Disabling Automatic Startup Programs in Vista

Disabling Automatic Startup Programs

If you don't want certain programs or applications to run automatically on startup, there's an easy way to disable them. Click Start Type msconfig in the search box Click Continue in the User Account Control to continue Click on the Startup Tab Uncheck any boxes in the "Startup Items" that you wish to disable or click the Disable All button (not recommended) Click OK If you need to re-enable any of the programs, go through the same process and check the boxes of programs you wish to run automatically on startup.

Vista can send you emails!

The Computer Management tool can still be accessed by right-clicking “Computer” and selecting “Manage” from the menu. However, now you can attach a task to any event. Try navigating through System Tools / Event Viewer / Windows Logs / Application. Now, go ahead and select an event - then look to the rightmost pane and click “Attach Task to This Event.” Name it whatever, describe it however, click through the next step, then in the Action step, you’ll see the “Send an e-mail” option.

Internet Explorer Tweaks in Vista

If you’re annoyed by Internet Explorer’s incessant barking that you’ve lowered your security settings (like, if you’re a non-paranoid expert), launch “gpedit.msc” from either the Run command or Start Search field, navigate through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Turn off the Security Settings Check feature” and set it to Enabled.

If Internet Explorer’s Information Bar also annoys you, you can turn it off (again) in the Group Policy Object Editor (gpedit.msc) through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer / Security Features. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Internet Explorer Processes” and set it to Disabled.

How to Postpone Vista activation for a year

With the release of Windows XP in 2001 Microsoft implemented a technology called Microsoft Product Activation (MPA). According to Microsoft this was developed to combat software piracy. But it has never lived upto Microsoft’s expectation. After you install Windows XP (or Windows Vista) you need to activate it within 30 days, failing doing that it will become dysfunctional. Where as in Microsoft Office product the activation should be done within first 50 launch of the program. Most of the piracy of Windows XP took place from the Volume License key of Windows XP provided to corporate, who just needs only one key to install and activate thousands of Windows XP. So in vista this technique was modified and a cumbersome technology called Volume Licensing 2.0 which required to set up a “Key Management Service” (KMS). But it places a heavy burden to Corporate hence Microsoft developers invented a registry key (”skiprearm”) that helps to corporate IT administrators to reduce this burden.

Brian Livingstone of windowssecrets has demonstrated this simple registry hack by exploiting the skiprearm and a simple command to extend the Vista Activation requirement to almost a year.

Here is the step by step instruction:

Step 1. In Windows Vista

that hasn’t yet been activated, click the Start button, type ‘regedit’ without quote into the Search box, then press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.

Step 2. Explore down to the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ SL

Step 3. Right-click the Registry key named SkipRearm and click Edit. The default is a Dword (a double word or 4 bytes) with a hex value of 00000000. Change this value to any positive integer, such as 00000001, save the change, and close the Registry Editor.

Step 4. Start a command prompt with administrative rights. The fastest way to do this is to click the Start button, enter cmd in the Search box, then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. If you’re asked for a network username and password, provide the ones that log you into your domain. You may be asked to approve a User Account Control prompt and to provide an administrator password.

Step 5. Type one of the following two commands and press Enter:

slmgr -rearm
or
rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows

Either command uses Vista’s built-in Software Licensing Manager (SLMGR) to push theactivation deadline out to 30 days after the command is run. Changing SkipRearm from 0 to 1 allows SLMGR to do this an indefinite number of times. Running either commandinitializes the value of SkipRearm back to 0.

Step 6. Reboot the PC to make the postponement take effect. (After you log in, if you like, you can open a command prompt and run the command slmgr -xpr to see Vista’s new expiration date and time. I explained the slmgr command and its parameters in my Feb. 15 article.)

Step 7. To extend the activation deadline of Vista indefinitely, repeat steps 1 through 6 as necessary.

You can find the full article in Brian’s news letter in his website.

How to boost the SATA hard drives speed in Windows Vista

Windows Vista has built-in support for SATA hard drives, but the advanced write caching features it is not enable by default. You can speed up your system by enabling this mode in Device Manager. Here is how to perform it:

Click on Start and type Device Manager in Search box.

Expand the Disk drives section, select and right-click at the hard drive. Select the Policies tab, and you can see the option: Click the checkbox for Enable advanced performance (see figure) and Click OK.

If you are using this mode be sure to have a back up power supply coz a sudden power outage may result in loss of data.

How to Enable Hidden Boot Screen in Windows Vista

While booting up with Windows, I am quite fade up with the Black boot screen. I want to have a different boot screen and finally found a more visually appealing boot screen that is hidden by Microsoft. It can easily be enabled with very little trouble. I’m not sure why they didn’t make the boot screen better.

If you want a better boot screen, you can try the hidden boot screen by Microsoft. The default boot screen looks like the picture in the left. And when you do the trick and enable the hidden bootscreen you will find a visually appealing AURORA boot screen.

Perform the following steps to enable the Aurora boot screen:

1. Click Start > Type “msconfig” in search box, and Press Enter.
2. Navigate to the Boot tab, and then check the “No GUI boot” checkbox.
3. Press OK and restart your system. You should see the new boot screen immediately.

Note: You may get a Windows Defender error on the next startup. You can enable the system config utility using the tray icon and this error will go away.

That is a pretty nice Ester egg frm Microsoft.