woot

-Summey

1. Right click the Explorer icon on the taskbar.
2. Hold down Shift and right click the Windows Explorer icon in the Jump List.
3. Select Properties.
4. On the Shortcut tab, change the Target field to open to the location of your choice.
5. Click OK.

To change it to open to My Documents, change the Target field to:
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /N,::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}

To open to any other folder, change to:
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe folder path

-Summey

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.3 Overview

-Summey

start > run > type cmd

Type GetMac into a command prompt for use GetMac /?

If you don’t want your individual physical drives/partitions to show up in Windows Explorer or My Computer (you’ll still be able to access them from the Run box), you can do so by editing the registry. Here’s how:

Open the registry editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer

In the right details pane, right click an empty space and select New, then Binary Value.

Name the new value “NoDrives” (without the quotation marks).

Double click the value and in the Value Data field, enter the following numbers, depending on the drive letter(s) you want to hide:

C: 04 00 00 00

D: 08 00 00 00

E: 10 00 00 00

F: 20 00 00 00

G: 40 00 00 00

H: 80 00 00 00

I: 00 01 00 00

J: 00 02 00 00

K: 00 04 00 00

If you have drive letters that extend past K, you’ve probably figured out the pattern by now. If not, see the full list here:

http://www.wxpnews.com/AJB4NJ/081202-Hide-Drives

1. Open a Command Prompt. Click Start > Run and type “cmd” then hit “OK” This should bring up the black box that is the Command Prompt.
2. Type “net stop wuauserv”. This shuts down the windows update service so you can delete the files.
3. Still on the Command Prompt, type “cd /d %windir%” or “cd\windows” If you have problems at this step type “cd..” until you only have C:\ then type “cd windows” and you’ll be in the right directory.
4. Type “rd /s SoftwareDistribution”
5. And you’re done. We just need to restart the windows automatic update service again by typing “net start wuauserv” so that the downloads that were stuck will re-download.

This is my first post as a guest blogger on Summeylabs.com   I’d like to thank Ryan for the opportunity to share some knowledge.  -Andrew

QUESTION:
I have a problem. I installed Vista on my XP computer, to dual boot. But I don’t like Vista and went back to using XP. The problem is that when I reboot, it automatically starts up Vista unless I’m paying attention and choose the “Previous operating system” in the bootup menu. How can I make it automatically go into XP again?

ANSWER:
Luckily that’s an easy one to fix, although the answer isn’t very intuitive. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Click Start | Control Panel and open the System applet.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. At the bottom, under “Startup and Recovery,” click the Settings button.
4. At the top of the dialog box, under “System Startup,” click the down arrow and select the operating system that you want to be the default (the one that starts automatically after a set amount of time).
5. You can also modify the number of seconds the list will display before going into your default OS, if you want.
6. Click OK twice to close out the dialog boxes.

Now when you boot up, the system should automatically load XP unless you select Vista from the boot menu list.

-summey

There are three registry keys that can be used to make changes to XP’s System Restore feature. To make these changes, be sure to first back up the registry, then open your registry editor and navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ WindowsNT \ CurrentVersion \ SystemRestore

Perhaps the most useful modification you can make is to set the maximum time that a restore point exists before it is deleted. The setting is specified in seconds, and the default is 7776000, which translates to 90 days. If you want your restore points to hang around longer or you’d like to see them disappear sooner, do this:

1. Navigate to the key shown above and in the right details pane, double click or create the DWORD value RPLifeInterval
2. In the value data field, enter a number in seconds equal to the time that you want restore points to remain on the system before being deleted (for example, to specify a time to live of 30 days, enter the value 2592000).
3. Close the registry editor.
There are other values in this key that can be modified, and some that should never be changed. To find out more, see KB article 295659 at

http://www.wxpnews.com/AJB4NJ/090310-Microsoft-Support

-summey

If you prefer to install security updates from a DVD, Microsoft is making an ISO image of its monthly security updates for XP and Vista available through the Download Center. The February 2009 ISO image is available now. Read more here:

http://www.wxpnews.com/AJB4NJ/090224-Security-Release

-Summey