Thursday, April 24, 2008

Changing the Hosts or Lmhosts files in Vista

Many power users are used to making changes in their Hosts and/or Lmhosts files that are used for name resolution, especially when they travel with their laptops. In Vista, you may find that trying to change these files results in an error message even though you're logged on as an administrator. The key is to run the Notepad program you're using to edit the file in administrative mode. You'll find instructions in KB article 923947 at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923947/en-us

Keyboard input may be displayed very slowly after you upgrade a computer to Windows Vista

Have you had annoying noticeable delays utilizing either a PS/2 keyboard or a wireless keyboard with a PS/2 adapter? M$ has a fix (registry entry) for you!
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927840/en-us

Friday, April 18, 2008

Vista SP1 Post Fixes

I will be posting any Post SP1 Vista fixes that I run across.

Fix for slow files copy (even after SP1 is installed)
C:\> netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
(Thanks to Mark Minassi's blog for this)

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Troubleshooting Windows Firewall settings in Windows XP Service Pack 2 for advanced users

Service pack 2 for XP updates the firewall software. A personal (host based) firewall is essential for any computer that connects to the Internet without a firewall at the edge of the local network, but sometimes getting the settings right can be tricky. KB article 875357 provides a comprehensive guide to troubleshooting firewall problems. Click Here

How to change the location of the IE 7 toolbar

In previous versions of Internet Explorer, the main toolbar (File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools, Help) was located at the very top of browser window, above the address box into which you type URLs. With IE 7, Microsoft moved the address bar to the top and put the toolbar under it. Although it's not a huge change, some people don't like it. If you're one of them, you'll be happy to know that there's a way to put things back the way you're used to, with a registry tweak. Here's how:

  1. Open your favorite registry editor.
  2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Toolbar \ WebBrowser
  3. Right click an empty space in the right pane and then click New | DWORD Value.
  4. Name the new value ITBAR7Position.
  5. Double click the new value and set the Data Value to 1.
  6. Click OK and close the registry editor.
  7. Close and reopen IE7.