Vista Explorer Shortcut

Windows Vista Explorer Shortcut are as followed

Note that this is also the quickest way to get to the Desktop folder… just keep hitting Alt+Up until you get to the right folder.
Other interesting keyboard shortcuts for Explorer:

• Alt+Right - Go forward
• Alt+Left- Go back
• Alt+D – Focus the address bar and select the current path.
• F4 – Pop up the dropdown in the address bar, actually somewhat useful.
• Alt+Enter – Properties of the selected file
• Ctrl+Mousewheel – change the size of the icons
• F11 - Put explorer into Fullscreen mode. Actually kinda weird, and I have no idea why this function is even there.

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Vista AppData

In Vista, the biggest change in the arrangement of a user's settings is the creation of the AppData folder. Furthermore, this AppData folder has three subfolders, Local, LocalLow and Roaming. As with Local Settings, a folder called Application Data exists in Vista for backwards compatibility with XP.

If you look closely at the icons under the Users folder, you will notice that some subfolders have a shortcut arrow. These arrows indicate a Junction point or Symbolic link. For ordinary mortals stick with the idea that these folders represent shortcuts, for example, the 'All Users' settings are now actually stored here --> C:\ProgramData. As far as Microsoft's technical explanation of Junction Points and Symbolic links, it was a case of 'Guy is reading, but Guy is not understanding'.


source : http://www.computerperformance.co.uk

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Fix corrupted user profile

Assume in this example that the username is 'atiensivu', the domain is 'staff', and the user profile is located in %systemdrive%\users\atiensivu. %systemdrive% is typically C: on standard Vista installs. Replace every instance 'atiensivu' with the username of the corrupt profile.

1. If you can log into the profile, make note of the %USERPROFILE% environment variable value. Most likely it will be 'C:\Users\atiensivu' or 'C:\Users\atiensivu.staff'. Logoff.

2. If you have logged in with the profile at any point since your last reboot or you suspect there are files in use within the profile, reboot. The important part is to make sure there are no open files within the broken profile directory.

3. Login as administrator or another account with local admin rights.

4. Run 'takeown /r /a /d y /f %systemdrive%\users\atiensivu'.

5. From %systemdrive%\users, rename 'atiensivu' to 'atiensivu.old'.

6. Within %systemdrive%\users, create a directory called 'atiensivu'.

7. Run 'takeown /r /u staff\atiensivu /f %systemdrive%\users\atiensivu'.

8. Run regedit and go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and delete the SID key for the corrupt profile. Easiest way to find the correct SID is to search from the 'ProfileList' key for the directory mentioned in %USERPROFILE% in step #1.

9. Logoff.

10. Log into the 'atiensivu' account. A new profile should be created. Copy over any files you might want from the old profile directory.

The 'takeown' commands might be overkill but I don't like getting permission errors.

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Make Vista Less Annoying

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

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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/

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Invalid MS-DOS function occurs on Microsoft® Windows Vista™

The error Invalid MS-DOS function occurs on Microsoft® Windows Vista™.
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/941673
To add the CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo registry entry, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo to name the new entry, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Exit Registry Editor.

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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

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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

1. Set the User Profile folder during setup using an unattended install file.
2. 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:

1. Make sure you have a complete backup of your system!
2. Copy the original Default Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Default to D:\Users\Default).
3. Copy the original Public Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Public to D:\Users\Public).
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
5. Change the value of the Default key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Default).
6. Change the value of the Public key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Public).
7. Change the value of the ProfilesDirectory to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users).
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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).
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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).
19. Log out. Log back in as your usual user. Everything should be working correctly except for programs that use a “hardcoded” user profile location.
20. 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).
21. 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).

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vLite - Vista Lite

vLite is a tool for customizing the Windows Vista installation before actually installing it.
source: http://www.vlite.net/about.html


Main features are:

* hotfix, language pack and driver integration
* component removal
* unattended setup
* tweaks
* split/merge Vista installation CDs
* create ISO and burn bootable CD/DVD


Windows Vista from Microsoft takes a lot of resources, we all know that. vLite provides you with an easy removal of the unwanted components in order to make Vista run faster and to your liking.

This tool doesn't use any kind of hacking, all files and registry entries are protected as they would be if you install the unedited version only with the changes you select.

It configures the installation directly before the installation, meaning you'll have to remake the ISO and reinstall it. This method is much cleaner, not to mention easier and more logical than doing it after installation on every reinstall.

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Remove File Type ociations

Remove File Type ociations In Windows Vista
With Vista, for some unknown reason, you can only associate file types, but you can not unassociate (delete) a file type completely. The only option allowed is to associate the file to another program or application.

To remove (delete) a file type association, you can use a great utility found on winhelponline.com to unassociate file types.

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