Tech Titbits » Windows

Open the Start Menu faster

Soumik — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:10:36 +0000

The Start Menu in Windows seems to open fast using this trick.
Open the registry editor by going to Start ->Run ->regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop. Double-click on MenuShowDelay and set it to ‘0′.

Closing a number of applications at once in Windows

Soumik — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:22:13 +0000

To close many Windows at once in Windows 7/Vista/XP, keep the [Ctrl] key pressed and select all the windows you want to close in the taskbar. Then leave the [Ctrl] key, and right-click on the last selected taskbar entry. Select “Close group” from the context menu that appears.

How to change drive letters in Windows

Soumik — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:13:09 +0000

After plugging in external drives or after adding optical drives and hard drives, Windows automatically assigns a drive letter to them. Usually, the system drive is assigned the letter C: and other drives are assigned subsequent incremented letters.

It is possible to change this auto-assigned drive letter in Windows 7/ Vista/XP. Right-click on My Computer and select “Manage”. Under Computer Management, select “Disk Management”. The right pane will contain the list of drives with the “CD-ROM” drives listed at the bottom.

Now, right-click on the drive whose letter needs to be changed and select “Change drive letters and paths…”. Click on “Change”, select “Assign the following drive letter” and select the required drive letter.

Note that the system drive letter cannot be changed.

Enable display of older help files in Windows 7 and Vista

Soumik — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:44:25 +0000

Ever since Windows 3.1, Microsoft has included the Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) with new releases. Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft doesn’t bundle the Windows Help program used to view .HLP files meant for older Windows programs with the OS. Apparently, Microsoft made this decision because the program hasn’t had a major update for many years, and it did not meet their standards for new Microsoft programs. But for customers who still rely on 32 bit .HLP files, Microsoft offers this as a separate download.*

Download links :

After installing the program, Windows should be able to correctly display .HLP files.

Note: Sometimes, due to an error in the macro commands, a lock is activated on the application. To unlock it, navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WinHelp’ and create a new DWORDValue. Enter the name as ‘AllowProgrammaticMacros’ and set the value to 1. The application will be unlocked.

* You need to undergo genuine Microsoft validation to download the files.

Enabling more then 6 simultaneous downloads in IE8

Soumik — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:20:07 +0000

Internet Explorer 8, as it may be known, doesn’t support more than 6 parallel downloads. While downloading a large number of big files from slow servers, bypassing this limit becomes a necessity. Like the previous versions, this limit is defined in the registry, but in a different location.

To change this limit, close all instances if Internet Explorer, open the registry editor by going to Start-> Run-> regedit. Navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPER1_0SERVER’. In the right pane, find the DWORD value ‘iexplore.exe’ and change it to 15(or any other number you may want). If the DWORD entry doesn’t exist, create it by “Edit-> New-> DWORD value”, and put the name as ‘iexplore.exe’. Change the value to 15 and leave the base as Hexadecimal. Navigate to the adjacent key ‘FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPERSERVER’ and perform the same actions.

Internet Explorer should now allow more than 6 simultaneous downloads.

Disable write access for USB drives

Soumik — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:14:44 +0000

Copying data using USB drives at the work place can be a major security concern. Copying data to USB drives can be disabled via a simple registry tweak. For this tweak to work in Windows XP, you need to at least have SP2 installed.

Open the registry editor by going to Start > Run and typing ‘regedit‘.
Open the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies” key. If the key does not exist, create it by going to “Edit > New > Key“.
Right-click on the right pane and select “New > DWORD Value” or “DWORD Value (32 Bit)“. Name the entry “WriteProtect“.
Open the new entry and set it’s value to “1“. Restart your computer for the copy-protection to take effect.

To re-allow write access for USB drives, just change the value of the “WriteProtect” entry to “0“.

Changing the default command prompt directory

Soumik — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:31:46 +0000

When command prompt is started up in Windows, it defaults to the directory X:\Documents and Settings\Username.

This directory can be changed by creating a new registry entry which will contain commands which is automatically executed when command prompt starts. This can be compared to the “autoexec.bat” file which existed in old DOS and Windows systems.

In the Registry editor(Start> Run> regedit), navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor”. Click on Edit> New> Expandable String Value. Type in Autorun as the name and press Enter. Check that the value type is ‘REG_EXPAND_SZ’. Double-click on “Autrun”, and enter in the value data cd c:\desired_folder\. This command will be executed every time command prompt starts, and you will start right in your desired folder.

Disable user authentication after resuming from Stand By mode

Soumik — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:48:09 +0000

By default, Windows will ask for your password every time your computer resumes from the stand-by mode. This may be useful for a public workstation or unattended laptops; but for a personal computer, it’s useless and to some extent, annoying.

To disable to authentication, follow these steps :

Windows XP

Go to Start-> Control Panel ->Performance and Maintenance -> Power Options.
Under the Advanced tab, in the Options settings, uncheck “Prompt for password when computer resumes from standby”

Windows Vista

Go to Start, and type in “Power Options” and press Enter.
Click “Change plan settings” for your selected plan, then click “Change advanced power settings“. In the dialog box that appears, click “Change settings that are currently unavailable” and go through the User Account Control.
Go to the “Require a password on wakeup” option and just select “No”. Then click “OK”.

After completing these steps, the computer wil not ask for passwords after resuming from standby mode.

How to avoid restarting your computer after a software install

Soumik — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:33:58 +0000

Many a times, a program you just installed refuses to work without a restart. It’s genuinely annoying to restart your computer again just to use the software. Well, there’s a workaround.

Most of these programs demands a restart because they want the Windows Registry to be re-read. An actual restart is required only for hardware changes, or for system level software like operating system patches or drivers. Most of the other programs should be satisfied by a registry re-read. To force a registry re-read you just have to terminate and restart the Windows Explorer process(explorer.exe).

To do this, press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc]. The Windows task manager opens up. Select the Processes tab and terminate the ‘explorer.exe’ process by right-clicking on it.

After this we need to restart the explorer.exe process. Go to ‘File>Run’ in Windows task manager itself and type in explorer.exe. The Windows Explorer process will be started and the registry will be re-read in the process.

To make this process simpler, we can take the help of a batch file. Type the following commands into an empty text file and save it as ‘reg_read.bat’.(Notice the .bat at the end)

@echo off taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe explorer.exe

This batch file terminates the explorer.exe process and then restarts it.

Now, whenever you need to make windows reread the registry to avoid a restart after you install a new program, double click on ‘reg_read.bat’ and start using the software right away.

Note : It is recommended that you perform an actual restart after installing Windows patches, hotfixes and drivers.

Start My Computer with Folder view activated

Soumik — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:34:55 +0000

By editing an entry in the registry, My Computer can can be started with the Folder tree activated. Normally, this can be activated by clicking the Folders button above the address bar; but if you use the folder view frequently, you might wish to permanently activate it.

Click on Start>Run.
Type in regedit. This will open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\Shell key.
In the right pane, right-click on the (Default) string value and select Modify.
Type in explore the the ‘Value data’ field.
Click on “OK”.

Note : This hack only works for Windows XP, Me, 2000, 98. I haven’t tested it on Vista though.