Vista Corner: How to make Vista stop prompting you for credentials to install applications
With Vista now in public beta, we are going to start introducing various features of this new operating system. This week, we’ll focus on User Account Control (UAC).
The most common complaint I’ve heard from others who are testing the Vista Consumer Preview Edition (Beta 2) is about the seemingly endless number of dialog boxes that pop up every time you try to do something like installing a program, even if you’re logged on as an administrator. That happens because as part of the quest for better security, by default Vista runs in Admin Approval Mode and has application installation prompts enabled. Although not recommended, you can disable Admin Approval Mode and User Account Control Prompts. This is done by editing the local security policies. See “Configure User Account Control” on the Microsoft TechNet web site for instructions on how to do this change.
Prevent Windows from calling home
There have been many complaints about Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy feature, especially the aspect that regularly sends information to Microsoft on a daily basis (this is being changed to only check for new settings every 14 days). The WGA tool is part of the monthly security updates, and it has two parts: the validation part that determines whether the copy of Windows running is legal and the Notifications part. It’s the latter that sends info every day even after the copy of Windows has been validated. Now a company called Firewall Leak Tester has come out with a program called RemoveWGA that removes the Notification portion of WGA only and works on XP SP1 and SP2. Read more about it here.
How to use the command line file compression tool
You know you can compress files and folders in XP by right clicking, selecting Properties and clicking the Advanced button. But did you know there’s also a command line compression utility? And it will do some things you can’t do through the GUI. For example, you can compress just the files on a drive that have the .bmp extension. Here’s how:
- 1. Click Start | Run.
- Type cmd to open the command prompt window.
- At the command prompt, go to the folder within which you want to compress files or if you want to compress all files of this type on a drive, go to the root of the drive. For example, if the folder within which you want to compress is named MYFILES, type the following:
compact /c /s:myfiles *.bmp
For more information on using the command line file compression tool, click here.
Troubleshooting DVD problems
Having problems when you try to play a DVD in Windows XP? Maybe the video is jerky and choppy, or the picture is fine but you don’t get any sound. Maybe you’re getting an error message or being told the content is copy protected. Perhaps the screen is completely black. Whatever the problem, KB article 308012 has a wealth of information to help you with DVD problems. Click here.
Processor pegged when you right click an item in Windows Explorer
If you right click an icon or file in Windows Explorer or on your XP desktop and you find that the processor is being pegged, then you see in the Task Manager that the Csrss.exe process is using 100% of the CPU resources, it may be because your user profile has been corrupted. You can fix it by deleting the old profile and creating a new one, but be sure to read and follow the instructions in KB article 555021.
Can’t open Office files in Internet Explorer
If you try to open a file created in Microsoft Office XP or Office 2003 in IE 6.0 and you get an error message that says “414 Request – URI Too Large,” “404 Page Not Found” or “A DDE error has occurred,” the file or path name is probably longer than 255 characters or the temporary file name is longer than 218 characters. You can fix the problem by updated IE with Internet Explorer Service Pack 1. To find out more, see KB article 416351.
Deb Shinder