Web Talk

As you know one of the most powerful tool in Windows (all of it versions) is its Task Manager. With it you can observe and check a variety of things such as: computer performance, CPU usage, memory usage, physical memory, kernel memory, number and type of processes which are running on your computer,  number and kind of users connected, network connection, network activity and statistics etc. To activate it, it is just sufficient to press CTRL+ALT+DELETE and choose Task Manager. Anyway, if you are an Administrator you might want to disable it to prevent your users from seeing too many “sensitive” information about your machine and deactivating some important process. Here is the hack to disable the Task Manager:

1. Click Start.
2. Type regedit on the Search Bar and hit Enter.
3. Locate the follwowing key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ System (from current logged user). On local computer for all users locate  this key instead: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ System
4. If the System key doesn’t exist, you can create it by right clicking on Policies, and select New -> Key. After that name the new key System
5. Right click on the System Key and create and new 32-bit DWORD and name it DisableTaskManger.
6. Give the new key the value 1 by double clicking on it.
7. Close the regedit.
8. Without rebooting the computer, now users will not be able to access the Task Manager anymore.
9. To revert the hack, simply delete the DisableTaskManager key.

When booting Windows XP, the whole process could suddenly stop for no apparent reasons. At this point, the system could display the following error message: “Explorer.exe unable to locate component. This application has failed to start because Browseui.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.” In the majority of cases after this error, Windows hangs with a black background screen. Other times instead it finishes the process but on the desktop most of the icons won’t show up, including the Start menu and Taskbar. To fix this issue try the following trick, provided by Microsoft:

1. Restart the computer in Safe Mode with Command Prompt by pressing the F8 key when the BIOS information is displayed.
2. Insert the Windows XP CD in the CD drive.
3. In the Command Prompt, switch to the following folder: %Windir%\System32 and press Enter by typing this command: cd C:\Windows\System32 Make sure that C: is the name of the partition where your operative system is located.
4. Type ren browseui.dll browseui.old, and then press Enter. Note: If you receive a message that states that the file was not found, ignore the message and continue to the next step.
5. Type the drive letter of the CD drive followed by a colon, and then press Enter. For example, type D:, and then press Enter if your CD drive letter is D.
6. Type cd i386, and then press Enter.
7. Type expand Browseui.dl_ %Windir%\System32\Browseui.dll, and then press Enter. Note: Make sure that there is a character space between “Browseui.dl_” and “%Windir%.”
8. Restart the computer normally.
9. Now open Windows Explorer and Microsoft Internet Explorer and check if the system gives you the following message: Explorer.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close - Iexplorer.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.
10. If you get one of these two messages, click more information in the error message to verify the mod name. If the mod name is Browseui.dll, you must unregister and then reregister the Browseui.dll file. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, switch to the %Windir%\System32 folder.
3. Type regsvr32 browseui.dll /u, and then press Enter.
4. Type regsvr32 browseui.dll, and then press Enter.
5. Restart the computer.

When I spoke of Dell’s decision to continue to install Windows Xp in its computers and laptops despite Microsoft’s decision to stop selling it in June, I could not imagine what a Microsoft senior VP would have stated  a few weeks later. As a matter of fact Bill Veghte said that Microsoft will continue to provide security patches “and other critical updates” for Windows XP until April, 2014. This decision comes from “the result of our recognition (Microsoft) that people keep their Windows-based PCs for many years”… “It’s true that we will stop selling Windows XP as a retail packaged product and stop licensing it directly to major PC manufacturers [after June 30],” wrote Veghte. “But customers who still need Windows XP will be able to get it”. This stunning statement comes from Microsoft’s acknowledgement that Vista has failed to conquer people’s hearts and that a large part of  Microsoft’s customers will continue to use XP and won’t upgrade to Vista for  years to come, at least till Windows 7 will become available three years from now. That’s why I suggest you that if you are planning to buy a new computer, make sure to get a full downgrade to Windows XP. For Example Dell preinstalls XP Professional as a “downgrade” on certain PCs and laptops. These computers available with the XP option will also include the Windows Vista installation DVD in the box, so users will be able to install Windows Vista if they want, and without buying another license. Windows Vista is a “green” operating system with not many issues to tell you the truth, but with a lot of problems as far as drivers and  software compatibility is concerned.

This little, really little hack lets you convert your legitimate Windows XP Home into Windows XP Professional. Honestly speaking it doesn’t really convert it at all, but it just tricks Windows to think that it is a professional edition. As a matter of fact once you have applied the hack you won’t see many of the most common features available in XP Pro such as: Remote Desktop Server, Group Policy Editor etc. So why apply this hack? Honestly speaking I don’t know, but if you are looking for something original to do, here you are served!

1. Click Start.
2. On the Search Bar type: regedit and press Enter.
3. Find this folder: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet00X/Control/ProductOptions where ControlSet00X is the one with the highest number.
4. Delete the ProductSuite registry key.
5. Create a new key named Brand of type DWORD and set its value to “0″.
6. Reboot the system
7. After BIOS-screen, press F8 and choose Last Known Good Configuration and press Enter.

If you want to hack the Windows Vista Boot Configuration Data namely you wish to edit the BCD file in Windows Vista, you may want to read this other article of mine. Another solution is to download this excellent freeware software called VistaBootPRO. This free software lets you edit the BDC file in Windows Vista. But why should anyone modify such a file? The reply is quite easy. If you want to install a second operating system in your PC then you need this software for sure! As a matter of fact, by using it and editing the BCD file you will be able to get a dual boot mode. VistaBootPro works in Windows XP (Home, PRO, x64, MCE 2005), 2003 Server, Vista, or Longhorn Server. All systems must have .NET 2.0 Framework (but once you have installed the software you will be prompted to download Framework, so don’t worry). If you want to download it, or if you want to have more info, click here.
If you want to have two operating systems on the same machine here is a quick guide. Note: if you are not self-confident about what to do, or if you are a novice, please don’t try this procedure, since you could delete important files or cause major damages to your computer. Continue reading »

If you use Internet Explorer 7, after a while or right away if you are particularly paranoid, you may want to delete all the junk which the browser has gathered while surfing and that, most of the time, may reveal other people what you visited and what  did while you were at the computer. The classic solution is to delete all the temporary Internet files in IE7. If you want to make this procedure automatic you can use these nice pieces of codes, called batch files, which clean everything in one click. Here are the most important codes:

• Delete temporary Internet Files (all of them): RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 8
• Delete Cookies: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 2
• Delete History: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 1
• Delete Passwords: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 32
• Delete everything. Don’t leave any footprint in my computer: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 4351

To run these batch files it is sufficient to:

1. Click Start.
2. Copy and past the code in the Search Bar (right under All Programs), press Enter.

The codes provided work on Vista and XP

If you work on dual monitors, at a certain point you may need to set two different wallpapers for each of the screens, just to diversify and make them nicer. The solution here is to use a very easy and simple freeware software which makes the hard work for you. Its name is DislpayFusion and, as you can guess, allows you to use different wallpapers while working in dual monitor. Other features include:

• Change your desktop wallpaper on a timer.
• Integrated Flickr image search & download.
• Easily manage application windows with fully customizable hotkeys.
• Move windows to the next monitor.
• Move windows to centre of the screen and size it to 75% of the work area.
• Maximize windows so that they span all monitors.

This free application is quite easy to install and doesn’t take a lot of resources from your computer. The only thing it does is to add a little icon on the right-bottom part of your screen, thanks to which you can gain access to the software’s options. It is Windows Xp and Vista compatible. If you want to download it or if you want to know more, click here. If you wish to watch a video and know how it works, click here.

Inside our computers we tend to store and stuff a lot of files: from pictures to music, from documents to games. We keep everything and it is very rare that we throw something even if it is totally useless. The latest generation of hard disks doesn’t help us a lot since they are bigger and bigger and can store hundreds of gigabytes. So, what solution do we have? One of them is to buy a nice external hard disk, but what if we don’t want to spend anything? Windows Vista and XP have, among their features a little utility which can spare you from throwing some of your precious junk and, at the same time, save some of your bucks! Let’s see how to free some space on the hard disk with this trick:

1. Click Start.
2. Right click on one Hard Disk.
3. Click on Properties.
4. Tick on Compress contents to save disk space.
5. A window will pop-up asking you: Apply changes to this folder only - Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files. Choose: Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files.
6. At this point your computer will start compressing the drive you chose. This will take some minutes, but at the end of the process you can stay assured by the fact that you will have freed a lot of megabytes or even some gigabytes on your computer.
7. This trick also works if you right click a folder or a file, select Properties, click Advanced on the window and tick Compress contents to save disk space.

Notes

• Files/folders/drives encrypted are not allowed to be compressed by the system.
• Compression only works on NTFS drives.
• Compressing and decompressing on the fly may cause your computer to slow down a little bit. Most of you won’t even notice it, but anyway you could experience that. Of course the compression is revertible.