1) Add/Remove Welcome Screen 2) Add Administrator account to logon 3) Display classic or Welcome logon screen 4) Modify text on classic logon screen 5) disable logon screensaver*NOTE* These modifications change values in your registry (regedit), if you do not know what this is, or do not feel comfortable with doing so, these modifications are not for you. These will all require regedit to be open: start\run type: 'regedit' Display or Remove Welcome Screen on Windows logon: open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\Winlogon add String Value key: Welcome -a value of 1 enables this feature, 0 disables *Requires reboot Add the administrator account to logon open key: HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList add String Value key: Administrator -a value of 1 enables this feature, a value of 0 disables *Requires reboot Display Classic or Welcome Screen open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windo... Read More

 Start Menu Registry Hacks. I know a fast reboot isn't a registry hack, but it ties into the theme of the start menu so i thought it a good fit here :)I realize i have WAY too much time on my hands to be wasting searching the registry for keys that when modified affect the look and feel of Windows, but think of it this way... it's my time wasted, and your benefit with all i learn :) All LocalizedString Values are simply examples, set to whatever text you would like to have appear. Rename Search Under Start: *Does not change by script must be done manually HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{2559a1f0-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0} "LocalizedString"=Find Stuff Rename Help and Support Under Start: *Does not change by script must be done manually HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{2559a1f1-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0} "LocalizedString"=MS HELP Rename Run... Under Start: *Does not change by script must be done manually HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{2559a1f3-21d7-11d... Read More

 Get rid of a second OS failed installationThis requires that there is another working OS on the system, or that the new installation was an upgrade. boot up the computer into safe mode with command prompt only (there are several ways to get this, eg: delete, F8, depending on your system and windows setup) *You need to have the XP cd in the cd drive type: cd #:\ where # is the drive letter of your cd drive *If you only have 1 cd drive try cd\ now that you are on the cd, move to the uninstallation file by typing: cd \windows\system32 cd in this case stands for change directory now run the uninstall by typing: osuninst.exe This will bring up a menu, and follow the instructions to remove or revert your Windows installation. NOTE: this theoretically should work for any windows previous to XP, but no guarantees. Questions/Comments: william_a_wilson@hotmial.com -William. (marivn_gohan)... Read More

 Generate a "Blue Screen Of Death" and change its colors, just for fun, or if your bored.Windows 2000, XP and Vista allow you to generate a BSOD, which halts the system and generates a memory.dmp file. FYI, The Blue Screen of Death first made its debut in Windows 3.1 in 1990. If you would like to try this open your registry and go to this key. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters Then look for or create a Dword registry value named "CrashOnCtrlScroll" and change its value to a 1. When you want to cause a BSOD, press and hold down the [Ctrl] key on the right side of your keyboard, and then tap the [ScrollLock] key twice. Now you should see the BSOD. You must restart for this change to take effect. If your system automatically restarts disable your Automatic Restart Setting. To do that right click My Computer goto properties, then the Advanced tab, click settings under the Startup and Recovery, and uncheck Automatically restart. Now to change the color ... Read More

 Hate to Hotsync? Here's how to only ever have to do it ONCE!I came up with this method because I use a Treo 650, and as all Treo users know, it can be hard to sync these phones, and it is just a pain in the butt to do it everytime you want to install a program. Often you'll get a reset before the sync completes, or it'll freeze up. This recipe is ideal for Treos, but works for all Palms with a card slot. Many people think that syncing is the only way to backup data & install programs, NOT TRUE. All you need to install apps is a little freeware gem called FileZ. You will need to download it from mytreo.net, its a direct DL from the site if you have a Treo or a palm with internet connectivity. Install it to your card so in the event of a crash, it'll still be there. Now, pop the card into your card reader & create a folder on it called "apps" or whatever. This is where you'll store all the PRC & PDB files for your programs from now on. So if you're browsing the web from your PC & you fin... Read More

 Having quick access to your bluetooth connection is very handy. Other people probably do not like it there. Here is how to control the behavior of your bluetooth icon in your system tray.Now that you know how to transfer files to and from your bluetooth phone, you may wish to have quick access to your bluetooth devices. Here's how to place the bluetooth icon in the system tray. 1. Click Start 2. Click Control Panel 3. Click Bluetooth Devices 4. Click the Options tab 5. Click Show the Bluetooth Icon in the notification area 6. Click OK If you ever want to remove it, just repeat the process and uncheck the box. Alternatively, in Vista you can just type Bluetooth in the Start Search textbox in the Start Menu and select Bluetooth Devices from there.... Read More

 Non-global zones in Solaris 10 do not have the ability to see drives or disk slices (to prove this, list the contents of /dev/dsk from within a zone). What filesystems are mounted in which zones is controlled exclusively from the global zone. This recipe describes persistently mounting a disk slice in a non-global zone.To mount the device c0t1d0s3 in the existing zone testzone under the mount point /mnt, login to the global zone and become root or a priviledged user and complete the following steps: zonecfg -z testzone zonecfg:testzone> add fs zonecfg:testzone:fs> set dir=/mnt zonecfg:testzone:fs> set special=/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s3 zonecfg:testzone:fs> set raw=/dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s3 zonecfg:testzone:fs> set type=ufs zonecfg:testzone:fs> end zonecfg:testzone> verify zonecfg:testzone> commit zonecfg:testzone> exit Following the commit command, the filesystem will be immediately available in the zone. Substitute the... Read More

 Rapidshare is frequently used to transfer large video files. Programs, music, videos, and other such files are frequently available from download this way. By using google you can see what other people have posted for download.The filenames are in the rapidshare urls; therefore, searching for these filenames becomes very easy. This is another excellent way to fill up your media collection. If you enjoy finding stuff on rapidshare, you may also want to use this technique to beat rapidshare's time limits. Just to get you started with an example. After the example, I show you the techiques for isolating video, music, or archive files. Enjoy the free stuff! For example, if you want to see a bunch of 50cent songs (available for you to freely download)... google: +inurl:wma|mp3|ogg site:rapidshare.de cent To see all video files available on rapidshare... google: +inurl:avi|mpg|wmv site:rapidshare.de To see all archives and programs available... google: +inurl:exe|rar|zip site:rapidshare.de T... Read More

 MegaUpload is another popular site where people can download media files. Using google you can drain this service of free files.MegaUpload is another download anything kind of place. You can use it to get free music, video, programs, or ebooks. Mainly, I find it fun just to see what junk other people are trading. If you enjoy this, you can do the same thing to rapidshare as well. To see all video files available on MegaUpload... google: avi|mpg|mpeg|wmv|rmvb site:megaupload.com To see all music files available on MegaUpload... google: mp3|ogg|wma site:megaupload.com To see all archives and programs available on MegaUpload... google: zip|rar|exe site:megaupload.com Want some pdf ebooks? google: pdf site:megaupload.com... Read More

 No reason to waste that huge address book you have in Outlook. Export those addresses out of outlook and import them into GMail.GMail accepts imports of CSV files. My exporting your addresses in this format, you can import them into GMail without any issues. Export from Outlook: 1. Open outlook 2. Click File 3. Select Import and Export 4. Click Export to a File 5. Click Next 6. Select Common Seperated Values (Windows) 7. It may ask you to install the tranlator which may or may not include inserting your office CD into the drive. 8. Select Contacts 9. Select Next 10. Save the exported file 11. Click Next and Finish Import into Gmail: 1. Open your browser to GMail 2. Log-in 3. Click Contacts from the menu in the left column 4. Click Import from the blue menu on the right side of the page 5. Browse to your saved CSV file 6. Select it and click Open 7. Click Import Contacts 8. You will see the following... Import completed 116 contacts have been successfully imported. The following contact... Read More

 With a few modifications the vista sidebar has been hacked enough to get it to work with windows XP. Here are the directions.First few steps ripped directly from davak's directions from Installing The Sidebar into Vista. 1. Download the Vista Sidebar files 2. Unrar the files 3. Copy the Windows Sidebar folder into your Program Files folder. If C is your default Vista drive, the folder should end up here: C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar 4. Download the hacked patch files from RAFAEL. 5. Uncompress them into the Windows Sidebar folder 6. Click on the patch.exe in the Windows Sidebar folder 7. Click OK to the sidebar.exe - File successfully patched! window 8. You now need to put the xmlrw.dll into the Windows Sidebar folder. If you have IE7 installed, you can get it from there. If not, you can download it from this forum post. Place xmlrw.dll into your sidebar folder. 9. Run \Program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe 10. When the sidebar opens, click the plus (+) to load the gadgets. Pro... Read More

 Basic steps for opening, searching, converting, and viewing WPD files without Word Perfect being installed. Instructions for opening WPD files in word are also included. Searching -- Searching Word Perfect files is now much easier now that a word perfect plug-in is available for google desktop search. Viewing -- Microsoft's Word Viewer 2003 can view word perfect (5.x-6.x) files. If you would like to view the file in your browser, you can install this word perfect browser plug-in from corel. Opening/Editing -- 1. Open Microsoft Word 2. Click File 3. Click Open 4. In the Files of Type: dropdown box change to All Files (*.*) 5. Browse to the file 6. Click it and select OK 7. It will perform the conversion Note -- If you are still having problems, you can open WP and Word and copy and paste between the programs as well.... Read More

 So you have vista on your dual-boot? As vista has its own bootloader, you'll need to follow these steps to remove it.Dual-booting with vista can be a little tricky to remove because of the new bootloader. Playing with dual-boot systems has killed many people's hard drives. I would suggest massive back-ups before you try to remove part of a dual-boot system. If you mess up, you might be unable to boot to any of your partitions. You do this at your own risk. Here's the basic steps you need to do: 1. Backup, backup, backup 2. Reboot and Boot to your XP CD-ROM 3. Start the Recovery Console 4. Run Fixboot 5. Run fixmbr to reset the master boot record 6. Exit the Recovery Console 7. Reboot 8. To remove the extra entry, edit the boot.ini file to remove the "Microsoft Windows Longhorn" entry. 9. Format Your Vista Partition... Read More

 Create cool names that your friends aren't going to believe! ASCII has many special characters in it that many people don't know about. This recipe also has many tips that are going to help you think of a cool display name!There are two ways you can create cool display names. One way of accessing other symbols is by experimenting. To experiment you can use this technique: 1. Press Alt+a number combination (Try all sorts of combinations, I find that there are a lot of combinations in the 0160 range that can be used) Make sure that you don't release the alt button in between! As soon as you let go of the Alt button you can see your character symbol there. Here are a few examples Press Alt+0153 to get a symbol Press Alt+0169 to get a symbol Press Alt+0164 to get a symbol Press Alt+0166 to get a symbol And so on... If you want a list of more of the symbols then use the list of symbols (Windows Character Map) in Microsoft Word To access this: 1. Open Microsoft Word 2. Click on Insert on the... Read More

 In order to use custom themes or MSStyles on your computer you need to patch up your Uxtheme.dll file. Otherwise you can only use signed themes that are created by Microsoft.*Replacing system files is not always dangerous but if you want you might want to set a restore point. Note: There are two ways to accomplish this please try the 1st one first then if you are unsuccessful then you can try the 2nd one. 1. Okay first you need to find out which Service Pack you are running. To do this simple press the Windows flag key+Pause/Break key. This is going to open the system properties window. Here it is going to say which service pack you are running 2. Now you have some downloading to do. First get: The appropriate Uxtheme.dll file If you are running Service Pack 1 then get this file. If you are running Service Pack 2 then get this file. 3. Unzip the file to your desktop 4. Now you need to download the Replacer(I recommend getting a stable version). The replacer efficiently replaces your sy... Read More

 This tutorial shows the users how to quickly move, copy, and open files using the Send To Menu. The "Send to" menu is built from the "send to" folder. Placing a shortcuts in this folder will allow the user to "send to" programs or directories by right clicking on any file. For example, if you place a shortcut to a folder called "My MP3s" in your "Send to" folder, then you will be able to easily copy files into your "My MP3s" folder. Just right click, select "Send to", then select "My MP3s". If you would rather be able to play mp3s than copy them, then you could just paste a shortcut to your favorite mp3 player into your "Send to" folder. Where is the "Send to" folder? - In 98/ME it can be found in C:\Windows\SendTo - In 2000/XP it can be found in C:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo. (Username will depend on the user's menu that you want to change.) - Even easier, just type "send to" in the RUN menu. Most of the time this will pull up your default "Send to" folder.... Read More

 Most software provided for a Solaris system comes in a package. Removing an installed package is easy, but any command associated with "removing" is worth paying attention to.To remove the installed package SUNWtchrx from a system, run this command as root: pkgrm SUNWtchrx You may be asked for confirmation before proceeding. Once benefit of using packages is that Solaris keeps up with what files are shared by packages. Removing a package consisting of files shared among other installed packages will not remove the shared files.... Read More

 Many systems with realVNC installed will not connect after sp2 is installed. Many XP sp2 systems have difficulty connecting even if realVNC is installed after the update. Here is the fix. You install Real VNC on a new system. You leave it and start upgrading XP remotely. You install SP2 and suddenly you can not connect anymore: --------------------------- VNC Viewer : Error --------------------------- unable to resolve host by name: No such host is known. (11001) --------------------------- OK    --------------------------- SP2's firewall is more rigid. As the realVNC server installs itself as a service, XP never asks the user if it should punch a hole in the firewall for it. Therefore, you must do it manually. 1. Click Start 2. Click Control Panel 3. In the classic view, select Windows Firewall 4. Under the exceptions tab, click Add Port button 5. Name it RealVNC 6. Port Number is 5900 7. Select TCP 8. If you only use VNC over your local network, you should p... Read More

 How to change user agents so that you can view "Members Only" areas and get access to extra content this is only meant for other browsers (such as Internet Explorer)There are two ways to change user agents for Firefox The first way is to download the User Agent switcher and switch your the user agent. Just download this extension. Then to change your user agents all you do is 1. Tools 2. User Agent Switcher 3. Pick the user agent you want By default it has only 3 different options (Internet Explorer 6, Netscape and Opera), however you can always add more. For example you might want to add the Googlebot 2.1 user agent... (when you use this user agent you can get into "member only areas" of quite a few sites) You can do this by 1. Tools 2. User Agent Switcher 3. Options 4. Options... 5. Then click on User Agents in the right column 6. Click on Add Now type in Googlebot 2.1 where it says "Description" and "User Agent". The rest can be left empty. Then just click on OK. After that all you ... Read More

 MySpace allows you to listen to a lot of songs; however, only a few of them can be downloaded. This little work-around will allow you to download most music files.9/2006: The method described in this tech-recipe has likely been fixed. The latest hack can be found here: MySpace: Download Any Song for Free -- Again! Old recipe is found below... --------------------------------- MySpace allows you to listen to a lot of music, but they only allow you to download a select few of the songs. Here is the work around. 1. Goto the MySpace site that you want to download the music from 2. That page must have at least one song available for download 3. Open notepad 4. Right-click the download link and select copy Link 5. Paste this link into your notepad You see something like this: http://mp3download.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction= bandprofile.downloadSong&bsid=OldSongNumberHere&song_name= Title of the Old Song Here &fid=bandid 6. Right-click the add link and select copy link 7. Paste this into ... Read More