Windows Vista Page 4

Back Up Your File Encryption Key in Windows Vista

Windows Vista includes a file encryption technology very similar from a user perspective to the one that existed in Windows XP, but Vista makes it very easy to make a backup of the file encryption key. In XP, your encryp…

Lowell Heddings Apr 9th, 2007

How To Share a Folder the XP Way in Windows Vista

I’ve received a number of requests for an article on how to share a folder. I know for many of you this is a very simple operation, but I finally realized there’s a reason for the confusion users are having….

Lowell Heddings Mar 30th, 2007

Make Firefox Look Like Internet Explorer 7(mostly) on Windows Vista

One of the complaints that I’ve heard quite often lately about Firefox is that the default Firefox theme in Vista just doesn’t feel like it belongs with the rest of the eye candy. After doing some browsing around today, I’ve …

Lowell Heddings Mar 29th, 2007

Use Windows Vista Reliability Monitor to Troubleshoot Crashes

If you’ve owned a computer running Windows, you’ve probably complained about things crashing on your computer. Windows Vista includes a Reliability Monitor utility that lets you track all of the times that something crashed….

Lowell Heddings Mar 17th, 2007

Disable or Hide Optional Updates on Windows Vista

One of the things that drives me crazy on Windows Vista is all of the optional updates that show up in the Windows Update list. I want to look at Windows Update and see that there are no updates, not see that there’s a list o…

Lowell Heddings Mar 6th, 2007

Disable Favorite Links Panel in Windows Vista Explorer

If you dislike the new Favorite Links panel in the Windows Vista Explorer panel, you might not realize that it’s really called the Navigation Pane, and it’s extremely simple to turn off.

Lowell Heddings Feb 26th, 2007

Power Up Your Start Menu Search Box in Windows Vista

Vista Start Menu Health Without Start++

Lowell Heddings Feb 25th, 2007

Enable Slow-Motion Aero Animations in Windows Vista

This tip really isn’t very useful, but it’s an interesting hack to show your friends. You can enable a “Slow Motion” animation that will only activate if you are holding down the Shift key while you minimize/restore/clos…

Lowell Heddings Feb 17th, 2007

Hide the Recycle Bin Icon Text on Windows Vista

The recycle bin is really obvious. We’ve been seeing the same thing since Windows 95, so having text on the icon to tell us what it is seems a little unnecessary. With a little registry patch, we can easily remove the text….

Lowell Heddings Feb 17th, 2007

Share Your Windows Vista Experience Index Score

ShareYourScore.com is a site where you can upload your Windows Vista Experience Index assessment and share it with the world. You can also take a look at other people’s top scores, and even see average scores for a particular…

Lowell Heddings Feb 17th, 2007

Move the Public Folder in Windows Vista

The Public folder in Windows Vista is used for sharing folders and files with people on the same computer or the same network. The normal location for the public folder is C:\Users\Public, but this isn’t necessarily the best …

Lowell Heddings Feb 17th, 2007

Speed up Windows Vista Start Menu Search By Limiting Results

The Windows Vista start menu search box is one of my favorite features in Vista, but searching can be pretty slow if you have a lot of personal files, because by default the start menu search also searches files, windows cont…

Lowell Heddings Feb 11th, 2007

Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista

The Windows Vista BootScreen is pointless, but Microsoft decided to hide a more visually appealing boot screen that can easily be enabled with very little trouble. I’m not sure why they didn’t make the boot screen better….

Lowell Heddings Feb 11th, 2007

Mac OSX Expose Clone for Windows Vista

Expose is an application on Mac OSX that tiles all the open windows with the press of a key, letting you quickly choose between them. Now there is finally a Mac OSX Expose clone application for Windows Vista that runs gr…

Lowell Heddings Feb 11th, 2007

Trim Windows Vista’s Bloated Window Borders

Windows Vista by default has huge borders, probably to show off the new transparancy. If you’d prefer a more slimmed-down, minimal approach, you can easily configure this setting to make it more reasonable….

Lowell Heddings Feb 10th, 2007

Why Do My Windows Vista Fonts Look Horrible?

If you’ve just bought a computer with Windows Vista installed and your fonts look awful, especially when browsing the web, it could be because the default settings enabled by the manufacturer have font smoothing dis…

Lowell Heddings Feb 10th, 2007

Disable Security Center Popup Notifications in Windows Vista

If you decide to turn off automatic updates, you’ll be annoyed to death with popup messages from the Security Center that tell you to “Check your computer security” or “Check your Firewall status” if you disabled the firewall…

Lowell Heddings Feb 8th, 2007

Create a Custom Boot Logo for Windows Vista

NOTE: THIS DOES NOT WORK WITH VISTA SP1. IF YOU ATTEMPT THIS IN SP1, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BOOT YOUR COMPUTER.

Lowell Heddings Jan 25th, 2007

Using Symlinks in Windows Vista

One of the long-awaited features in Windows Vista was the ability to use symbolic links, the way you can in linux. Sadly, they don’t work quite as well as they could, but it’s a big upgrade from prior versions, and has solved…

Lowell Heddings Jan 25th, 2007

Extend Windows Vista Trial to 120 Days

Windows Vista is the first windows operating system to let you use a trial version for 30 days before buying. It’s a really great move for Microsoft, especially in light of how little benefit you get from upgrading to Vista i…

Lowell Heddings Jan 25th, 2007

Quick Add Links to Windows Vista Explorer Favorite Links

If you’ve used Windows Vista for 5 minutes, you’ll have seen the Favorite Links when browsing around your filesystem. What is annoying is that by default the favorite links doesn’t include enough useful links….

Lowell Heddings Jan 21st, 2007

Use Windows Vista Task Manager to See File Name of Running Process

One of the nicer upgrades in Windows Vista is the ability to see the file name of a running process through the Task Manager. How many times have you seen a process in Task Manager but couldn’t figure out where on earth it wa…

Lowell Heddings Jan 21st, 2007

Quick Tip: Windows Vista Temp Files Directory

Windows Vista Disk Cleanup wizard is really not all that bad, but I did find a small problem with it… It doesn’t fully empty your temp folder. It only allows you to delete temporary files that haven’t been modified in …

Lowell Heddings Jan 21st, 2007

Understanding Windows Vista Aero Glass Requirements

The Windows Vista Aero Glass interface is one of the major changes in the newest version of windows. What is less clear for most people is what conditions have to be met for Aero to be enabled. If you are sure your system mee…

Lowell Heddings Jan 21st, 2007

Use Windows Vista Aero through Remote Desktop Connection

Everybody knows by now about the Windows Vista Aero Glass user interface, but what everybody does not know is that you can use this over a Remote Desktop connection if you’ve got the right settings enabled on the client and t…

Lowell Heddings Jan 21st, 2007

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