Installing an "Old" Printer in Vista

I have a couple of questions for you today! Have you ever tried connecting your old printer to your new Windows Vista computer? Ever had to face a "PCL6 Driver Not Compatible" error message in Vista? If so, read on, because I have some good news for you!

When installing your still functional legacy printer (like the NEC SuperScript 1450, for example) onto your new computer system with Windows Vista, immediately, you'll be struck with an incompatibility issue. An error message like this will probably pop up on your screen: “PCL6 driver was not compatible with a policy enabled on your computer.” After getting that error message, you're basically unable to use your old printer. But, like I said before, there's a quick relief. Here's what you can do:

The error message clearly says there's a problem with the policy. Hence, when the same policy is changed, you'll be able to get your printer up and running. All you have to do is this:

1. Go to Start.
2. Type in “gpedit.msc” (without the quotes) and then hit Enter. That will launch the Group Policy Object Editor.
3. Under the Computer Configuration section, double click on Administrative Templates and then select Printers.
   
4. In the right pane, find the policy named "Disallow Installation of Printers Using Kernel-mode Drivers" and double click on it.
   
5. Set its status to Disabled.

By disabling the disallow policy, you enable the use of kernel-mode drivers, which is what you need to be able to use your old printer. When you're finished, click OK to close the Group Policy Editor. You'll then need to reboot your computer for everything to take effect. That's all you have to do. Now, you can enjoy your favorite printer with your new Windows Vista computer. Yes!

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Add “Hide File Names” Option in “View” Menu in Windows Vista

Names Option in View Menu in your Windows Vista ...... this trick works only with Windows Vista.

1. Open a folder, in which you want to add this option. If you want to add this option in all folders, then open the parent folder. e.g. if you want to add the option in every folder of E: drive, then open E: drive.

2. Right-click on a blank area in the folder and select “Customize This Folder". You can also get this option from “View -> Customize This Folder.

3. It’ll open “Customize” tab. Now select “Pictures and Videos” option from “Template” drop-down box.
NOTE: If you want to add the option “Hide File Names” to a particular folder then make sure to un-check the option “Also apply this template to all subfolders“, otherwise enable this option.

4. Now Apply it and see the magic.
Now you’ll get an extra option “Hide File Names” in “View“. Which can hide file/folder names in that particular folder.Actually in Windows XP we can hide file/folder names by pressing key and selecting “View -> Thumbnails“. Since they hv removed “Thumbnails” option from “View” menu, I think thats why this option was added to folders having their templates as “Pictures and Videos”.

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Clean Your RAM and Get Some Speed

Here's an old trick that may help some of you who do not have that much RAM. You may have noticed that your PC gets slower and slower when you do a lot of things with it like playing games, then using different applications.

The reason for the slowdown is that your RAM is full of remaining progress pieces you do not need any more. You need to free it to gain some speed. Here's a simple trick to do it : open Notepad and type FreeMem=Space(128000000).

Save it as RAMcleaner.vbs then run it. It could could free up some RAM. You can edit the code to have a better cleaning power. You can type FreeMem=Space(256000000) and see the result.

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Creating a Logon Banner

If you want to create a Logon Banner: A message box to appear below your logon on.

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go To
   For Windows 9x and ME -
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\
   CurrentVersion\ Winlogon
   
   For Windows 2000 XP 2003 Vista -
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\
   Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon
3. Create a new String value "LegalNoticeCaption "
4. Enter the Title of the window. What is displayed in the Title Bar.
5. Create a new string value "LegalNoticeText"
6. Enter the text for your message box that will appear even before the Logon window.

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How To Enable Task Manager

Some Malware and Trojan often disable access to Windows Task Manager. Fortunately, a few quick Registry edits are usually all that are needed to regain control.

Here's how to do it:

• Click Start
• Click Run
• Type REGEDIT
• Click OK and The Registry Editor will now open
• Browse to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
  Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\system
• In the right pane, look for the value: DisableTaskMgr
• Right click DisableTaskMgr and select Delete. (When prompted with
  "Are you sure you want to delete this value", select Yes.
• Now browse to the following key:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
  Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
  policies\system
• In the right pane, look for the value: DisableTaskMgr
• Right click DisableTaskMgr and select Delete.
  (When prompted with "Are you sure you want to delete this value", select Yes.
• Close the Registry by choosing File Exit
• Restart your computer

You should now be able to access Task Manager. If not, reboot into Safe Mode and repeat the steps outlined above.

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Admin Password Recovery

1. Insert Windows CD in your cd-rom and start your computer
2. Keep your eye on the screen messages for booting to your cd Typically, it will be “Press any key to boot from cd”
3. Once you get in, the first screen will indicate that Setup is inspecting your system and loading files.
4. When you get to the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to Setup Windows now
5. The Licensing Agreement comes next - Press F8 to accept it.
6. The next screen is the Setup screen which gives you the option to do a Repair.It should read something like “If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, Setup can try to repair it”Use the up and down arrow keys to select your XP installation (if you only have one, it should already be selected) and press R to begin the Repair process.
7. Let the Repair run. Setup will now check your disks and then start copying files which can take several minutes.
8. Shortly after the Copying Files stage, you will be required to reboot. (this will happen automatically – you will see a progress bar stating “Your computer will reboot in 15 seconds”
9. During the reboot, do not make the mistake of “pressing any key” to boot from the CD again! Setup will resume automatically with the standard billboard screens and you will notice Installing Windows is highlighted.
10. Keep your eye on the lower left hand side of the screen and when you see the Installing Devices progress bar, press SHIFT + F10. This is the security hole! A command console will now open up giving you the potential for wide access to your system
11. At the prompt, type NUSRMGR.CPL and press Enter. Voila! You have just gained graphical access to your User Accounts in the Control Panel.
12. Now simply pick the account you need to change and remove or change your password as you prefer. If you want to log on without having to enter your new password, you can type control userpasswords2 at the the prompt and choose to log on without being asked for password. After you’ve made your changes close the windows, exit.

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Make your PC shutdown at a time you wish.

There are two methods to make your computer shutdown at a time you wish.

METHOD 1:

1. Right click on your desktop and choose "New=>shortcuts".
2. In the box that says "Type the location of the shortcut",type in "shutdown -s -t 3600" without the quotation marks and click next. Note: 3600 are the amount of seconds before your computer shuts down. So , 60secs*60mins=3600secs.
3. Make up a name for the shortcut and you're done.You can change the icon by right clicking=>properities=>change icon=>browse

TO ABORT:
To make an abort key to stop the shutdown timer just create another shortcut and makethe "location of the shortcut" to " shutdown -a" without the quotes.

METHOD 2:
Here is another trick to shutdown at a specific time, for example you wish to shutdown at
11:35am. Type this in
start=>Run
Type Code: at 11:35 shutdown -s

TO ABORT:
Code: shutdown –a

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