Delete Tips of the day to save 5KB :)

Delete the Tips of the Day to save 5KB

Windows 95 had these tips of the day which appeared on a system running a newly installed Windows OS. These tips of the day are stored in the Windows Registry and consume 5K of space. For those of you who are really concerned about how much free space your hard disk has, I have the perfect trick.

To save 5K go to the following key in Regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerTips

Now simply delete these tricks by selecting and pressing the DEL key.

How to add your own windows tips

Are you sick of seeing the same tips again and again when you first logon to Windows? Now you can change them to whatever you want, whether it's quotes, jokes or a to-do list, anything is possible.

Open your registry and find the key below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Tips

Create a new string valued named by incrementing the existing value names and set it to the required tip text.

Changing the default location for installing applications

As the size of hard drives increase, more people are using partitions to separate and store groups of files.

XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.

Go to :-

- Start > Run

- Type “regedit” (without “” NOOBS!)

- Go to this directory…
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

- Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.

How to restrict login hours allowed

To restrict a users logon hours , use the net user command. These commands are used from the Command Prompt. (Start - RUN - and type cmd)

Below are some examples:

1 - net user praveen /time:M-F,08:00-17:00

2 - net user user /time:M-F,8am-5pm

3 - net user name /time:M,4am-5pm;T,1pm-3pm;W-F,8:00-17:00

4 - net user Shine /time:all (this one means this user can always log on)

Note:You can only restrict when a user can log on to the system. On a stand alone computer, there is no way to force a user to log off when their hours expire, without a third party script or software.

Set Windows Explorer to open the folder you want

Tired of "Windows Explorer" always opening up with My Documents?

You can customize it by changing the properties for the "Windows Explorer" icon and replacing the Target field with:

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, c:\yourfolder

Remove Linux Safely and restoring your MBR

First of all you need to know where your Linux OS is installed to. that is what drive it is currently living on. Bear in mind that Linux formats the drive as HFS rather than Fat/Fat32 or NTFS. ( These are the file systems used by various Operating Systems).

So HFS Partitions are not seen by windows, so its hidden.

To remove the partitions of Linux in WindowsXP go to your 'Control panel' > Admistrative Tools > Computer Managment

Open 'Disk Management' and you will see your Linux drives recognised as 'Unknown Partition' plus the status of the drive. Bearing in mind you know what partition and disk you installed to it will be easier to recognise as the drive/partition where you had installed it to.

Once you have identifed the drives, 'right-Click' on the drive/partiton and select 'Delete Logical Drive'

Once you have followed this through, you will now have free space.

This next part is very important. Once you have formatted the drive, re format it as your required file system type. either Fat32 or NTFS. Now the important part is coming up !

Fixing your Master Boot Record to make Windows Bootable again.

Have a Windows Boot disk with all the basic DOS Commands loaded on to the disk. A standard Windows 98/Me Boot Disk will work too.

Type in the DOS command :

e.g, from your C:\

fdisk /mbr

Or use your Windows XP run the recovery console, pick which xp install you would like to boot in to (usually you will pick #1)

then type: fixmbr. Answer Y to the dialoge.

Your master boot record will now be restored and Windows XP will be bootable once again. Your System will be restored with your original boot loader that you got with Windows XP.

Partitioning Your Harddisk With Fdisk

Partitioning your HardDisk

Partitioning involves creating logical units on your hard drive that are then addressed as different drive letters. Not only does it help to organize your data (program files on one drive, games on another, documents on another) but also to speed up your PC. This is so because the drive head has to move a lesser distance for accessing data within one partition. You can also have different filesystems and OSs on the same hard drive.

Partitioning can be done using ‘fdisk’ in DOS/Windows 9x or ‘disk management’ in Windows 2000/ NT/XP. We will describe the procedure for fdisk, since disk management is GUI driven and the basics otherwise remain the same. While several other commercial packages like Partition Magic are available, these utilities (fdisk, computer management) are bundled with their respective OSs. You need a bootable floppy with fdisk.exe, format.com, and sys. com utilities. Before starting, decide how many partitions you want to create and their sizes. You can create one primary and one extended partition using the DOS fdisk. The extended partition can then have multiple logical partitions. Boot your machine using the bootable disk, and do the following.

Run fdisk. The utility will show you a numbered menu from where you can create, view, or delete partitions
The utility first asks you whether you want to enable large disk support. Type Y (for yes) and press enter if your hard-drive capacity is more than 4 GB. Large disk support creates a FAT32 partition, which can be greater than 2 GB
Select the first option from fdisk menu to create a primary partition. Specify the partition size in megabytes or percentage size when prompted for it
Similarly, create an extended partition. Extended partitions by themselves do not appear as drive letters. Instead, logical partitions must be created in them, which are then assigned drive letters
Exit fdisk and reboot the computer
Fdisk automatically assigns drive letters to all the partitions. You’ll need to format each partition in order to use it. Use format.com for the same
Your hard drive is now ready for taking an OS.

Renaming your Recycle Bin

1. Start, Run, 'Regedit'.
2. Press 'Ctrl'+'F' to open find box and type 'Recycle Bin' to search.
3. Change any value data with 'Recycle Bin' to whatever name you want to give it ( ie, like 'Trash Can' or 'Dump' etc).
4. Press F3 to continue searching for 'Recycle Bin' and change wherever you come across 'Recycle Bin' to new its new name.
5. Repeat step 4 until you have finished with searching and changed all values to its new name.
6. Close regedit and hit F5 on desktop to see the new name on screen.

Note: As a good practice, always backup your registry before changing anything although changing 'Recycle Bin' name is a simple tweak and doesnt affect anything else.

Remove Splash screen and see operations

Are you having boot up problems and would like to know what it going on behind that Windows Loading Logo? To find out, you can disable the splash screen by making a small change to the Boot.ini file.

Follow these steps (carefully!):

1. Open the "System Properties" dialog box ( Settings - Control Panel - System)

2. On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in the "Startup And Recovery" section.

3. In the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box, select the Edit button in the "System Startup" section.

4. The Boot.ini file will open in Notepad; locate the line that ends with the /fastdetect switch.

5. Position your cursor to the right after the parameter, press the spacebar, and add the /SOS switch.

6. Save the Boot.ini file, and close Notepad.

7. Click Cancel to close both the "Startup And Recovery" dialog box and the "System Properties" dialog box.

8. Restart the computer to see the effect.

Once the computer restarts you will notice that the Windows Splash Screen is no longer present. Instead you can observe some of the boot up operations that Windows XP performs during the startup stage.

To renable the splash screen, follow the same procedure but remove the "/SOS".

Convert Stubborn webpage to .pdf

I have come across some websites that i wanted to save the page for later review. I found that i was having Some problems with certain sites. I found a way around it.

What you need:adobe acrobat 6 pro or better
popupcop

There may be a simpler way to do this but i found that this works:

When at a webpage that you want to copy (YOU MUST BE USING IE AND HAVE BOTH POPUPCOP INSTALLED AND ADOBE ACROBAT 6 PRO OR HIGHER, ACROBAT ICON MUST BE IN IE TOOLBAR TO CONVERT TO .PDF), slide popupcops popup intensity bar to the far left, now click on adobe acrobat icon to convert webpage to .pdf document. I have yet to find a webpage where this trick does not work.

Create a Personal Screen Saver in Windows XP

This isnt a tweak, but a great little feature! For a great way to put your digital photos to work, try creating a slide show presentation for use as a screen saver. Here's how:

1. Right-click an empty spot on your desktop and then click Properties.

2. Click the Screen Saver tab.

3. In the Screen saver list, click My Pictures Slideshow.

4. Click Settings to make any adjustments, such as how often the pictures should change, what size they should be, and whether you'll use transition effects between pictures, and then click OK.

Now your screen saver is a random display of the pictures taken from your My Pictures folder.

XP auto install

May be this might be useful. I install 98 with backup/restore utility.

My way of auto installation of XP.
Then on second partition or the same partition XP without pagefile.sys.

Then i get a dual boot. So after booting into XP, Install all ur fav progies
n games. Test each of them, to make sure they work... etc etc... all
ur drivers also. Tweak ur xp.

make sure u unhide all files relates to win xp dir and progra files.

Then boot into 98 > goto backup utility of 98.

Select the folders used by XP, eg
my documents and settings
winxp (or windows- what ever name u gave to windows dir)
check all files in the root
program files folder
and like this all folders and files used by xp.

then start the backup process.

make sure u have ~ > 3gb of free space on the disk / partition
u r planning to save the image file.

Then when ur XP crashes or U crash it ... lol
then just boot into 98, goto restore option,
and click ok. Over write old files or new ones as u like.

It takes ~20min to install



Windows Xp  including

Office Xp
Interdev
.net framework
winzip
winrar
tweaks
easy cleaner
adobe
gif animator
acdess 6
service pack1 , and now service pack 2b
lan settings
mcafee antivirus
zone alarm
cute ftp3 pro
Easy CD-DA Extractor 7
Eraser
Ahead
Links Organizer
Bulk Rename Utility
BitStrike Software
Mozilla Firefox
Microsoft Visual Studio
Opera
Onlinetimer
Nokia
Ulead Systems
UltraISO
Virtual CD v4
SlimBrowser
Yahoo!
Msn
Webroot
Spamihilator
inetpub


U can exclude any folder, u think is not needed at that time for reinstallation.

The whole task id completed in 20 minutes ... in the mean while
I make a nice cup of tea for myself and wait for XP to start

PS: dont forget to include boot.ini file.

Hope it will help.

Recovering a Quick Erased DVD

 Procedure used to recover data from a quick-erased CD-RW disc

1. Make a file of exactly the size of the cdrw disc's capacity (650MB in my case).
(this step may not be needed)

2. With Nero I created a new project and added the file to it so that I have the disc filled. I gues you can also fill up the disc with other files.
The reason why I fill the disc is because I want Nero to make a session that uses the entire disc. Like I wrote earlier in this thread I experienced that my CD-Drive refuses to read off the disc beyond the session's boundaries. When you quick-erase a disc there is no session anymore so the drive will not read at all. Burning a new session will overwrite the data and burning only a small session will NOT make the drive read the other data that is still on the disc.
The reason why I used the one big file is so that I could later on recognize which part of the disc was overwritten by this file because this file contained all zeros (0x00).

3. I pressed burn and selected disc-at-once. Then while Nero was burning the leadin I pressed cancel. My CD-Drive finished writing the lead-in and Nero reported an error.
This is what was accomplished however: Now the disc contains a session that says that the used disc size is the complete disc. Nero did not get to writing file because I cancelled it. Good thing because I don't want Nero to write any files because my old data will get overwritten!
I gues it works the same with different writing software. Another method that I used during a test was simply press the reset button of the computer when the burning software was done with writing the lead-in and started with the files.

4. I had to restart the computer after cancelling burning.
With the cdrw disc inserted I saw in "my computer" that windows recognized that the disc was 650MB, clicking on it gave an error. Good so far!

Now with IsoBuster you can extract the sectors from a disc to a file. This is what I did.
I gues that if you have data-recovery software at this point it will be usefull because now (if all went well;)) the CD-Drive WILL read data from the entire disc. Anyway, I used ISO-Buster because the files that I needed to recover where a bit odd for nowadays (.XM, .S3M, .MP3):
In IsoBuster I had to do several steps:

Step 1: Find out from and to which sector the drive will read
By choosing "Sector View" you can look at any given sector.
Here I found out what the first and the last sectors where that are readable. (Hint I used the method for the old game: "Gues a number below 100, I'll tell if it is higher or lower than what you gues")
Step 2: Extract the actual sectors
By choosing "Extract From-To" you can extract any given range of sectors to a file. My disc was a data-disc so I choose the first extraction type "User data, 2048 bytes/block...".

In the end I got a .tao file which was about 650MB. I ran several programs on it to look for files inside a file by searching for file-header-paterns:
1. Multi Ripper 2.80 (for DOS, for the .XM files. It does many other file formats as well (jpg,png, bmp,wav,etc,etc +100). Try google with this query: Multi Ripper 2.80. I still had the file from good old days but I saw several good search results)

2. Winamp for mp3.
Winamp will scan any file when you give it the extension .mp3 and play it as one big song (so I renamed the .tao file to .mp3). I used the discwriter to get a .wav and the Adobe Audition to manually cut and save my songs. I looked at the MP3 file format and it is hard to find an mp3 file in a big file because it has no clear header just a bunch of mpeg-frames in most cases for me . A lot of my files had no ID3v2 or ID3v1 tags... But after a couple of hours I recovered everything.

Finally a list of used stuff:

Software:
- IsoBuster v1.5
- Nero 6.3.0.3
- Multi Ripper 2.80
- WinAmp v5.02
- Windows XP Pro NL (patched up)

Hardware:
- NEC DVDRW ND1300A 1.06

Disc:
- some old 4 speed cdrw