Parapet of Preposterous Pondering - www.SirCary.com

Windows 7 "God Mode"

SirCary — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 20:54:05 GMT

Here's a cool tip for Windows 7 users.

If you want to create a view that contains shortcuts to all user-adjustable Windows 7 settings (that are normally only available in many different spots in the gui) follow these steps:

1. R-click an empty spot in a folder of your choice (example: Desktop)
2. Browse to New, then Shortcut
3. When prompted to "Type the location of the item", copy/paste the following into that field:
C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe shell:::{ed7ba470-8e54-465e-825c-99712043e01c}
4. Click Next
5. Enter a name for your new shortcut and click Finish
6. After dbl-clicking your new shorcut you'll see the settings neatly organized by category

Suhweet!

Windows 7 administrative share oddity

SirCary — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 21:30:55 GMT

Down through the years of my Windows IT experience, I've always been able to remotely access the root of any drive on any Windows machine on my network using a valid admin account. I did this by browsing to Start, then Run and then typing \\\$. For example: \\coolpc\c$

This was always an option to get access to any file on a drive or partition due to Windows auto-creating a hidden "administrative" share for any drive or partition assigned a drive letter. So obviously I expected no change for Windows 7. I was wrong. I was prompted for login credentials and nothing I tried worked. As I now have two Windows 7 machines at home, I finally got around to looking into this. Here's what I needed to do:

Via regedit, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System. In that key add a REG DWORD named LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy and set it's value to 1. Voila, administrative shares now worky! Why this was not enabled by default, I don't know. Maybe I'll get around to more research later. Note: I believe this tweak is only needed for Windows Home Premium. I've been working with Windows 7 Enterprise at work and this tweak was NOT needed.

Happy file browsing!

Open Source Rocks

SirCary — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:42:37 GMT

I am a huge fan of open-source software and freeware. Almost all of the software I use on a regular basis is one of the two. Why would I pay for software, when I can get such great stuff for free? Many thanks to all developers out there who author my favs. Here's a partial list:

-Chrome and Firefox (web browsers)
-Google docs and Google calendar ('nuff said)
-Open Office (MS Office-compatible office suite)
-phpBB, phpAlbum, SimplePhpBlog (all used on my website)
-Photofiltre (very powerful image editor)
-Notepad++ (very powerful text editor, used to create this website!)
-Stickies (Link) (notes on your desktop with sooo many useful features. I've been a user for a decade)
-Lightscreen (simple screen capture util)
-Taskbar Shuffle (click-drag to move your taskbar buttons in Windows XP, just like Win7)
-PeaZip (file compression util)
-Foxit Reader (great, light weight pdf reader)
-InfraRecorder (CD/DVD burning app)
-VNC (pc remote control, multiple "flavors")
-AutoIT (scripting/automation util for Windows)

I have not made the change to an Open Source OS...I'm a Windows guy at heart...what can I say?

Ahhh, open-source software and freeware makes me all warm and fuzzy inside...

Welcome to the Parapet of Preposterous Pondering!

SirCary — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:47:27 GMT

Hail all weary web travelers and welcome to my personal blog about nothing in particular. I really don't have a specific topic for this blog, I simply plan to use it to share my thoughts/opinions/musings with my family and friends and who ever else visits my website. Thanks for stopping in! -SirCary