Running Microsoft Vista on MacBook Works Like a Charm

1. The very first thing after setting up my brand new sparkling white MacBook (2GHZ) to install necessary updates and download Boot camp. Bootcamp is a partition manager and currently still available for free as it is in BETA. By then I already had some concerns as I had only bought an update to an old 2K license I have which would require a "clean" update anyway - so fingers crossed and let's hope for the best!
2. I should have read the Boot Camp user file first - than I would have know that the Win2K update was a bit too ambitious! Luckily I had not opened the my Vista Home Premium upgrade box an could return it and buy the FULL version.
3. With all the requirements fulfilled I took a deep breath and started the process in MacOSX:
4. Read the "read me" file coming with Bootcamp
5. Print out the User guide (or have it on a second PC)
6. Installing Bootcamp - no problem at all - just double click the file you just downloaded and follow the screens, I decided to go for the 32GB FAT partition and will most likely use the laptop with a small external Hard drive or maybe upgrade to a bigger one later on.
7. During the process you will have to insert a CD where Bootcamp will save the required vista drivers for your MacBook.
8. The MacBook then restarted directly in Windows mode and asks you to insert the operation system you wish to install. In my case the Vista Home Premium CD followed by the serial number. I also allowed the system to check the number directly online. (You can also upgrade from Microsoft XP but will need in this case to install XP first and upgrade with Vista later.)
9. Vista Installation started and about 30 minutes and a few restarts later everything was done!
   That certainly was the easiest OS installation I had done so far - and I now have the choice between OSX 10 (Tiger) and Vista - on a beautiful sleek looking laptop - what more could I want?
   
   I cannot say much about the performance with this setup - but I would not count on the promised 6 hours maximum battery life With regards to software running under Vista - Firefox and Skype work just fine as well as of course Office applications. If you are using Zone Laps as a firewall you will be disappointed as I could not get it running just yet.
   
   So far so good - that's all I can report at the moment but I thought I let you know anyway. Simply because if you are going into a computer store and ask the staff - I only got a very weak smile when I wanted to buy the Apple Mac + Vista, alongside some recommendations buying "VistaforMac" (which as far as I know does not exist!) or emulator software.
   

Anyway - It works!

Best regards,

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Is It Possible To Dual Boot Between Vista/Xp/Linux ?

Dual booting for Vista/Xp/Linux ?

DO you need an advice on how to set-up dual booting ? APCmag.com has provided good online tutorials on how you are going to do that with screenshots.

They've done good job by putting all together the definitive dual-booting guide.Without this guide , you probably ended up spending all weekend researching the intricacies of adjusting partition sizes, boot loaders, installing operating systems in the right order, and other fun topics.

According to them, they've thoroughly tested these methods and taken screenshots of every step.

1. How to dual-boot XP & Vista ( with XP installed first)
2. How to dual-boot Vista & XP ( with Vista installed first)
3. How to dual-boot Linux & XP ( with Linux installed first )
4. How to dual-boot Linux & Vista ( with Linux installed first )
5. How to dual-boot Vista & Linux ( with Vista installed first )

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Create Shutdown / Restart / Lock Icons in Windows Vista

If you dislike the new Windows Vista shutdown menu, you are probably in the majority. An alternative option is to create icons that will let you shut down, lock, or restart your computer without having to mess with that stupid popup menu.

This tip is nothing new, and probably very old hat to most of the advanced geeks reading this feed. I've been asked this question so many times in the last month that I decided to finally just write it up for everybody.

First right-click on the desktop, choose New and then Shortcut.

In the shortcut location box, you'll need to enter the correct command, which I've listed for you below.



Shutdown Computer

Restart Computer

Lock Workstation

Hibernate Computer
When you've clicked next on the above dialog, you'll be asked to name the shortcut. Probably best to name it according to the right function.

After you click Finish, you should now have a new icon that you can double-click to immediately shutdown, restart, or lock your computer.

Change Shortcut Icon

The default icon is really ugly, and if you want to have separate shortcuts for each function you might want to change the icon. Right-click on the icon and choose properties.

Click the Change Icon button, and then you can pick from the available icons in the system, or you can use the Browse button to pick an icon you downloaded off the web.

Note that you can drag them to your quick launch bar if you'd prefer to have them there.

And so ends the tale of the shutdown icons…

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Fix for Special Folders Reverting to Default Folder Icon in Windows Vista

My inbox has been flooded with people asking why the "pretty" icons in their user folder keep turning back into regular folder icons, and what they can do to fix it.
Using the same example as last time, the Music folder here is showing the generic folder icon instead of the slick one that it should be using.


The icons that are displayed on the folders are set through the hidden desktop.ini file inside of each folder. The problem is that a lot of applications seem to screw with this file and cause it to become corrupted or otherwise unusable. What we'll do here is just reset the offending file to the default values that I've listed here.

To open the desktop.ini file, you'll need to paste this command into the start menu search or run box, which will open the music folder's desktop.ini file.

If you wanted to open the desktop.ini file in the pictures folder instead, you'd substitute "pictures" for "music" in the command, like this:

You'll see a file that should look exactly like this, but probably does not.



Select the entire contents of the file and delete it, replacing the contents with the default values that I've listed below. (You only need to pick the one that matches the folder you are trying to edit)

Note that you will need to logout and back in to see the changes, or you could just restart explorer.exe if you are feeling ambitious.

Contacts

Desktop

Documents

Downloads

Favorites

Links


Music

Pictures

Saved Games

Searches


Videos

Hopefully by this point your icons should be back to looking good again…

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Speeding up VNC on Vista By Limiting Visual Effects

As a computer field tech, I use the remote desktop program UltraVNC quite often. I utilize it mostly to connect to offsite computers so I can run diagnostics and repair remotely, if needed.

Recently, I ran into an issue with UltraVNC and Vista. I was able to connect but the desktop was slow to the point of being almost non-responsive. There was no way I would be able to diagnose let alone repair anything over that connection.

After adjusting various color depth and screen resolution options without any noticeable improvement in speed, it dawned on me that I was connected to an Aero enabled Windows Vista machine. Sure enough, when I disabled Aero, the remote desktop sprang back to life. Here’s how disable all Aero features for UltraVNC sessions.

Disable Visual Effects

Right click on Computer, and choose Properties.

Click on Advanced System Settings, and then under Advanced, click Settings.

Select the "Visual Effects" tab, and then click “Adjust for best performance” and OK.

I've found that this dramatically speeds up the remote connection. Note that you should probably re-enable the old setting after you are done.

Editor's note: This is a helpful way to speed up any remote desktop solution, not only for VNC.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Applying Themes To Your Windows Vista Sidebar

The look of the Windows Vista Sidebar is a little drab, and there's no way to customize it with the default tools in Vista. Thankfully third party developers have stepped up to the plate and created an application that will let you re-theme the sidebar.

Note: After installing and launching this application you will need to restart the Vista sidebar.

When you launch the Windows Sidebar Styler application, it will give you this dialog that gives you a list of all the elements in the theme. You can select the items and see a preview on the right.


The big Play button will apply the style, but first you'll need to load it by clicking the button to the right for "Load a Windows Sidebar Style", which will open up a file selection dialog so you can choose from the different themes.

There's a bunch of themes that come with the application, or you can find more themes at the WinCustomize gallery.

If you click the More button on the dialog, you can even select an option to make the sidebar resizable.

Once you select that option, you can resize the sidebar like any other window. You'll notice a new option to "Lock" the sidebar, which will prevent resizing once you've chosen the size that you want.

Another benefit to this tool is that you can load more powerful gadgets utilizing WPF (Windows Presentation Framework).

Download Windows Sidebar Styler from stoyanoff.info

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Create Shortcut Icon to Disable / Enable the Screensaver

How many times have you been watching a long video on your computer and had the screensaver come on? Then you play the game of trying to jiggle the mouse every certain number of minutes to make sure it doesn't happen again… seems like it would be easier to have a really quick way to disable the screensaver.

Our solution comes in the form of a little utility named flipss.exe which can be used to easily enable or disable the screensaver via a command line argument… we'll just have to manually create shortcuts for each task.

Create Disable/Enable Shortcut

Right-click on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.

You will need to enter in the full path to where you saved the flipss.exe file, followed by either "/off" or "/on". For instance, if you saved the utility in C:\MyFiles you would use this path to create the disable icon:

C:\MyFiles\flipss.exe /off

On the next screen you'll need to give it a useful name, and then create a second shortcut with "/on" which you can use to turn the screensaver back on.

You can give them different icons by going into the properties for the shortcut and choosing the "Change Icon" option. Personally I moved the icons into the quick launch bar for easier access and indexing in Launchy.

Download Flipss.zip from jddesign.f2s.com

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Make the Mouse Pointer Stay Away from What You're Typing

If your mouse pointer seems to constantly get in the way while you are typing, you aren't alone… you click in the middle of some text and start typing to insert more, but the cursor stays in the way. There's a tiny utility called MouseAway that will solve this problem for you… it's not new, but it still works on Vista.

An animated picture would be better here, but you click in the middle of some text…

And then when you start typing, MouseAway moves the mouse a short distance away from the cursor:

Quite a useful little utility, and since it barely takes any resident memory it's not too bad to keep it running all the time.

Short rant: With all of the zillions of small utilities to customize this and that, installing them all at the same time might be a little silly. We just try and find software that can help your particular pet peeves about Windows, so pick and choose wisely for the best experience.

Download MouseAway from geocities.com/mtetrode/

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Rebuilding the Search Index in Windows Vista

If you are encountering problems with the searching engine built into Windows Vista, your best bet is to tell the indexing service to completely rebuild the index. It will take a while to rebuild, but it's usually worth it.

It's important to note that the search indexing in Windows Vista also handles searching in Microsoft Outlook 2007, so if you are encountering errors there you have another troubleshooting step other than disabling instant search.

Type in indexing into the start menu search box to launch Indexing Options:

Once the dialog opens, you'll want to choose the "Advanced" button, which will give you a UAC prompt.

Now you can simply click the Rebuild button, and the search index will be wiped clean and regenerated.

This process does take a long time if you have many files being indexed, so you might want to consider trimming down the indexed locations.

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Make Explorer Show Window Titles in Windows Vista

Nobody is really sure why Microsoft decided that explorer windows shouldn't have a title anymore, but that's the way things are. You can still look in the address bar to see what folder you are looking at, but there's another option.

This option comes in the form of a small utility called AeroBar which does nothing else other than add titles to your Explorer windows based on the current folder.

You can see the utility in action here:


All you need to do is download and run the executable, and if you like the effect then add the utility to your startup group.

Note: There's no reason to install every single utility we write about, just install the ones that fix your pet peeves.


Download AeroBar.exe from psscript.net [direct download]

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Reorganize Your Taskbar Buttons and Tray Icons in XP/Vista

Whether you are taking screenshots of a portion of your desktop or just prefer to have two apps you are using sitting next to each other on the taskbar, it can be really frustrating that you can't move the taskbar buttons around. There's a small utility called Taskbar Shuffle that gives us this power and more.

Once installed, you can simply drag and drop to reorganize the taskbar buttons.

You can also hold down the Ctrl key and reorganize the tray icons… notice that the Outlook icon is in the middle here…

And after moving it now it's over on the right.

The settings dialog gives a really interesting option, the ability to group tasks but not collapse them into a button… so instead of this:

You get this… you'll notice the three Windows Live Writer buttons are grouped, but not consolidated into a button.

To set this option, open up the Settings dialog and choose the option for "group tasks but never collapse into one button".

You'll also note that you can close windows with a middle click, which makes the taskbar work like Firefox's tab bar.

Very useful utility, and you don't necessarily have to keep it running all the time. Just start it up when you want to move the buttons around, and then close it.

Download Taskbar Shuffle from freewebs.com


Thanks

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Hi,
I overcame an real world issue when I used Windows Vista to search the files and folders with a particular name in the system path .Can u say me an work around for this problem?

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Sathish Kumar.R
Knowledge is meant to SHARE

Dear Sathish Kumar,

I couldnt get u clearly..could u explain ur problem a bit clear..

Thanks..

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Hi,
The thing is I intend to find a file named PresentationCore.dll inside C drive.But I thought it was a bit harder when I performed this search in Windows Vista than XP or other lower versions..May be my way of search might be wrong?Can u say me where I am going wrong?

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Sathish Kumar.R
Knowledge is meant to SHARE

Hi sathish,

The slow process in search is due to the windows search for the specified file also inside the compressed files.. like zip, rar & cab etc...

So it bit slower while you search.

But try this reg edit may fasten the search..

Just copy the above line and paste it in the "run" window and press ok.

Then try to search...

Hope Useful

Thanks..

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Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer

Hi Prasanna,
No.What I a m trying to say is that when I try to search a dll inside C drive,the Windows Vista search couldnt find the file.But when I had a quick look into the particular folder,I can able to locate the file.So,I think the file or folder search is somewhat easier in XP than Vista.What do you think Prasanna?

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Sathish Kumar.R
Knowledge is meant to SHARE

Hi,
I need to know one thing.Does WIC is inbuilt in Vista or do we need to install it explicitly?

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Sathish Kumar.R
Knowledge is meant to SHARE

Hi sathish..

It's built in to Vista already...

__________________
Prasanna Vignesh
MCPD | Web Developer