STFU && RTFM

Many of the innovations in Windows 7 are more about estetics and eye-candy than anything else. Some of them are downright silly; such as this one:
 
You’re working on your computer, and you have a lot of windows open. You then need to focus on a specific window, and minimize all the others. That’s done by clicking the title-line of a window, and shaking it, which will make the other windows minimize.
 
You can still use the keyboard shortcut Win+d to achieve the same result.

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.

An old joke says that there are three kinds of lies; black lies, white lies and the internal polling data of political parties. The latter example is typically statistics, and while statistics can be presented in such a way as to prove almost anything, raw, unprocessed statistics are a great tool.
 
One of my habits when troubleshooting troubles is to have a look at the event viewer. While event viewer allows you to see specific events, it can sometimes be difficult to see trends. In Windows XP, we don’t really have a choice, we’ll have to look through the data, and parse it ourselves.
 
Enter Windows Vista, and Windows Reliability Monitor. As the screendump below shows, it will show you, as a graph, when things have started to deteriorate. You can look through the history, and see on what days there have been many errors. It also gives you a reliability index rating, from 10 to 1 (Ten being very good, 1 being exceedingly bad. Coupled with event viewer logs, Reliability Monitor makes it that much easier to read logs, and solve problems.
 

Click the image to see the full size version

Working in IT, I often have people ask me about issues they are having with their computer. Now, while I’m happy to help out, I often find that the problems I solve for them are problems they could have solved themselves. Mitch Tulloch, a Microsoft MVP and lead author of the just-published Windows 7 Resource Kit (Microsoft Press, 2010; ISBN: 9780735627000; 1760 pages), has created a short e-book called “What You Can Do Before You Call Tech Support.” Here are the opening paragraphs:
 

Your sound card has stopped working, your computer seems sluggish, the network is down, your hard drive is clicking, you can’t view a website, your monitor is hard to read, your new webcam isn’t working, your favorite program won’t run, and a funny burning smell is coming from your computer. What can you do on your own to try to troubleshoot the issue before you pick up the phone to call tech support?
 
If you’re running Windows 7, quite a lot. Microsoft has included a lot of self-support tools in Windows 7 that you can try using before you seek the help of others, and we’ll examine these in a moment. Then there are the tools you were born with—your five senses (see, hear, smell, taste, touch) and most importantly your brain. And by brain I’m including your memory, experience, and capacity for logical reasoning. Finally, there is ancient and sacred lore passed on in secret from Master to Disciple over the millennia. We’ll see shortly how your brain, your senses, and the secrets of the Wise Ones can be very helpful for troubleshooting computer problems. But first let’s look at what troubleshooting tools are built into Windows 7.

 
You can download the e-book in XPS format here and in PDF format here. Enjoy!

I had a user call in, complaining that her “Show Desktop” icon had disappeared from the Quick Launch bar. She was unable to find it again, and was really distressed as she used it a lot.
 
As it turns out, Show Desktop is not a regular program, but rather an OS command, known as an SCF-file, which according to FileInfo.com is a

Command used by Windows Explorer; for example, to move up or down a directory or show the Desktop; run via Internet Explorer.

 
The solution was simple enough, even though I would recommend that you implement it yourself rather than have a non-technical user implement it. Solving the problem goes as follows:
 

1. Open notepad
2. Enter the following in notepad:
   [Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

Save the file as “Show Desktop.scf” in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

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 have long been of the opinion that where Microsoft have gone very, very badly wrong indeed when it comes to Windows is that they release multiple versions. The argument could be made that this is how it has been since NT4.0/98, but that argument doesn’t hold, because they ditched the Windows 98 line of development in favor of the NT line of development with the release of Windows XP.
 
XP, of course, was released in two versions, Home and Professional. More recently, Vista was launched with no less than six different versions. With the recent launch of the public beta of Windows 7, we see no less than five versions, with a possible sixth reserved for volume licence customers.
 
In my opinion, what any version of Linux, as well as what Mac OS have going for them is a simplicity of choice: choose distribution. You are done. With Windows, you first need to choose Windows, then choose which version you want. I think it is time that no matter your needs, your should be able to get all of the features, provided your hardware can handle them.
 
The division between XP Home and Professional was a mistake. Understandable, but a mistake. Why do Microsoft keep making the same rutting mistakes???

I love using command line tools, especially for troubleshooting networking. There are two simple commands you need to know; ipconfig and ping. Here’s a simple guide to finding where the problem :
 

1. Open the command line by opening the “run” dialog box, entering cmd and clicking OK
2. Ensure that the TCP/IP service is running by pinging the loopback address like so: ping 128.0.0.1
3. Run the ipconfig command, which should give you information something like this:

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

4. If your address is not an APIPA address, ping your IP-address.
5. Ping the default gateway
6. Ping www.iana.org
7. Ping the website or server you are trying to reach

 
If any of the above tests fail, you’ve found where the problem is.

I’m sure you know the problem: you’ve used someone elses computer, and want to remove your traces. One of the easiest ways of doing that is to use the DiskCleanup utility, however locating it isn’t exactly the easiest thing.
 
Luckily, it’s pretty simple to initiate the utility from the Run dialog; simply enter the program name, cleanmgr.exe and hit “OK”, and there you go.

I rarely write posts off the cuff, but this warrants it. Microsoft has released Security Bulletin MS08-059, along with a hotfix for the problem detailed. There are already exploits in the wild to take advantage of the hotfix.
 
What I ask is simply this: Update your computer. Run Windows Update, and update your computer.
 
Here’s the bulletin from Microsoft:
Bulletin Identifier – Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-059
Bulletin Title – Vulnerability in Host Integration Server RPC Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (956695)
Executive Summary – This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Host Integration Server. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a specially crafted Remote Procedure Call (RPC) request to an affected system. Customers who follow best practices and configure the SNA RPC service account to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than customers who configure the SNA RPC service account to have administrative user rights.
Maximum Severity Rating – Critical
Impact of Vulnerability – Remote Code Execution
Detection – Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer can detect whether your computer system requires this update. The update may require a restart.