|
Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
|
Configuring Scripting and Command Line Friendly Windows XP
This page contains the recommendations for my CS students on how
quickly create a usable student laptop. They might be slightly outdated (on newer
dual core laptops
Microsoft Virtual
PC is probably a must to have so that you can run Window XP and
Suse simultaneously.
Please note that on old Dell laptops line C610/C810 and C640/C840 Windows 2000 is
a better/faster OS for virtualization as it is much less resource intensive then
Windows XP -- it can run perfectly well in 128K memory.
There are several steps in configuring Windows desktop with
command line tools
on a cheap laptop (let's say C610, with Windows 2000 or Windows XP preinstalled.
Tools listed below are those tested extensively; most of them I am using for
many years.
Note: One of the rules, especially important on PC with small
memory (256M) is never install any Adobe products, unless you absolutely need them:
they are all horrible bloatware.
Here are the steps:
- Unless you got it with a new laptop/desktop, resist temptation to get Windows
Vista -- it costs a lot of money that are better spend on something else like
a couple of USB drives for backups or a flat screen monitor; also you
might have difficulties in the class as all lectures are win 200/ Win XP oriented.
I personally still do not use Windows Vista and and right now have no plans
for switching. Upgrade from XP to Vista is a bad investment.
- [Optional, not necessary if manual partitioning was done by yourself] Using
Partition Magic or Knoppix cut the size of C drive to ~30-40G].
You usually do not need more then that and on a typical for modern laptops 80G
drive you will have extra 40G partition is very useful for keeping you documents
and Ghost images (it's a very bad practice to keep everything on the system
drive -- first of all this unnecessary enlarges the Ghost image of this drive).
Also on the second partition you can store the latest
Ghost image of C drive which
is very convenient when traveling (if you did something wrong you just restore
the image and continue working in 15 min, not 15 hours).
-
Tweak look and feel
-
Touch pads, as nice
as they are, can be a nuisance when trying to type. If your thumb happens to
brush the pad while the rest of your hand is typing, the input location within
your application may change. That means that the touch pad can be disabled in
the operating system and re-enabled if USB mouse is present. There are a couple
of options:
-
On older laptops like C610 there is an option in BIOS for
touchpad to be disabled with USB mouse is present.
-
On newer Dell laptops like D620 if you go to control panel,
then mouse, you should have the option of disable touchpad if USB
mouse is present. If not something is wrong with either mouse driver
or touch pad driver.
-
Install
SFU 3.5 (this
is a great free tool from Microsoft; you can use Cygwin instead, though)
-
Install Active Perl and Komodo (or Python is you prefer the
latter)
-
Install
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP (a half-dozen of tools are really useful):
-
ISO Recorder Power Toy . The tool that can create ISO images
from CD/DVD disks as well as burn CD/DVD ISO images to media. The
tool was written by
Alex Feinman
- SyncToy. With new sources of files coming from every direction
(such as digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders,
PDAs, and laptops), SyncToy can help you copy, move, and synchronize different
directories.
Download or learn more.
- Open Command Window Here This PowerToy adds an "Open Command
Window Here" context menu option on file system folders, giving you a quick
way to open a command window (cmd.exe)
pointing at the selected folder.
- Virtual Desktop Manager. Manage up to four desktops from the
Windows taskbar with this PowerToy.
-
Install Windows XP and 2003 Resource Kit
-
Install
winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel_21.exe. This free Microsoft tool for Windows
XP lets you create a virtual CD drive on your hard disk.
-
Install
FAR
-
Install
Total Commander
-
Installl
NOTEPAD++
-- great free replacement for notepad. Another variant it Notetab.
-
Create c:\Arc directory
and install 7-zip and info-zip
-
Install
BlueMonkey (rebranded Netscape Messenger; it's very stable but also
is a bloatware and stays in memory even after you close it so you need manually
delete it from memory when you do not need it -- it just occupies swap space;
you can delete it from the registry startup if you wish)
-
Update IE to version 7 (only for
PCs with 512M memory of more; suicidal move for 256M RAM PCs). You might
consider Opera as smaller and faster browser but generally IE wins in compatibility.
-
Install Microsoft Antispyware tool
(only if memory is greater then 256M).
-
Create C:\Utils
directory and install hijackthis and command
line archivers lime InfoZip into it
-
Install
Norton Ghost 2003
(you can use later versions but personally I trust only Ghost 2003: it never
failed me).
-
Install
Office 2003 or earlier version.
As a substitute consider Office 2000 (very cheap on eBay) or MS Works (contains
MS Word). NVU can serve as a basic substitute for Frontpage.
-
Install
FoxIt
PDF Reader (adequate for most purposes and have smaller foot print; complex
forms might need Adobe Acrobat, though).
- Install Novell
Netdrive (provides FTP pseudo-filesystem; provides with any Windows filemanagers
richer functionality that FTP client)
- Install
Teraterm
- Correct path to include C:\Utils directory,
Perl and SFU.
- Install Workrave
for prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
|
|
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Hate the Adobe Acrobat bloatware? Need to read
PDF documents ? Get free
FoxIt PDF Reader !
|
A useful Firefox plug-in
CoScripter is a system for recording, automating, and sharing processes performed
in a web browser such as printing photos online, requesting a vacation hold
for postal mail, or checking flight arrival times. Instructions for processes
are recorded and stored in easy-to-read text here on the CoScripter web site,
so anyone can make use of them. If you are having trouble with a web-based process,
check to see if someone has written a CoScript for it!
Great free (GPL) program for too enthusiastic programmers, Unix and web administrators
or computer users who can hurt themselves by acquiring Repetitive Strain Injury.
Hat tip to the developers directly: Rob
Caelers (Core features, Debian packaging, Linux version, ...), and
Raymond Penners (Graphical user interface,
W32 port, ...). You guys really rock !!!
Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive
Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses,
rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit. Please refer to the
feature comparison for a complete
list of features, and how the program performs with respect to other programs
on the market. The program runs on GNU/Linux
and Microsoft Windows.
InformationWeek: I think
you see VMware
aggressively courting virtualization customers. Customers that I've spoken
with are
saying Microsoft is definitely coming from behind here. You mentioned it
on stage here. There's Hyper-V's delay. Does Microsoft's entrance now into the
virtualization space put it at a disadvantage in the virtualization world?
Ballmer: The choice is, you
know, to be first to have share or not. I guess I prefer to be first to have
share. Now, you've got to remember, this market
has barely been scratched, less probably in the install base -- less than 5%
of all systems run virtually. Virtualization is way too complicated,
way too expensive today for people to take advantage of it, and it's way too
isolated from the rest of everything that happens in application development
to data center deployment and operations. That's
not my way of criticizing, it's just if we're going to get -- if the phenomenon
is going to fully take effect, then we've got to democratize it.
That might be VMware, [but] they haven't shown moves in that direction.
Somebody could argue it might be one of the
open source alternatives. I like what we've got. I think we
pay out on those problems.
That doesn't mean the other guys are going to go away.
Obviously we recognize that fact and we provide
good interoperability with VMware's virtual machine. But I don't
think -- there's a simplicity with performance, with management, integrated
management, with everything else, I think we're going to make a real difference.
Sure, I wish we had everything we're announcing now and shipping this year a
year ago, sure. Two years ago? Sure. But, believe me. We're going to make a
big difference.
Comments
The fact of the matter is Linux isn't much cheaper to use than Microsoft, in
terms of initial expense, continued support, or even in terms of development.
What Linux excels in is its large community of free, and sometimes paid developers
to fix problems corrected more quickly than a single company can possible achieve.
When you take Linus' recent comments into account,
about him never caring or running a Linux server, only being focused on the
desktop, one has to really wonder what how it can possibly compete with commercial
giants like Sun and Microsoft.
What Microsoft excels in is their world-class
support and a quality product at a reasonable price with an enormous ecosystem
and unlimited developmental budget.
The commercial Linux vendors, Red Hat and Suse,
can't offer the ecosystem Microsoft does, nor the leverage it has with its developers
or vendors. The non-commercial Linux distributions are fun to play with, but
totally impractical for business use.
The war goes on... Linux and most significantly Solaris are taking a bad
beating. Once MS goes full bore in the virtualization
space, it's going to blow Linux, Solaris and VMWare out of the market entirely,
because of its massive commitment in research and functionality.
Finally, if MS doesn't like how its being treated in the US or Europe for
that matter, it might just decide to stop selling to those markets -- where
would that leave customers?
... ... ...
Ballmer: "I used to always joke with IBM, you know, we were opening up the
desktop to them, and they were opening up the mainframe and the data center
to us. And who out-hustled who is a big deal in terms of who wins."
freshmeat.net
About:
Key Scripter listens to key press/release events from a keyboard device and
sends fake key events to an X display. It supports gaming keypads such as the
Nostromo SpeedPad and allows the creation and usage of complicated key scripts
for games and other applications.
Release focus: Major feature enhancements
Changes:
This release also supports Windows. A Win32 binary
has been added to the download packages. To compile the source
files on Windows, the latest release of MinGW is required. Additionally, this
release fixes a few memory allocation bugs, adds support for wildcard binds,
and provides improvements to debug messages. The example configuration file
has been extended with extra features.
Author:
Andrei Romanov
[contact developer]
The list itself is almost useless as the author has no clue about capabilities
of most programs he listed but comments contain a lot of useful information from
people who did used the programs they mentioned:
emptyset Says:
I’m surprised no one mentioned MPlayer. It runs on *nix/OS-X/Windows and plays
FLV and that Real player crap that may still be laying around on your HDD… and it
plays just about everything else too.
Danny
Says:
I like OpenProj as an alternative to MS Project. OpenProj can open and work with
MS Project files:
http://openproj.org/openproj
Sam Says:
I used to use Bluefish, but now I use Geany. I love EditPlus on Windows, Geany
is a very nice alternative. My favorite feature is regex search/replace across multiple
files.
Instead of NVU I would suggest Radria
http://radria.sqlfusion.com/
Its active, i’ve been using it for sometime and I love it.
It is a really good replacement for Notepad. Highly recommended.
Notepad++ is a free (free as in "free speech", but also as in "free beer")
source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming
languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
This project, based on the
Scintilla edit component
(a very powerful editor component), written in C++ with pure win32 api and STL
(that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller
size of the program), is under the
GPL Licence.
This project is mature. However, as you can see it's a one-man-project, there
are still some bugs and missing features. If you have any question or suggestion
about this project, please post them on the
forums.
As well, if you have any feature requests, you can always make the demand, but
there's no guarantee that I'll implement it.
You're encouraged to
translate Notepad++ (if it is not present in the
Download Section) and/or to
translate the Notepad++ official site into your native language.
I hope you enjoy Notepad++ as much as I enjoy coding it.
|
Here are the features of Notepad++
:
| |
WYSIWYG |
|
|
If you have a colour printer, print
your source code (or whatever you want) in colour.
|
| |
Multi-View |
|
|
You have two views at same time.
That means you can visualize (edit) 2 different
documents at the same time (screenshot).
You can visualize (edit) in the 2 views one document
at 2 different positions as well. The modification
of document in one view will carry out in another
view (i.e. you modify the SAME document when you
are in clone mode, see
screenshot).
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| |
Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
|
|
|
You can open a document by drag &
drop. You can also move your document from a position
(or even a view) to another by drag & drop.
|
| |
Dynamic position of Views
|
|
|
The user can set the position of
the views dynamically (only in 2 views mode : the
splitter can be set in horizontal or in vertical),
see
screenshot.
|
| |
File Status Auto-detection
|
|
|
If you modify or delete a file which
opened in Notepad++, you will be notified to update
your document (reload the file or remove the file).
|
| |
Bookmark |
|
|
User can just click on the bookmark
margin (located right side of line number margin)
or type Ctrl+F2 to toggle a book mark. To reach
the bookmark, type just F2 (Next bookmark) or Shift+F2
(Previous bookmark). To clear all bookmarks, click
the Menu Search->Clear All bookmarks. See
screenshot.
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About: DupFinder searches for duplicate files. It has many options
that allow you to include only the files that you want. A special algorithm
makes it much faster than other programs. A GUI and a command line version are
available.
Port of common
GNU utilities to native Win32.
In this context, native means the executables do only depend on the Microsoft
C-runtime (msvcrt.dll) and not an emulation layer like that provided by
Cygwin tools.
AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows. With
it, you can:
- Automate almost anything
by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a
mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.
- Create
hotkeys
for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination
can become a hotkey.
-
Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing "btw" can
automatically produce "by the way".
- Create custom data entry
forms, user interfaces, and menu bars. See
GUI for details.
-
Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
- Respond to signals from
hand-held remote controls via the
WinLIRC client script.
- Run existing AutoIt
v2 scripts and enhance them with
new capabilities.
- Convert any script into
an
EXE file that can be run on computers that don't have AutoHotkey installed.
Getting started might be easier than you think. Check out
the quick-start
tutorial.
More About Hotkeys
AutoHotkey unleashes the full potential of your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
For example, in addition to the typical Control, Alt, and Shift modifiers, you
can use the Windows key and the Capslock key as modifiers. In fact, you can
make any key or mouse button act as a modifier. For these and other capabilities,
see
Advanced Hotkeys.
Other Features
- Change the volume, mute, and other
settings of any soundcard.
- Make any window
transparent,
always-on-top, or alter its
shape.
- Use a
joystick or
keyboard as a mouse.
-
Monitor your system. For example, close unwanted windows the moment
they appear.
- Retrieve and change the
clipboard's contents, including file names copied from an Explorer window.
-
Disable or override Windows' own shortcut keys such as Win+E and Win+R.
- Alleviate RSI with substitutes for
Alt-Tab (using keys, mouse wheel, or buttons).
- Customize the
tray icon menu with your own icon, tooltip, menu items, and submenus.
- Display
dialog boxes,
tooltips,
balloon tips, and
popup menus to interact with the user.
- Perform scripted actions in
response to system shutdown or logoff.
- Detect how long the user has been
idle. For example, run CPU intensive tasks only when the user is away.
- Automate game actions by detecting
images and
pixel colors.
-
Read,
write, and
parse text files more easily than in other languages.
- Perform operation(s) upon a set of files that match a
wildcard pattern.
- Work with the
registry and
INI files.
License:
GNU General
Public License
While the verdict is still out on Windows Vista, Microsoft’s latest operating
system, in combination with its predecessor, Windows XP, managed to keep Windows
users off limits for both
Mac OS X and
Linux. It is becoming somewhat of a generalized perception that Vista is
not all the Redmond company promised, and far from the $500 million Wow advertised
across the world in early 2007. Hardware and software incompatibility issues,
lack of driver support and of dedicated software products and devices, poor
performance and reliability are among the problems that plagued
Vista since the
operating system hit the market in November 2006 and in January 2008.
And while it sounds like
Windows Vista delivered an unexpected window of opportunity for the increase
in adoption of
Mac OS X and Linux, the fact of the matter is that the two rival platforms
have almost flatlined in terms of uptake in 2007. According to statistics provided
by Market Share by Net Applications, starting in December 2006 and through September
2007, Linux doubled its market share. This detail would sound nothing short
of promising, except for the fact that the doubling in market share is equivalent
to a jump from 0.37% to 0.81%. In the past month, the open source operating
system only increased its footprint on the market by 0.4%, from 0.77% to 0.81%.
The growth of Mac
OS X is more consistent compared to that of Linux. But then again, Apple's
operating system is the beneficiary of an excellently marketed platform, from
the small, and not at all anodyne design details, to the pluses inherent with
a closed
business environment. In this context, Apple's biggest advantage is also
Mac OS X's Achille's heel, as proprietary hardware is regarded as less accessible
than personal computers. The combined market shares of Mac OS and Mac Intel,
as published by Market Share by Net Applications, reveal a jump from 5.67% in
December of last year to 6.61% in September 2007. In the past two months, Mac
OS X grew from 6.15% to 6.61%.
Windows Vista, with all its overcriticized faults, evolved from 0.16% in
December 2006 to 7.38% at the end of the last month. During the same period,
Windows XP dropped from 85.30% to 79.32%, a percentage slips which makes it
obvious that XP users upgraded/migrated to Vista and not to
Mac OS X and Linux. While of course there is also a small segment that did
in fact made the jump to the two alternative platforms, it is clear that the
vast majority of XP users remain loyal to the Windows brand.
====
Comments
These are sales figures taken from retail channel
sales, which ignore the fact that FAR MORE copies of Linux are downloaded for
free from distro mirrors than are purchased through the retail channels That
"doubling" probably represents Ubuntu sales through DELL, if you trust the figures,
which I don't. They too often reflect the wishes of MS.
If the retail sales have doubled I would wager that the download channel
count has MORE THAN DOUBLED, and by all accounts it was at 5-10% of desktop
market share before VISTA. I know that the number of new users, who said they
had just left Windows, now on the PCLinuxOS forum has at least quadroupoled
since VISTA's release.
If you installed Cygwin then you can use most utilities from command line provided
that they are in the PATH
You must be an administrator to modify a system environment variable. System
environment variables are defined by Windows and apply to all computer users.
Changes to the system environment are written to the registry, and usually require
a restart to become effective.Any user can add, modify, or remove a user
environment variable. These variables are established by Windows XP Setup, by
some programs, and by users. The changes are written to the registry, and are
usually effective immediately. However, after a change to user environment variables
is made, any open software programs should be restarted to force them to read
the new registry values. The common reason to add variables is to provide data
that is required for variables that you want to use in scripts.
To view or change environment variables:
1.
Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. |
|
2. |
Click the Advanced tab. |
|
3. |
Click Environment variables. |
| 4. |
Click one the following options, for either a user or a system
variable:
| • |
Click New to add a new variable name and value. |
| • |
Click an existing variable, and then click Edit
to change its name or value. |
| • |
Click an existing variable, and then click Delete
to remove it. |
I personally found Filezilla useful in case you need to download
a lot of files or a huge file to your ISP and connection is not stable.
It has option to restart on error. 7-zip is a competitor to Rar.
FileZillaFTP lives! This file transfer protocol
may seem old-fashioned and ancient, but the truth is, it's often
the simplest way to transfer files between PCs, or between a PC
and a server.
It's especially useful for transferring large files, because
ISPs often block e-mail attachments over a certain size. And it's
great for transferring groups of files. FileZilla has just about
every FTP feature you need. It's a breeze to set up and edit new
FTP connections.
The interface is particularly easy to use, so that you can easily
navigate external FTP servers and your local hard drive, and transfer
files between then. You can also use multiple simultaneous connections
to speed up file transfers. Windows includes a built-in archiving
utility that can compress and decompress files in the .Zip format,
but it's nobody's idea of particularly useful.
7-Zip
If you need to do more than the most basic of archiving tasks
with the Windows zip tool, you're out of luck. 7-Zip comes to the
rescue. It offers you considerable power over compressed archive
creation and extraction, including several different archive formats
and compression methods and levels, and lets you create encrypted,
password-created archives.
The interface is quite configurable, and can even create a two-pane
view, which is rare in archiving programs.
RogueScanner
Think your home or small office wireless network is safe? Do
you have any idea whether any intruders are on it? This free program
is a great way to find out.
Run it on a PC attached to your network via Ethernet. (The program
won't work in Windows Vista, so you'll need Windows XP.) When you
run it, it immediately does a network scan, finding the wireless
and wired devices attached to it. For each device, it lists the
unique MAC address (a kind of serial number), the IP address, the
manufacturer if it can figure it out, and model number if it can
find that. It also tells you what kind of device it is, such as
a router, printer, PC, and so on. And it will also flag any suspect
devices it finds.
Just compare the information it finds to what you know of your
network. If there are any wireless devices connected that you don't
know about, you may have an intruder.
This is a simple remedy for the erratic movement of cursor. On most
laptops you can also disable the touchpad from the BIOS setup [press
F2 or del when the computer starts to enter BIOS settings].
- Go to control panel and click on Mouse properties icon.
This appears directly only in classic view of control panel.
- If you are having categorical view,click on printers and
other hardware and then click on mouse properties icon
- Now click the device Select tab and check "Disable
Touch Pad when USB Pointing Device is present.".
- Now the cursor won't move from touchpad.
- Alternatively, you can disable the touchpad of your laptop
by clicking the "Disable Device" in the Touch Pad setting. You
can even disable the touchpad from the BIOS setup [press F2
or del when the computer starts to enter BIOS settings].
There are no keyboard shortcuts available for this setting. Moreover
some laptops coming now are having a button for locking the touchpad
when needed. That might be much helpful as you cant go to control
panel every time you type. You can create a shortcut of mouse properties
somewhere in your quick launch or start menu for doing the above
procedure in a faster way.
Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1THIS TOOL IS
UNSUPPORT BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES
System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional
Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click "Driver control"
4. If the "Install Driver" button is available, click it. Navigate
to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys,
and click Open.
5. Click "Start"
6. Click OK
7. Click "Add Drive" to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that
the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click
"Add Drive" until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click "Mount".
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click "OK". UNC naming
conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should
be OK.
You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM
device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove
the driver from memory using the driver control.
For a more completed tutorial (including how to make an ISO from a CD)
click
here. The article explains making an ISO using Nero - however, I
prefer
BurnAtOnce which is
donationware.
To Disable CD autoplay, completely, in Windows XP Pro
- Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
- Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates,
System.
- Locate the entry for Turn autoplay off and modify
it as you desire.
How to Disable the Feature That Allows CD-ROMs and
Audio CDs to Run Automatically
To disable the feature that allows CD-ROMs and audio CDs to run automatically:
Windows AutoPlay is pretty annoying feature which allows for a program
contained on a CD to be run when it is placed into the drive and read
by Windows.
To disable the CD autoplay feature, use
the following Windows XP registry hack:
Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer
Name: NoDriveTypeAutoRun
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 181
hex 0x0b5
[Jul 11, 2007] Disabling Autoplay in XP Home editions
It is safest to disable CD autoplay
in XP using either local group policy
or, for an enterprise, an Active Directory
group policy. The local group policy
editor method:
- Click Start
- Click Run
- Enter GPEDIT.MSC
Group Policy mmc will popup. On
left panel:
- Double-click
Computer Configuration
to open submenu
- Double-click
Administrative
Templates to open submenu
- Double-click
System
to open submenu
- Double-click
Turn autoplay
off option which will be
near the bottom of the list in the
right panel.
The default is the
Not configured
. Set it to
Enabled.
Relate tips:
How do I really disable auto-play in Windows XP - Ask Leo!
TweakUI,
one of what Microsoft calls "Power Toys for Windows XP". It's
more than a toy. It allows you to adjust (or 'tweak') several
settings that aren't exposed directly by the Windows tools.
Once you've installed TweakUI you'll find a lot of options
in it. For our current problem, in TweakUI
expand My Computer, and then
AutoPlay. Click on
Drives and uncheck the drive letter
that you no longer want to AutoPlay. Click on
Apply and that's it. No more "what
would you like me to do" dialogs.
TweakUI
has a number of other settings, I encourage you to install it
and browse around in it. It's something I install on every computer
I run. (The PowerToys page has a number of useful tools, have
a look while you're there).
Windows XP - Solution 1
- Right-click on the drive icon for your CD drive, CD recorder,
or DVD drive, and select Properties.
- Choose the AutoPlay tab, and choose the desired action
for each type of CD. For example, choose Music CD, then
click Select an action to perform, then select Take
no action.
Windows XP - Solution 2
- Obtain and install
TweakUI (part of the PowerToys for Windows XP package),
and then start TweakUI.
- Expand the My Computer branch, then the AutoPlay
branch, and then select Drives.
- Turn off the checkbox next to each drive letter for which
you want AutoPlay disabled.
|
you can map an ftp or webdav server as a network drive in XP without having
to use any such tool - it's built into the OS! from My Computer, find "Map Network
Drive" in the Tools menu. A window will pop up asking for a drive letter and
a folder, and at the bottom is a link reading "Sign up for online storage or
connect to a network server." click that link, select "Choose another network
location" from the Add Network Place Wizard, and follow the wizard's prompts
to add the location and login information. Simple.
This is better than using "My Network Places" for ftp because you can edit files
in place on the remote site. Has to make your favorite ftp client obsolete.
A free implementation that lets you map your FTP server just like a local drive.
This is great application that permit you to manage you FTP site as if it
is a local drive. It does not need Novell client to be available: this is a standalone
application. Licensing restrictions keep Novell from distributing
netdrive.exe on their web site so you will need
to find it using Google or other search engine. It used to available from
several university sites, but as program grow older the number of such sites disappeared.
Here is one link that was active at the time or last correction of the page (Google
is your friend and with search string "Netdrive 4.1" you can do wonders :-)
Download the program from
HERE.
Double click and follow the instructions to install the program. Once the program
is installed, open the program (Start->Programs->NetDrive->NetDrive) and click
new site.
Opera also has IRC chat client.
Opera 9 is packaged with a torrent plugin, so
BitTorrent
downloads can be handled just like regular
HTTP/FTP
downloads.
It is notable in the face of criticisms of rendering accuracy, that Opera
9.0 passes the Acid2
rendering test by the
Web Standards Project, which is designed to test compliance with the latest
HTML,
CSS and other web standards.[26]
Browsers such as
Internet Explorer 7 and
Firefox 2
do not pass this test.
The history of the Windows PowerToys
During the development of Windows 95, as with the development of any project,
the people working on the project write side programs to test the features they
are adding or to prototype a feature. After Windows 95 shipped, some of those
programs were collected into the first edition of the
Windows 95 Power Toys.
As I recall, the first edition contained the following toys:
- CabView
- This was a handy internal tool which also served as a test of the shell
folder design.
- CDAutoPlay, DeskMenu, FlexiCD, QuickRes
- These were side toys originally written by shell developers for their
own personal use.
- Command Prompt Here, Explore From Here
- These were proof-of-concept toys which tested the shell command extension
design.
- Round Clock
- This was a program to test regional windows.
- Shortcut Target Menu
- This was a feature idea that didn't quite make it.
I wasn't around when the decision was made to package these toys up and ship
them, so I don't know what the rule was for deciding what was PowerToy-worthy
and what wasn't. Nor do I know where the name PowerToy came from. (Probably
somebody just made it up because it sounded neat.)
Upon the enormous success of the PowerToys, a second edition was developed.
This time, people knew that they were writing a PowerToy, as opposed to the
first edition of the PowerToys which was merely cobbled together from stuff
lying around. The second edition of the Windows 95 PowerToys added FindX, Send
To X, the Telephony Locator Selector, XMouse, and Tweak UI.
Later, the kernel team released their own set of toys, known as the
Windows 95 Kernel Toys. Alas, the original blurb text is not on the Microsoft
downloads site, but
here's an archived copy. (In reality, it was I who wrote all of the Kernel
Toys, except for the Time Zone Editor, which came from the Windows NT Resource
Kit. I also wrote the somewhat whimsical original blurb.)
This was all back in the day when it was easy to put up something for download.
No digital signatures, no virus checking, no paperwork. Just throw it up there
and watch what happens. Today, things are very different. Putting something
up for download is a complicated process with forms to fill out in triplicate
and dark rooms with card readers. I wouldn't be surprised if an abandoned salt
mine in Montana were somehow involved.
Nowadays, every team at Microsoft seems to have their own PowerToys, trading
on the good name of the Windows shell team who invented the whole PowerToys
idea. (As far as I can tell, we don't get any royalties from other divisions
calling their toys "PowerToys".) A quick check reveals the
following PowerToys available for download from Microsoft; I may have missed
some.
(Plus, of course, the
Windows XP PowerToys, which does come from the shell team. The Internet
Explorer team originally called their stuff PowerToys, but they later changed
the name to
Web Accessories, perhaps to avoid the very confusion I'm discussing here.)
What's frustrating is that since they are all called "PowerToys", questions
about them tend to go to the shell team, since we are the ones who invented
PowerToys. We frequently have to reply, "Oh, no, you're having a problem with
the XYZ PowerToys, not the classic Windows PowerToys. We're the folks who do
the classic Windows PowerToys."
Even the blog name
"PowerToys" has been co-opted by the Visual Studio team to promote their
Powertoys for Visual
Studio 2003.
Some
people claim that Tweak UI was written because Microsoft got tired of responding
to customer complaints. I don't know where they got that from. Tweak UI was
written because I felt like writing it.
That page also says that sometimes PowerToys vanish without warning. That's
true. A few years ago, all the Windows XP PowerToys were taken down so they
could be given a security review. Some of them didn't survive and didn't come
back. Other times, a PowerToy will be pulled because a serious bug was found.
Since PowerToys are spare-time projects, it can take a very long time for a
bug to get fixed, tested, and re-published. For example, the HTML Slide Show
Wizard was pulled after a (somewhat obscure) data-loss bug was found. Fixing
the bug itself took just a few days, but testing and filling out all the associated
paperwork took six months.
There's no moral to this story. Just a quick history lesson.
SyncToy
With new sources of files coming from every direction (such as digital cameras,
e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops),
SyncToy can help you copy, move, and synchronize different directories.
Download or learn more.
Tip #1: Use your system as little as possible until
you recover all of your lost files. The more activity taking place on your hard
disk, the greater the chance that some of your lost data might be written over.
- Don’t copy any files to the disk containing your lost data;
- Avoid browsing the web, because your web browser saves cache files on the
disk;
- Don’t launch any unnecessary programs, because they can also use your disk;
- Don’t restart your computer.
Tip #2: Before you go further,
take steps to free up some space on the disk containing your lost files. The
more free space your system has, the less chance of overwriting any lost files
with new ones. You can do one or more of the following things.
- Delete old files that you don’t need anymore (you can also move them to
another source, like a USB flash drive, instead of deleting);
- Empty your Recycle Bin - making sure that you haven’t put any important files
in there by mistake;
- Empty your browser cache. For Internet Explorer, click on the “Tools” menu,
then select “Internet Options”. Then, on the “General” tab, click the “Delete
Files…” button.
Tip #3: To install any software
after data damage increases the risk of your data being overwritten, so if
you haven’t had any data problems yet, consider installing a data recovery program
just in case. Prevention is always better than cure, and a recovery program
is good insurance for your data. However, if you don’t yet have a recovery program,
find one and - if possible - avoid installing it to the disk where your lost
files are located.
Most recovery programs work fairly similarly. You need to select the disk
where the lost files are located, let the program analyze the content of the
disk - this can take a while - and then select the file you want to recover.
Then, provide a location where you want to save that file. You should try to
avoid recovering files to the same disk. You could use another hard drive, a
network or removable media like a floppy disk or USB flash drive.
Overview: Windows Powertools is a collection of powerful and easy
to use tools for your Windows PC which can be used to speed up your PC and help
you stay in control of it. Features: Clear your cache and make your PC faster.
Compress your disk drives (New) .Ping your Internet connection and prevent your
ISP from disconnecting you. Define startup programs
and prevent unwanted application on startup. Edit your registry.
Clear boot sector and do drive cleanup, and make your computer faster. Defragment
drives and make your PC 2 to 3x faster. Monitor running tasks and kill unwanted
tasks. Convert FAT32 volumes to NTFS within 5 minutes. Version 1.3 may include
unspecified improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes.
Remote Desktop in Windows XP Professional provides remote access to the desktop
of your computer running Windows XP Professional, from a computer at another
location. Using Remote Desktop you can, for example, connect to your office
computer from home and access all your applications, files, and network resources
as though you were in front of your computer at the office.
In my experience with early versions of IE7 is that it is not stable. Moreover
it is bloated slow and buggy. Sometimes it is unable even to load a webpage -- IE7
reports DNS error instead. Refresh helps but this is a very annoying problem...
February 08, 2007
(IDG News Service) -- Microsoft
Corp. has quietly released a patch aimed at improving the performance of Internet
Explorer 7's phishing filter ahead of the company's regular patching schedule,
which occurs on the second Tuesday of every month.
The update was made available last week on on Microsoft's Web site, according
to a blog entry on IEBlog,
which is written by the IE team at Microsoft.
This update addresses an issue some users experience when navigating
to a page with multiple frames, or where frames are being navigated
simultaneously, according to the post by IE Program Manager Steve Reynolds.
This kind of navigation occurs when the IE phishing filter, which attempts to
block access to sites that may try to defraud Web users, evaluates a Web page
when a user navigates to it. The result is multiple simultaneous evaluations
for the same page, Reynolds wrote in his post.
In addition to being available on Microsoft's Web site now, the patch will
also be released later this month for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
Phishing filter performance is not the only complaint
IE7 users have had since the final version was released in October. Frequent
crashes and other performance problems such as excessive memory consumption
that results in slow page loads have been reported.
December 15, 2006 Internet Explorer 7 browser in which Google, not
Windows Live Search, is the default search engine.
The customized version of IE7 can be downloaded from
Google.
In addition to using Google as the default search engine, Google's customized
version of IE7 provides users with the Google Toolbar and a Google home page
they can personalize.
According to a posting on Microsoft's IEBlog by Tony Chor, Microsoft's group
program manager, Google and other companies, including Yahoo Inc. and USAToday.com,
were able to build customized versions of IE7 by using the Internet Explorer
Administration Kit.
Microsoft released the tool kit so developers could customize IE, as well
as to provide companies with help to configure and deploy the browser through
the corporation, Chor wrote
in his posting.
Microsoft released IE7 for Windows XP on Oct. 18. IE7 is also included in
Windows Vista, which is currently available in full release only to business
users. Windows Vista will be available to consumers on Jan. 30.
From Av point of view this is a very positive development.
January 10, 2007 (IDG
News Service) -- The U.S. agency best known for eavesdropping on telephone
calls had a hand in the development of Microsoft Corp.'s Vista operating system,
the software vendor confirmed yesterday.
The National Security Agency stepped in to help Microsoft develop a configuration
of its next-generation operating system that would meet U.S. Department of Defense
requirements, said NSA spokesman Ken White.
This is not the first time the secretive agency has been brought in by private
industry to consult on operating system security, White said, but it is the
first time the NSA has worked with a vendor prior to the release of an operating
system.
By getting involved early in the process, the NSA helped Microsoft ensure
that it was delivering a product that was both secure and compatible with government
software, he said.
"This allows us to ensure that the off-the-shelf security configuration that
the DOD customer receives is at a level that meets our standards," White said.
"It just makes a lot more sense to be involved upfront, than it does to have
the tail wag the dog."
The NSA's involvement in Vista was first reported yesterday by
The Washington Post.
The NSA has provided
guidance on how best to secure Microsoft's
Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems in the past. The agency is also
credited with reviewing the
Vista Security Guide published on Microsoft's
Web site.
Microsoft declined to allow its executives to be interviewed for this story.
But in a statement, the company said that it asked a number of entities and
government agencies to review Vista, including the NSA, the NATO and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
Still, the NSA's involvement in Vista raises red flags for some. "There could
be some good reason for concern," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of
the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). "Some bells are going to go
off when the government's spy agency is working with the private sector's top
developer of operating systems."
Part of this concern may stem from the NSA's reported historical interest
in gaining back-door access to encrypted data produced by products from U.S.
computer companies.
In 1999, then-Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said that "high level deal-making
on access to encrypted data had taken place between the NSA and IBM and Microsoft,"
according to EPIC's Web site.
With Vista expected to eventually power the majority of the world's personal
computers, it would be tempting for the government agency to push for a way
to gain access to data on these systems, privacy advocates say.
The NSA provided guidance on Vista's security configuration, but it did not
open any back doors to Windows, White said. "This is not the development of
code here. This is the assisting in the development of a security configuration,"
he said.
While the NSA is best known for its surveillance activities, the work with
Microsoft is being done in accordance with the NSA's second mandate: to protect
the nation's information system, White said. "This is the other half of the
NSA mission that you never hear much about," he said. "All you ever hear about
is foreign signal intelligence. The other half is information assurance."
Re:wishfull thinking
Win32 subsystem is TOO much tied to NT kernel and closely coupled
to achieve the performance it has today. That is why NT 3.51/3.53 was
more robust than NT 4,0 which moved major parts of the UI code to kernel
mode.Please actually read Inside Windows NT 3.51 by Helen Custer
and THEN read Inside Windows NT 4.0 to know the difference.
Sorry, hun, read both and even had this discussion with a key kernel
developer at Microsoft a few years ago. (1997 in fact, as we were starting
to work with Beta 1 of Windows 2000)
NT 4.0 ONLY moved video to a lower ring. It had NOTHING to do with
moving the Win32 subsystem INTO NT - that did not happen.
That is why Windows NT Embedded exists, and also why even the WinCE
is a version of the NT kernel with NO Win32 ties.
Microsoft can STILL produce NT without any Win32, and just throw
a *nix subsystem on it if they wanted to, but yet have the robustness
of NT. Win32 is the just the default interface because of the common
API and success of Windows applications.
I think you are confusing Ring dropping of the video driver with
something completely different.
NT is a client/server kernel... Go look up what that means, please
for the love of God.
Win32 is a subsystem, plain and simple. Yes it is a subsystem that
has tools to control the NT kernel under it, but that is just because
that is the default subsystem interface. You could build these control
tools in any subsystem you want to stack on NT. PERIOD.
Administering
Windows platforms using scripts can be a big productivity booster or a headache.
Mitch Tulloch, author of
Windows
Server Hacks, sits down with Don Jones, a Microsoft MVP and the creator
of ScriptingAnswers.com, for a no-holds barred interview about the future of
scripting.
Removed from client, but will survive on the server: "On
the operating system side of things, Monad is then expected to be included in Windows
Server Longhorn, expected in 2007"
Just one day after the first public reports of viruses
being written for an upcoming feature of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating
system (see
"First Windows Vista viruses unleashed"), the company said it will not include
the feature in the first generally available release of Microsoft Vista, due
out in the second half of 2006.
The feature, called the Monad Shell, provides
a way for users to access the operating system using text-based commands rather
than the traditional Windows graphical user interface. In the past, Microsoft
has said that Monad will be part of Longhorn, the code name for both the next
client and server versions of Windows.
In an interview Friday, Microsoft director of
product management Eric Berg said Monad will not be included in the first commercial
version of Windows Vista when it is released. But the product is expected to
be included in Windows over the next "three to five years," he said. "Our intention
is to synchronize it with both client and server operating systems."
Security experts had worried that if Monad were
included in a widely used client, it might become an attractive target for hackers
-- especially if the shell were enabled by default.
Whether it will be enabled by default is unclear.
"There are multiple ways that we could introduce this technology to the client
stream," Berg said.
The first Microsoft product to use Monad will
be the next release of Microsoft's Exchange messaging server, code-named Exchange
12, which is also due in 2006, Berg said.
On the operating system side of things,
Monad is then expected to be included in Windows Server Longhorn, expected in
2007, and could be available in a future Windows Vista release, said
Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft Inc. "Presumably,
as time goes on, all of Microsoft's products will have Monad scripting interfaces,"
he said.
In most cases deviating from the Windows defaults is simply not
necessary or worthwhile.
Black Viper (amongst others) runs
a Windows tweaks page offers many changes and customizations that users can
make to MS Windows in the name of greater performance. BV recommends that many
active-by-default Windows services be set to manual activation or disabled altogether,
to save on memory useage and CPU cycles.
I have taken three systems with clean installs of Windows XP and reviewed
these tweaks. Well, the third isn't really a clean install, it has a bunch of
software running which any typical user would run e.g. firewall, antivirus,
speedfan, etc. The first two are lower-end systems that should theoretically
benefit most from this treatment, neither has the prefix “giga” in either its
CPU speed or RAM capacity. The last one is a modern system (at the time of writing,
anyway).
February 8th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Your list has convinced me to stay with Windows. Most Windows apps you’ve mentioned been matured over the years, and there are fewer vendors to deal with for support.
At least the Open Source community is keeping the vendor community on their toes.