looking for the original user profile path. You can use the procexp.exe trick mentioned above and search for handles in the original profile location. You can also monitor the oringal profile location to see if any new folders or files were created. For example, in my case, FolderShare created some folders and files in the directory C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Local\FolderShare\. So, I updated the FolderShare settings to point to the different path and then deleted the C:\Users directory (note that C:\~Users still existed as a backup).
- Since you are now confident that all of your data has been moved (right??????), you can deleted the backup of the original user profile location (e.g. C:\~Users).
Free Video Cutter
Free Video Cutter is a free video utility to help you to cut and split your video files into small size you can use it as a "video cutter", "video splitter" or "video clipper". Program can work with most video formats, such as MPEG 1/2, MPEG4, DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, Quicktime MOV, Flash video and more, the output video can have a good video quality.
http://lifehacker.com/5256700/free-video-cutter-cuts-and-splits-your-videos
Web site
http://www.freevideocutter.com/
http://lifehacker.com/5256700/free-video-cutter-cuts-and-splits-your-videos
Web site
http://www.freevideocutter.com/
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
FreeFileSync
FreeFileSync is an Open-Source folder comparison and synchronization tool. It is optimized for highest performance and usability without restricted or overloaded UI interfaces.
OS: Windows, Ubuntu 9.04,
http://www.freewarezoom.com/archives/freefilesync
OS: Windows, Ubuntu 9.04,
http://www.freewarezoom.com/archives/freefilesync
ozSync is an utility that enables you to synchronize files and folders. Synchronize operations can be started manually, time scheduled or made in Real-Time.
Backup of replaced files can be enabled and old files will be store in the standard $ozSyncBackup[date_time] directory. Backups of old files can
be zipped at main root backup dir or relative to changed file/s location.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/ozSync.shtml
This is portable program.
Download the ZIP file and extract to a folder of your choice
Backup of replaced files can be enabled and old files will be store in the standard $ozSyncBackup[date_time] directory. Backups of old files can
be zipped at main root backup dir or relative to changed file/s location.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/ozSync.shtml
This is portable program.
Download the ZIP file and extract to a folder of your choice
Vista to Windows 7 upgrade
Microsoft plans to allow PC makers to offer customers who buy Windows Vista machines as of July 1 free upgrades to Windows 7 once it ships.
The Windows 7 Upgrade Program is designed to assist Microsoft's OEM partners in minimizing the number of end users who may postpone acquiring a new computer because of the impending release of the Windows 7 operating system. This program allows OEMs to offer an upgrade to Windows 7 to end users who qualify.
This is a consumer-oriented program targeted at individual consumers and small businesses that have purchased eligible PCs during the Program Eligibility Period. End users will have to meet these requirements to be deemed eligible for the upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released :
- End users must purchase a new PC that is pre-installed with an eligible Windows Vista Operating System (OS), during the program eligibility window.
- The PC must have a valid Certificate of Authenticity (COA) attached.
- The only Windows Vista® versions eligible for the program are :
- Windows Vista® Home Premium
- Windows Vista® Business
- Windows Vista® Ultimate
- The Program does not support multiple upgrades for medium, large, or enterprise customers. Customers that want to upgrade multiple PCs should use the appropriate Microsoft Volume Licensing program. See www.microsoft.com/licensing for more details.
- The following are the only valid upgrade paths under the program :
- Windows Vista® Home Premium -> Windows® 7 Home Premium
- Windows Vista® Business -> Windows® 7 Professional
- Windows Vista® Ultimate -> Windows® 7 Ultimate
Do note that this is an optional program, so not all OEMs may choose to participate. OEMs that choose to participate in this upgrade program will have the freedom to determine how to best provide qualifying end users with the details.
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=609&pgno=0Friday, May 8, 2009
FLAC
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.
FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec, and the only one that at once is non-proprietary, is unencumbered by patents, has an open-source reference implementation, has a well documented format and API, and has several other independent implementations.
http://flac.sourceforge.net/
If you want to play FLAC files, here is how with some popular players:
FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec, and the only one that at once is non-proprietary, is unencumbered by patents, has an open-source reference implementation, has a well documented format and API, and has several other independent implementations.
http://flac.sourceforge.net/
If you want to play FLAC files, here is how with some popular players:
- Winamp - Winamp plays FLAC out of the box (download the Full version to also get FLAC encoding).
- dbPowerAMP Audio Player - Install the FLAC plugin.
- Media Center/Media Jukebox - Install the in_FLAC plugin.
- MediaMonkey - Plays FLAC out of the box.
- dbPowerAMP CD Writer - Install the FLAC plugin.
- Burrrn - Supports burning from FLAC out of the box.
- Winamp - Winamp can convert to/from FLAC out of the box since version 5.31 if you download the Full version (not Lite).
- dbPowerAMP Music Converter - Install the FLAC plugin.
- FLAC Frontend - A simple GUI that comes in our FLAC Installer for Windows. Also includes our command-line programs for converting FLAC files and editing metadata.
- foobar2000 - A swiss army knife that supports FLAC out of the box.
- MediaMonkey
Recuva 1.26.416
Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted from your iPod, or by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Home page : www.recuva.com
Home page : www.recuva.com
- Simple to use interface - just click 'Scan' and choose the files you want to recover
- Easy to use filter for results based on file name/type
- Simple Windows like interface with List and Tree view
- Can be run from a USB thumb drive
- Restores all types of files, office documents, images, video, music, email, anything.
- Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 , NTFS + EFS file systems
- Restores files from removable media (SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MemoryStick, Digital cameras, Floppy disks, Jaz Disks, Sony Memory Sticks, Compact Flash cards, Smart Media Cards, Secure Digital Cards, etc.)
- Restores files from external ZIP drives , Firewire and USB Hard drives
- It's fast, tiny and takes seconds to run
stack and heap
The stack is a place in the computer memory where all the variables that are declared and initialized before runtime are stored. The heap is the section of computer memory where all the variables created or initialized at runtime are stored.
more detail download -
more detail download -
Increment and Decrement Operators
++i add 1 to i
--j subtract 1 from j
These correspond to the slightly longer i += 1 and j -= 1, respectively, and also to the fully ``longhand'' forms i = i + 1 and j = j - 1.
The ++ and -- operators apply to one operand (they're unary operators). The expression ++i adds 1 to i, and stores the incremented result back in i. This means that these operators don't just compute new values; they also modify the value of some variable. (They share this property--modifying some variable--with the assignment operators; we can say that these operators all have side effects. That is, they have some effect, on the side, other than just computing a new value.)
The incremented (or decremented) result is also made available to the rest of the expression, so an expression like
k = 2 * ++i
means ``add one to i, store the result back in i, multiply it by 2, and store that result in k.'' (This is a pretty meaningless expression; our actual uses of ++ later will make more sense.)
Both the ++ and -- operators have an unusual property: they can be used in two ways, depending on whether they are written to the left or the right of the variable they're operating on. In either case, they increment or decrement the variable they're operating on; the difference concerns whether it's the old or the new value that's ``returned'' to the surrounding expression. The prefix form ++i increments i and returns the incremented value. The postfix form i++ increments i, but returns the prior, non-incremented value. Rewriting our previous example slightly, the expression
k = 2 * i++
means ``take i's old value and multiply it by 2, increment i, store the result of the multiplication in k.''
The distinction between the prefix and postfix forms of ++ and -- will probably seem strained at first, but it will make more sense once we begin using these operators in more realistic situations.
1++
or
(2+3)++
The ++ operator doesn't just mean ``add one'';
it means ``add one to a variable'' or ``make a variable's value one more than it was before.''
But (1+2) is not a variable, it's an expression;
so there's no place for ++ to store the incremented result.
Another unfortunate example is
i = i++;
which some confused programmers sometimes write, presumably because they want to be extra sure that i is incremented by 1. But i++ all by itself is sufficient to increment i by 1; the extra (explicit) assignment to i is unnecessary and in fact counterproductive, meaningless, and incorrect.
If you want to increment i (that is, add one to it, and store the result back in i), either use
i = i + 1;
or
i += 1;
or
++i;
or
i++;
Don't try to use some bizarre combination.
Did it matter whether we used ++i or i++ in this last example? Remember, the difference between the two forms is what value (either the old or the new) is passed on to the surrounding expression. If there is no surrounding expression, if the ++i or i++ appears all by itself, to increment i and do nothing else, you can use either form; it makes no difference.
for(i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
printf("%d\n", i);
and
for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
printf("%d\n", i);
will behave exactly the same way and produce exactly the same results. (In real code, postfix increment is probably more common, though prefix definitely has its uses, too.)
http://c-faq.com/~scs/cclass/notes/sx7b.html
--j subtract 1 from j
These correspond to the slightly longer i += 1 and j -= 1, respectively, and also to the fully ``longhand'' forms i = i + 1 and j = j - 1.
The ++ and -- operators apply to one operand (they're unary operators). The expression ++i adds 1 to i, and stores the incremented result back in i. This means that these operators don't just compute new values; they also modify the value of some variable. (They share this property--modifying some variable--with the assignment operators; we can say that these operators all have side effects. That is, they have some effect, on the side, other than just computing a new value.)
The incremented (or decremented) result is also made available to the rest of the expression, so an expression like
k = 2 * ++i
means ``add one to i, store the result back in i, multiply it by 2, and store that result in k.'' (This is a pretty meaningless expression; our actual uses of ++ later will make more sense.)
Both the ++ and -- operators have an unusual property: they can be used in two ways, depending on whether they are written to the left or the right of the variable they're operating on. In either case, they increment or decrement the variable they're operating on; the difference concerns whether it's the old or the new value that's ``returned'' to the surrounding expression. The prefix form ++i increments i and returns the incremented value. The postfix form i++ increments i, but returns the prior, non-incremented value. Rewriting our previous example slightly, the expression
k = 2 * i++
means ``take i's old value and multiply it by 2, increment i, store the result of the multiplication in k.''
The distinction between the prefix and postfix forms of ++ and -- will probably seem strained at first, but it will make more sense once we begin using these operators in more realistic situations.
1++
or
(2+3)++
The ++ operator doesn't just mean ``add one'';
it means ``add one to a variable'' or ``make a variable's value one more than it was before.''
But (1+2) is not a variable, it's an expression;
so there's no place for ++ to store the incremented result.
Another unfortunate example is
i = i++;
which some confused programmers sometimes write, presumably because they want to be extra sure that i is incremented by 1. But i++ all by itself is sufficient to increment i by 1; the extra (explicit) assignment to i is unnecessary and in fact counterproductive, meaningless, and incorrect.
If you want to increment i (that is, add one to it, and store the result back in i), either use
i = i + 1;
or
i += 1;
or
++i;
or
i++;
Don't try to use some bizarre combination.
Did it matter whether we used ++i or i++ in this last example? Remember, the difference between the two forms is what value (either the old or the new) is passed on to the surrounding expression. If there is no surrounding expression, if the ++i or i++ appears all by itself, to increment i and do nothing else, you can use either form; it makes no difference.
for(i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
printf("%d\n", i);
and
for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
printf("%d\n", i);
will behave exactly the same way and produce exactly the same results. (In real code, postfix increment is probably more common, though prefix definitely has its uses, too.)
http://c-faq.com/~scs/cclass/notes/sx7b.html
Thursday, May 7, 2009
CrossLoop Remotely Controls Any Windows or Mac PC
The benefit of CrossLoop has always been that it's very easy to set up and use, even for beginners
Just install (on both your computer and the computer you want to control), sign up for accounts, and you'll be up and sharing screens in no time once you swap the automatically generated access code.
Download
Just install (on both your computer and the computer you want to control), sign up for accounts, and you'll be up and sharing screens in no time once you swap the automatically generated access code.
Download
Gladinet Web Storage Manager
Windows: Gladinet, the desktop utility that mounts Google, Windows Live, and other web/cloud storage applications as locally backed-up folders.
The idea behind Gladinet's cloud desktop software is to bridge the various online services we use regularly with the files and data we keep on our PC's hard drive.
Blog Source
Web Site
The idea behind Gladinet's cloud desktop software is to bridge the various online services we use regularly with the files and data we keep on our PC's hard drive.
Blog Source
Web Site
UltraVNC 1.0.5.6
UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. If you provide computer support, you can quickly access your customer's computers from anywhere in the world and resolve helpdesk issues remotely! With addons like SingleClick your customers don't even have to pre-install software or execute complex procedures to get remote helpdesk support.
UltraVNC 1.0.5.6 Release
Download here
UltraVNC 1.0.5.6 Release
Download here
Saturday, May 2, 2009
recover deleted files
Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
http://www.recuva.com/
http://www.recuva.com/