STFU && RTFM

I recently wrote about the so-called God mode in Windows 7. As it turns out, there are as many as seventeen of them. In addition to the “full” God mode, you also have the following:
 

 
To use the different modes, simply follow the guide from My original post.

A nifty little way of getting a more finegrained level of control over Windows 7, is using the so-called GodMode option. By creating a folder, and giving it a specific name, you will get access to loads of options:
 

Click on the image to view the full size
 
To enable GodMode, you need to do the following:
 

1. Create a new folder, anywhere you like
2. Call the new folder GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

 
That’s it. You’ll see the folder icon changes, adn looks like a control panel, and you can create shortcuts to it wherever you want.
 
Note: You don’t actually have to call the folder GodMode. What’s important is that you leave everything behind the . as shown above.

UAC, or User Acount Control, is a great step forward for computer security. However, alot of people complain about it being a hassle, slowing them down and so forth. What UAC does, is basically treat all users, without regard for their access level, as standard users. When you attempt to perform an administrative action, you get a prompt, either asking you to supply user credentials for a user that has the needed access, or to say “yes, I want to do that”.
 
To disable it, you need to do the following:
 

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Navigate through the registry editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
3. Change the value of the ConcentPromptBehaviorAdmin key to 00000000

Normally, if you want to encrypt or decrypt a file in Windows XP Pro or Vista, you simply right-click on the file or folder, then choose the Properties command from the shortcut menu. You click the “Advanced” button on the General tab, which gives you access to the Encrypt or the Decrypt option.
 
If you, like me, think that’s a bit much to do, you can add those options to the shortcut menu displayed when you right-clikc the file:
 

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
3. Create a new DWORD called EncryptionContextMenu and assign it a value of 1

Autoplay is one of the most wildly annoying features I know. I just dislike inserting, let’s say, a TechNet CD, and have Windows open Internet Explorer and display a lot of useless information that I don’t care about.I would much rather browse through the file system of the disc, and go directly to what I need. Luckily, you can create a registry key to disable Autoplay:
 

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
3. Create a DWORD named NoDriveTypeAutoRun
4. Set the value to 000000FF

I’ve previously showed you how to disable the Caps Lock key in Ubuntu. There are many ways of doing this in Windows as well, my favorite is to simply remap it to something else.
 
Microsoft have published a tool kit called Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools. In it is a nifty little utility called remapkey.exe. Download and install the tool kit. I installed it to the default location (C:\Program files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools). Once installed, simply open the folder to see the plethora of utilities it comes with:
 

 
The utility shows you two keyboard setups, a base keyboard and a remapped keyboard. Simply drag keys from the base keyboard onto the key you want to remap on the remapped keyboard. In the screenshot below, you’ll see I’ve remapped caps lock to left shift:
 

 
When you hit save, the program warns you that you’ll lose the Capslock key:
 

 
The change requires a reboot, but once you’ve rebooted, you’re in the caps lock free environment you were wanting.
 
The tool works with Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 and Vista. In Vista you’ll need administrative privileges to do this.

I’m often annoyed by this dialog box when I open unassociated filetypes:
 

 
Luckily, the annoyance is simply removed thus:
 

• Startmenu > Run
• Type regedit and press enter
• Find the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer
• Create a new DWORD value called NoInternetOpenWith, with a value of 1

 
Update: I’ve tried this on Windows 7, and it works there as well

Whenever I get a new keyboard for my desktop computers, the first thing I do is remove the Caps Lock key. It’s a useful key to be sure, but I dislike it. It’s much better in my mind to use the Shift key. As a result, I have been looking for a way to disable it, which I knew was possible in Linux at the very least.
 
I don’t know if this fix works in other distros than Ubuntu, though I don’t see why it shouldn’t. Here’s how to do it:
 

• Open your terminal console
• Enter the command xmodmap -e "clear Lock"
• Hit enter
• Enter your admin password

 
Should you wish to turn it back on (although I’m not sure why you’d want to), here’s how:
 

• Open your terminal console
• Enter the command xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock"
• Hit enter
• Enter your admin password

In my last post, I showed you how to use the GPEdit app to change the default Save As/Open locations. There’s another way to do this, using that great little tool called TweakUI.
 
If you haven’t gotten it already, download and install it before reading on.
 Here’s how to make the tweak:
 

• Open TweakUI
• Navigate to the Common Dialogsentry
• Open the entry called “Places Bar”
• Set the settings as you want like so:



• You have a few predefined places, but you can point it to local folders such as c:\example\foldername or even remote computers such as \\remote.computer.network.net\folder

I’ve been annoyed that I’ve not been able to change the default Save As/Open locations, as well as changing the 5 options I get on the Places Bar. Here’s what it looks like default:
 

 
Now, there are two ways of changing this, this first one uses the GPEdit or Group Policy Editor app which you might remember from my post on branding Internet Explorer. Here’s how we go about changing it:
 

• In the start-menu, open “Run”
• Type “gpedit.msc” and hit enter
• In the group policy editor, navigate to:

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer\Common Open File Dialog

• Open the entry called Items displayed in Places Bar
• Set the entry to Active, and configure at will

 
Here’s the end product: