Index
Windows Vista SP1
007. |
Turn off User Account Control (UAC)
The most annoying feature of Vista, UAC interrupts with a pop-up dialogue box, consistently asking if it's OK to run things. It serves two purposes, both to protect the user in case a malicious program is run, and to get programmers to write more secure code. Which is all very nice, but it completely gets in the way of day-to-day work. Here's how to turn off the annoying nuisance forever.
Die, die, die my darling. (Credit: CNET.com.au) |
008. |
Show multiple time zones in the system tray
If you're an international traveller, or have family or business overseas, this one might come in handy, allowing you to display up to two extra clocks from the system tray.
World time is one click away. (Credit: CNET.com.au) |
009. |
Improve network performance
By default, Vista SP1 has protections enabled which throttle back network performance while playing a media file. This is to ensure the CPU has enough available cycles to play back the media smoothly; however, it may lead to noticeable network performance deficits, particularly over gigabit. To turn it off:
Note that the entry supports values between 1 and 70, and the default is 10. If you enter a numeric value, make sure that the Base is set to Decimal rather than Hexadecimal. The higher the number, the more the throttling is weighted in favour of the network. You may wish to experiment to suit your particular network set-up/media playing needs. |
010. |
Control your audio
Windows Vista supports per application volume control — meaning you can turn your Windows sounds right down, but Media Player right up, for example. Just right-click on the volume icon in the system tray, and click Open Volume Mixer for the extra level of configurability. 
Finally, we can control volume per application. (Credit: CNET.com.au) |
011. |
Better screenshot tool
Unlike the ages old Printscreen button on the keyboard that takes a screenshot of your entire screen, there's a more complex tool hidden within the bowels of every version of Windows Vista except Home Basic. Known as the snipping tool, it was originally found in an add-on pack for XP Tablet Edition 2005, to make using a stylus easier. Now mouse users on Vista can reap the benefits too. Just open the Start menu, type snip and hit enter to load the tool. You can now specify whether you want to take a screenshot of a free-form area, a rectangular one, isolate a window or take a screenshot of the entire screen. After you've used the mouse to highlight the area you want, you can draw on the screenshot to add notes, and then save it as you would a normal file. You can create a keyboard shortcut to it in two ways. For the first, right-click on the application, choose Properties, select the Shortcut tab and in the Shortcut key field click, and enter any alphanumeric key. By default Windows assigns a CTRL + ALT in front of the shortcut, however, we've found this often doesn't work — try holding down SHIFT while pressing a key, to make the key combination CTRL + SHIFT + [whatever key you pressed]. You might create a shortcut here that will clash with existing ones, so be careful. By far the easier way is to simply CTRL + drag the Snipping Tool shortcut into your Quick Launch bar, effectively copying it there. Now you can access it by pressing  + whatever number Quick Launch button it is (for example, if it was the first in the row, you'd press + 1).
Better screenshots for all! (Credit: CNET.com.au) |
I didn't bother reading them all, but "tip" #7 (turn off UAC) is totally irresponsible. DO NOT TURN OFF UAC! Demand that your vendor fix their application to work correctly with UAC.
I am a software developer, and on a daily basis, I see maybe 1 or 2 UAC dialog prompts. For a non-developer, you should practically *never* see the UAC prompt in day-to-day activities.