Windows Vista - Tips

• Access special folders easily using the shell command

  How to use the shell keyword to quickly access special folders like the Send To folder.

• Activate Aero Interface on Windows Vista Home Basic

  Bypass the restriction of not being able to use the Aero interface on Windows Vista Home Basic.

• All Tasks can be accessed through a special Control Panel

  The All Tasks folder gives a quick overview of all the options available in the Control Panel.

• Change OEM branding of the Welcome Center

  The Welcome Center applet can be modified to display OEM name and logo.

• Change OEM branding of the system information applet

  The System Information applet can be modified to display OEM name and logo.

• Change the display of drive-letters in Windows Explorer

  Control in what order the drive letter and label should be shown in My Computer.

• Configure Windows Search to index file contents

  Configure Windows Search index filters to perform indexing of document and spreadsheets using IFilters.

• Configure automatic detection of folder type

  Windows Explorer tries to guess how to display a directory, by looking at the files within.

• Configure the explorer file sort to be like in Windows 2000

  Windows Explorer file sorting can be changed from logical number compare to just one digit at a time.

• Configure the file association for unknown file types

  Change whether it should use the Internet to determine what application to use for opening a file of an unknown type.

• Configure the keyboard mapping using scancode map

  How to use the scancode map to modify the keyboard layout and disable the Windows-key.

• Configure the thumbnail cache for picture preview

  The thumbnail cache allows the Windows Explorer to show preview of pictures, but also makes the browsing slower.

• Control the keyboard numlock state at startup

  Configure whether the num-lock, caps-lock or scroll-lock keys should be turned on or off at startup.

• Create keyboard shortcut to quickly launch a program

  How to configure a keyboard shortcut as a hotkey to quickly start an application.

• Creating the Show Desktop shortcut

  The Show Desktop shortcut in the quick launch bar can be restored if deleted.

• Defrag command line switches

  List of the available command line switches for defrag.

• Faster start menu search by not searching all files

  The start menu search in Windows Vista will by default search all folders and files in My Documents folder.

• Make screendump of the desktop using Print Screen

  How to use the keyboard key "Print Screen" to make a screen dump.

• Mapping folder as a virtual drive letter using subst

  Mount a file folder as a drive-letter, like a shortcut to make it easier to access the folder.

• Remove drive-letters for removable drives from Send-To

  Configure whether it should display removable drives like Floppy, DVD and Network drives in the Send To context menu.

• Restore search context menu option in Vista SP1+

  The "Search..." context menu option has been removed with Windows Vista Service Pack 1

• Send To Toys

  Utility that can extend the functionality of the sendto context menu.

• Use NTFS compression to save disk space

  NTFS compression can compress / decompress files on the fly and save disk space and minimize needed hard disk I/O

• Verbose status messages during boot, logon, logoff and shutdown

  Extend the level of informational messages during Windows startup and shutdown.