Enable the Hidden BootScreen
January 12, 2008
A funny little thing with Windows Vista is that there is an appealing boot screen that is hidden but can be enabled very easily. The hidden BootScreen is visually much more appealing.
This is the default boot screen:
And this is the hidden one, called “Aurora”:
To enable the hidden BootScreen:
- 1.Open the start menu search box.
- 2.Type “msconfig” and hit enter.
- 3.Open the Boot tab.
- 4.Check the “No GUI boot” checkbox.
- 6.Reboot the computer.
5.Hit OK.
The new boot screen should appear immediately.
Note: A Windows Defender error may appear on the next startup. This error can be made to go away by enabling the system config utility using the tray icon.
Enable Military Time
January 12, 2008
To enable the system clock to show military time in Windows Vista is very simple but not obvious. Here’s where you’ll find it.
You need to get to the Regional and Language Options screen.
- 1.Enter “intl.cpl” into the Start menu search box.
- 2.Hit enter.
OR you could find it in the control panel. - In the Regional and Language Options dialog:
3. Click the “Customize this format” button and select the Time tab. - 4.Change the time format dropdown as shown in this example:
The key explains that the capital letter H means 24hour time. A simple letter means that it won’t display the leading zero.
Disable Your Windows Sidebar
January 12, 2008
The new Windows Vista sidebar may be useful by some of you but on the whole it is not necessary or particularly needed. These instructions tell you how to disable it.
To disable this option:
-
1.Right-click on the sidebar icon and select “Properties”.
- 2.Choose to uncheck the “Start Sidebar when Windows starts” checkbox.
- 3.Next, right-click on the icon and select “Exit” and this will close the sidebar.
Change the Start Menu so That It Uses Small Icons
January 12, 2008
By default, Windows Vista displays large icons in the start menu. The setting to change them to small icons is fairly hard to find. Here is where you will find it:
1.Right-click the Start button and choose “Properties”.
- 2.Select the “Customize” button.
- 3.Scroll to the bottom and find “Use large icons”. The checkbox will be checked.
- 4.Uncheck this box.
- The icons will now appear smaller. Much easier and tidier to use.
Hide Drives from Your Computer
January 12, 2008
There are so many drives in My Computer. It can be very difficult to find certain things you are not positive of their location amongst them all. Certain ones that you never access, perhaps a USB Flash drive that you are using solely for ReadyBoost, a network drives that is only used for one piece of software of a floppy drive, you may want to hide to make things tidier.
Even better, this tip only hides the drive from being displayed. You can still access it through applications and the command prompt and manually browse the folder if you type in the path.
For this example we will use the floppy drive.
Configure the Hidden Drives:
1.In the Start menu search box, open up “regedit.exe”.
2.Browse down to this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
(If you cannot find this key, then you can right-click on “Policies” and choose New Key, then name it “Explorer”.)
For the next step, it is unlikely the NoDrives key already exists by default. Instead you will have to create it following:
- Right-click.
- Choose new 32-bit DWORD.
- Name it “NoDrives”.
32-bit is the value of a 32 bit number. The bits are arranged in REVERSE order. Value of 1 equals that drive being hidden.
So for our example to hide drives through from A: to F: they would be arranged like this:
After converting 10001 to decimal we are left with a decimal value of 33 or a hex value of 0×21. So now you must:
3. Double-click on the key in the registry editor
4. Select “Decimal”
5. Enter “33” into the Value data field.
To see the changes you have made, you must restart explorer.exe. Do this from Task Manager or simply log off and back on again.
Uninstall Tweak
To REVERSE the tweak, removes the NoDrives registry key.
Reference Info
This table shows a number of values you can enter for different drive letters.
To hide multiple amounts of drives, use the table of ALL the drive letters so that you can figure out the correct binary code and then CONVERT that into decimal or hex.
Our result! The floppy drive has been removed.
This tip is also valid to use in Windows XP.
Hide Desktop Icon Text
January 12, 2008
Some icons are just obvious enough that nobody should need text below them to tell them what the icon is for. A good example of this is the icon for Internet Explorer. We’re all really used to it by now, and the text just makes it ugly.
Just right-click on the shortcut, and choose Rename. Now hold down the Alt key and type in 255 on the keypad to the right of the keyboard. You can’t use the number keys right above the keyboard, they won’t work. If you have a laptop, you can turn on numlock and then use the little number keys next to the regular letters. (You know you always wondered what they were for).
For the first shortcut on the desktop, a simple Alt+255 will do. For the next shortcut, you’ll have to enter the combination twice (Alt+255, Alt+255). For the third, 3 times… you get the idea.
The way this works is that the Alt+255 character is blank, so the shortcut filename is actually just named with a character that is completely blank. Since you can’t have two shortcuts or files named the exact same thing, the second shortcut will have to be named with two blank characters.
Now we have a sweet looking icon on the desktop, with no bothersome text beneath it.
This tip should actually work on any version of Windows, but it works a lot better on Vista, because Vista has beautiful icons.
If you use this tip to rename a folder, you will not be able to rename the folder back using the right-click rename. I’m not sure why this is. What you’ll have to do is open a command prompt and change directory into the containing folder (For instance, the desktop folder), and run this command:
ren “Alt+255” “NewFolderName”
You will need to actually type the Alt+255 characters where illustrated in the command. It will appear as a space.
Note that the Recycle Bin icon won’t work this way, you’ll have to follow this guide.
Enable the Additional Clocks
January 12, 2008
Windows Vista has a great new feature that allows the system clock to display up to 2 additional clocks when the mouse is hovered over the system clock.
This example shows the London clock:
Adding additional clocks is easy to do.
- 1.Right-click on the clock displayed in the system tray.
- 2.Select “Adjust Date/Time”.
- 3.Click the “Additional Clocks” tab.
- 4.Select the options and time zone as shown in this example:
This example has “London” entered, but you can choose any relevant display name you would like. Perhaps the name of a family member or friend living in different time zone.
Customize the Welcome Picture Choices
January 12, 2008
Although you can easily change your Vista logon/start menu picture, if a new picture is selected, Windows Vista will remove the last made picture from the list entirely. You are then left with the new picture and the default Windows Vista pictures.
Because you will probably prefer your own selection of pictures, you can change the list of default pictures to your own and delete the default ones you don’t want to use.
To get the list of pictures:
- 1.Open “Control Panel”
- 2.Open “User Accounts”
- 3.Open “Change Your Picture”
- 1.Click the “Organize” button.
- 2.Choose “layout” and then deselect “Navigation Panel”.
- 1.Hold your mouse over the Folders Bar until it changes to a resize icon like this:
- 2.Drag the Folders Bar all the way to the top and you will only see the Folders View from now on.
- Right-click on the Recycle Bin and select “Properties” from the menu.
The Trash Properties dialog will appear and you should see the “Display delete confirmation dialog” at the bottom.
And you will get a list of the pictures.
These pictures are hidden away in your program data directory.
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures
Now simply remove those pictures that you do not want and replace them with ones that you do want.
Note: Ensure your pictures are 128×128 resolution in bitmap format. Order them alphabetically if you want them in a certain order.To copy your current picture, you will find it stored in this file:
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp\ .tmp.bmp
The default user picture (the flower) is stored in this file:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user.bmp
The result. With a customized list of pictures, the bay tux picture can be seen remaining in the list while currently using a default Windows Vista picture.Disable the Favorite Links Panel
January 12, 2008
The Windows Vista Explorer panel comes with a new Favorite Links panel. If you don’t like this panel it is possible to turn it off.
It is called the Navigation Pane, turning it off is easy.To disable the entire panel:
Now, the Favorite Links bar should have disappeared. On the downside, this option also hides the Folders view as well. The following instructions can remedy this.
To show the Folders view instead of the Favorite Links Panel:2. Uncheck the box, and close the dialog.
The confirmations should no longer appear.
Note: Remember to turn them back on when you are finished to save you accidentally deleting files.
This same method is possible to use with any application that is able to be opened by using a command line argument.
Disable Delete Confirmation Dialog
January 12, 2008
Usually when you want to delete a file, Windows will ask you “Are you sure you want to move this file to the Recycle Bin?”. If you are conducting a cleanup of your files in a large quantity you may want to turn this off temporarily so you are not prompted every single time.
Note: It is recommended that you typically leave this option ON to prevent you deleting files by accident.
To disable the delete confirmation dialog: