How to Disable UAC in Vista

UAC is a new feature implemented in Windows Vista to increase security. While I would highly recommend having it enabled, some people believe it is annoying and want to disable it. Click Read more to find out how to disable it.

To disable it, open the start menu and type "User Accounts" and hit enter. A window will appear with a list of choices. Click Turn User Account Control on or off and click continue on the UAC dialogue. Once the new screen appears, untick the box labeled "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer" and click OK. You will be prompted to restart your computer. Once you restart, UAC will be disabled.

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FREE Antivirus!

Nowadays you can not get by without antivirus software on your PC. Many people do not know there is a large amount of antivirus software to choose from, and many of them free! Click read more to find out more!

My favorite free antivirus software is Avast! Antivirus. They freely give home users the same service that they charge businesses for! Just download the home version from their website, www.avast.com, and complete the registration form for your free product key!

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How to Change the Location of the Documents and other user Folders

Windows sets the location of the Documents, Music, Pictures, and other similar folders inside of the users directory by default. While this is fine in most cases, some times it is better to move the folder. An example would be if you installed a second hard drive in your computer and wish to put more files in those folders then your original drive could hold. If you simply moved the folder to the new location, Windows wouldn't know and would still try to access the old location when you click the Documents icon. Click Read more to see how to change the location of these folders to anywhere else on your PC.


On XP, the only folder linked to from within programs and save dialogues is the My Documents folder, and only that folders location can be changed. My Pictures, My Music, etc will remain within My Documents. On Vista, you can change the location of any folder inside of your user folder.

First, right click the folder whose location you wish to change and select Properties. On XP, click the Move button and select a new location for My Documents. On Vista, select the Location tab at the top of the window and then click the Move button to select a new location for the folder.
Once you select the new location, click OK to confirm the change. You will be asked if you wish to move your files to the new location. Once that is done, the folder has now been changed and Windows will know where the folder is located.

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Increase The Amount of Recent Programs Shown in the Start Menu

The Windows Start Menu displays the most recently used programs depending on how often a program is launched. The list by default is very small and may not contain very many of your programs. There is plenty of room on the screen to show more programs. Click read more to find out how to increase the amount of recently used programs shown!

To increase the amount of recent programs displayed in the start menu, first right click on the task bar at the bottom of the screen and select properties from the context menu.
Once the properties windows appears, select the Start Menu tab at the top and click the Customize button and another window will appear. In this window you will see a section which will say "Number of recent programs to display" if you are using Vista or "Number of programs on Start menu" if you are using XP. Set the number of programs that the Start Menu should display and click OK on both windows.

Now, the Start Menu will show many more programs!

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How to hide users in Windows Vista & XP

Windows XP and Vista will automatically show all user accounts on the welcome screen with no easy option to disable this. You may want to have a hidden one that no one knows about, and using this tutorial, you will learn how to hide a user account from the welcome screen. Click Read More to see how!

This tutorial involves use of the registry editor. Do not do this if you are uncomfortable using it.
First make the account you want to hide. If it is already there, you may skip this step. I will name mine "Secret".

Next open the registry editor by pressing the Windows key + R on your keyboard at the same time. Type in "regedit" and press enter. If you are using vista, press the Continue button on the UAC popup.
Once in the registry editor, navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList". If the SpecialAccounts or UserList folder do not exist, create them by right clicking on the parent folder and creating a new Key. Make sure to name them exactly as they look above.

Once in the UserList folder, right click in the white space and select new then DWORD value. Type in the name user account which you want to hide. This must match the user account exactly.
You can now close the registry editor, and the user account should be hidden!

In Windowx XP, you may press ctrl+alt+del twice quickly to bring up a login box where you can manually enter the username and password to log in.

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Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista

The Vista boot screen is very plain and dull but Microsoft has a nicer boot screen hidden in Vista that is not enabled by default. I do not know why this was not put as the boot screen, as it looks much nicer. You can manually enable it very easily. Click Read more to see how!

Follow the procedure below to enable the alternate boot screen.
1. Press Win+R on your keyboard or open the Start Menu, type "msconfig" and hit enter. Press the Continue button if UAC is enabled.
2. Select the boot tab on the top.
3. Under Boot options, select "No GUI boot" and click OK.

You can either press "Restart" to see the new boot screen right away, or you can press "Exit without restart" if you can wait until your next reboot.

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How to change the power button in Vista to shut down your PC.

If you do not like to put your computer to sleep or would just rather have the power button in the Vista Start Menu shut down your computer you can follow this simple guide. Click Read more to see how!

1. Open the Start Menu
2. In the search box, write "Power Options" and open it.
3. Under the selected power plan, click "Change plan settings"
4. Click "Change advanced power settings"
5. Open "Power buttons and lid" and then "Start menu power button"
6. Change the setting to "Shut down" and click OK
The button in the Start Menu should now look different and shut down your computer!
You may close out of the Power Options window if it is still open.

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How to keep files across multiple computers in sync!

Microsoft SyncToy is a PowerToy for Windows XP and Vista that allows you to keep folders in sync! They can be on the same drive, on different drives, or even on different computers!
Click "Read more!" to see how!


To begin, you must download Microsoft SyncToy and install it. At first run, it displays the following screen.


Press the "Create New Folder Pair" button on the bottom. A window will pop up asking for a "Left" folder and a "Right" folder. If synchronizing between two computers, put the local folder in the "Left" folder and the remote folder as the "Right" folder. The next step asks which type of synchronization you would like. Read the short description and select which you would like. If you want to keep a folder that will be modified on both computers, the first option is the best. The last step asks for the folder pair name. Create a name and click "Finish".

You may now create new pairs, preview the synchronization, or run the synchronization.

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Use Windows Vista Photo Gallery in full resolution!

As many people have noticed with Vista, if you do not have an experience rating of at least 5 then Windows Photo Gallery will not run slideshows at high resolutions. This can be a problem, especially for LCD owners because it will not run at the native resolution causing the quality of the slideshow to be heavily degraded. Fortunately, there is a simple fix that requires a little bit of registry editing. Click read more to see how!

To fix this nuisance, you will need to open the registry editor. Open the run menu by pressing both the start button on your keyboard and the R key and type in "regedit" and hit enter. Anytime UAC (User Account Control) asks to proceed, hit the permit button. You will need to add an entry into the registry to trick Windows Photo Gallery into believing you have an experience rating of 5. Navigate to "HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows Photo Gallery\SlideShow" right click in the white space on the right side and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value named WinSATScore. Double click the entry you just created and enter 500 for the Value Data and hit OK.


Your Windows Photo Gallery should no longer change your resolution when you start a slideshow. You may have to do this for every user account on the computer and Windows Photo Gallery may not run fluidly if you do not have a experience rating of 5.

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Extend Vista grace period up to 120 days

Every Vista DVD has the ability to install any version of Vista without a product key. If you install without a product key, you have a 30 day grace period to enter a key and activate. If you need to extend this period, you may do so by using a built in function of Vista. This may be done 3 times, each time resetting the time left to 30 days.

Press Read more to see how!

To extend the activation period, open the start menu and enter in cmd and press enter. In the command prompt, type the following in (without quotes) "slmgr -rearm". It will take about 20 seconds and will then bring up a message telling you to reboot. Reboot your computer and check the time left by going to your system properties.

You will notice that it now says 30 days again. You may do this three times, every time resetting the period to 30 days. To get all 120 days, only run the command when there is one day left to activate.

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