Print Your Hardware

Have you ever wondered what all your computer has in terms of hardware? I'm talking about everything from the motherboard to ports to controllers to drives and every other resource your computer uses to help you get your work done. Well, if you have ever wished that you could have a compiled list of this information, today is your lucky day. That's exactly what I'm going to show you!

It's very easy to print out a list of your hardware right through your computer's Device Manager (which is the utility that holds all of the information about the devices, etc. on your computer). To open the Device Manager, right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and choose Properties. From there, click on the Hardware tab and then hit the Device Manager button. You will then see a list of all the services on your system. Now, you must click on one of the items so it is highlighted. Then go up to the Action menu and hit Print.

When the print job is done, you will probably have at least two pages, if not more, worth of listings for your computer's hardware information. Depending on your computer, you will probably have a list of your hardware, then a memory summary, a port summary, a system summary and a disk drive summary. Once you're done looking over everything, make sure you keep it in case you ever want to refer back to it. You also might want to do a print out of this every so often, just so you will have an updated list. Neato!

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Tips Trick : Select theme and color scheme for welcome screen

With this tweak you will be able to modify which color selection of the default theme is shown when the computer start up screen is displayed.

Currently since there is only one theme you can only change the color scheme for the theme but in the future when more themes are available for XP you will be able to change which theme is used in the same place in the windows registry.

1. Start regedit.
2. Navigate to
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager 3. Locate the key NormalColor
4. Right Click on it and select modify.
5. Change where it says "NormalColor" to "Metallic"
6. Click Ok, and exit regedit
7. Restart

Note: To go back to the old color scheme durring startup just change "Metallic" back to "NormalColor" Once more themes are released you will be able to modify the DllName key to select different themes.

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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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