Vista Revisited
Helping you get the most out of Vista

  In Windows Vista you can Pin Programs to your Start Menu for faster access, Just right click the Program and choose Pin to Start Menu, But you can’t add folders the same way. In order to add folders you need to edit the Registry first.

Here’s How:

1. First things first. Create a System Restore Point to backup the Registry.
2. Click on the Start Orb and type Regedit in the Search Bar.
3. Click Regedit at the top of the search results under programs.
4. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.
5. Navigate to the following key.
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellexContextMenuHandlers.
6. Right click ContextMenuHandlers and choose New > Key
7. Right click New Key and choose Rename, rename the key to
   {a2a9545d-a0c2-42b4-9708-a0b2badd77c8} and leave the Date value to Not Set.
8. Close the editor.

Now when you right click a folder, you should see the ‘Pin to Start Menu’ option.

To see Screen shots for the process, Click the Read the rest of this entry link.

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Its easy to change your logon picture, just go to Control Panel > User Accounts > Change your account picture.

But what if you want to add your own pictures, or get rid of some of the default ones. First you need to find where Microsoft stores them, and Here it is. just open an explorer window and navigate to C:ProgramDataMicrosoftUser Account PicturesDefault Pictures

Now just locate the picture you want to use, open your favorite image editor and resize the picture to 128×128 and save it as a bitmap image (Picture.bmp) to the above folder.

Now when you open the Choose account picture your new pictures will be available.

If you use your computer like me I always have many programs and windows open at one time and my Sidebar is always hidden. Sure I know what your thinking just set it to be always be on top of other windows, and that fine if you have a large widescreen monitor, but on my 19″er the Sidebar takes up valuable real estate.

So here’s a quick way to view your Sidebar.
Just press the Windows key and the spacebar together.

If you do a lot of work with the command line wouldn’t it be nice to customize it the way you want. change the size, the color and the fonts with ease.

First lets open the Command Processor window.

1. Click the Start Orb and type CMD in the search box.

   
   

2. Right click Command prompt under Programs and choose Run as administrator.

   
   

3. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.

   
   

4. Now that the Command Processor window is open right click the title bar. To change the settings for all command prompt windows, click Defaults. To change the settings for the current command prompt window only, click Properties.

    
   

5. Click the Options tab. Here you can adjust the cursor size, Display and edit options along with the Command history.

   
   

6. The Font Tab.
   If you click a TrueType font, the Size menu displays a list of point sizes to choose from, or you can enter a size by typing the number in the Size box. To use bold with TrueType fonts, select the Bold Fonts check box.
   If you click Raster Fonts, the sizes that are listed in the Size box are the window size choices.
   The Window Preview box displays how the current window’s size will change based on the font and font size you selected.
   The Selected Font box shows how characters will appear with the specified font settings. Bold is not available with Raster fonts.
    
   
7. Click the Layout tab.
   Under Screen Buffer Size, specify settings for the width and height of the screen, based on the number of characters that are entered in the buffer.
   Under Window Size, specify settings for the width and height of the window.
   Under Window Position, specify settings for the initial left and top position of the window.(NOTE: you can resize the window up to the maximum size listed on the Layout tab. It is a good idea to select a size from one-fourth to no more than half the desktop size for reading and usability.)

    
   

8. Click the Colors tab. choose colors for the screen text, screen background, pop-up text, or pop-up background by clicking the element you want to change.
   Click the color you want. The Selected Screen Colors box shows how the text and background colors you selected will appear on the screen. The Selected Popup Colors box shows how the text and background colors you selected will appear in a pop-up window.

   
   

9. Click Ok and restart the Command Processor window and see your masterpiece.

Microsoft has a new sidebar clock available for download that changes the plain standard clock to a shiny Vista one. There a 12 styles included. It was created by ADH Darby and can be downloaded HERE give it a try and check out all the other gadgets at are available.

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Related Posts:

Microsoft on Tuesday said that it has reached the “release candidate” with the first service pack for Windows Vista, with plans to make the test software available publicly next week.

It is releasing the test code this week to the 15,000 or so people who have been beta testing SP1 already, and will also make it available on Thursday to those in the MSDN and TechNet developer programs.

From CNet News. Read More.