Microsoft Answers, one of the biggest community forums which is run by Microsoft is a great place where you can search, browse, and post questions and answers. They’ve made available a search connector so that you can search answers via Windows Explorer in Windows 7. Also, there is a Microsoft Answers search provider for Internet Explorer 7 and higher. Read the rest of this entry »
As we recently saw the Aero Shake feature can be disabled by enabling the Turn off Aero Shake window minimizing mouse gesture option in the Group Policy Editor, or by creating the NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts registry value. I found another way to disable Aero Shake, and this is a different registry edit. Read the rest of this entry »
Desktop Background Slideshow is a neat little feature in Windows 7 which helps you shuffle your desktop background from a image file store folder, at predefined intervals. But, as Windows doesn’t show the file name of the currently displayed wallpaper, it becomes a problem if you have thousands of images in a store folder and you need to find the file name and the directory location of the currently displayed wallpaper.
Here is a small script which adds the Desktop Background File Location option in the Desktop context menu, which opens the current wallpaper file’s target folder and selects the file. Read the rest of this entry »
Aero Shake is a feature introduced in Windows 7 using which you can minimize all other open Windows, by clicking on the title bar of an application and shaking it using the mouse. This causes all other applications (except that application window) to minimize automatically. This feature is available in Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows 7. If Aero Shake has stopped working in your PC all of a sudden and you’ve tried running the Aero Troubleshooter, here are some other things that you can try. Read the rest of this entry »
A fraudulent (and worm-laden) email arrived in my mail box today containing a zip file claiming to be from Google Staffing, with the title reading "Thank you from Google!".
I downloaded the attachment (from a test system, of course) and the excellent Microsoft Security Essentials nabbed it right away!
Category: Worm
Description: This program is dangerous and self-propagates over a network connection.
Recommendation: Remove this software immediately.
More information about Worm:Win32/Prolaco.gen!C from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.
The Start Navigation sound can be sometimes annoying. We understand that the clicking sound is generated when you click a hyperlink in Internet Explorer. That’s obvious! Have you wondered why the clicking sound is generated even though you don’t click on a link? It could be possible that the page you’re viewing is set to refresh automatically after some time. But that’s not the only action that triggers the Start Navigation sound event. Read the rest of this entry »
I was recently asked how to disable updating of virus/spyware definitions when running a command-line scan using Microsoft Security Essentials console tool MpCmdRun.exe. The option exists in the Microsoft Security Essentials user interface, but the setting is not obvious for some users. Read the rest of this entry »
Most users customize the right-click menu by adding additional verbs in the registry in order to launch programs or scripts. Windows 7 lets you add the UAC Shield icon for static context menu items as well. If a verb you add to the right-click menu launches a program which runs elevated by default, then it’s a good idea to add the UAC shield icon so that users know that the task requires elevation. Read the rest of this entry »
Windows saves the desktop icon layout when the user logs off, and the setting is read during logon. Recently I came across a case where the desktop icons rearrange to their default positions after a restart or logoff/logon cycle. This turned out to be a Permissions issue with a registry key, which kept Windows from writing to it. Are you experiencing the same problem in your Windows XP/2003/Vista/7 PC? If so, here is a solution that you can give it a go. Read the rest of this entry »
The MSE console tool MpCmdRun.exe’s command-line help displays the parameters and flags to be used to initiate a scan. Here is the line that I’m talking about.
-Scan [-ScanType] Scans for malicious software
And the ScanType can be 1 (Quick scan) or 2 (for Full scan) Read the rest of this entry »
