Month: May 2010

Scan USB Drives Using Microsoft Security Essentials via the AutoPlay Dialog

Last Updated on: August 16, 2025 by Ramesh

We’d like to share with you an interesting registry hack that adds a Microsoft Security Essentials AutoPlay handler so that you can thoroughly scan a CD/DVD media or USB flash drive for viruses, via the AutoPlay dialog. See article Scan Your Thumb Drive for Viruses from the AutoPlay Dialog at the How-To Geek website. Thanks … Read more

How to Disable the Zoom Level Option in Internet Explorer?

Last Updated on: June 25, 2019 by Ramesh

One of our readers wrote asking me how to disable the zoom feature in Internet Explorer, as the zoom level in Internet Explorer changes when the CTRL key is accidentally pressed when scrolling a webpage using mouse. Sometimes this does happen to me as well, and the only workaround that I know is to disable the zoom level feature altogether. This also prevents you from changing the zoom level via the View menu in Internet Explorer. If you don’t use the zoom feature in IE, go ahead with this registry edit.Read more

Internet Explorer Extension to Open Current Page in Chrome, Firefox or Edge

Last Updated on: May 12, 2019 by Ramesh

I’d like to share the extensions I made for Internet Explorer, to open current web page in a different browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge (Windows 10). This extension works fine in all versions of Windows, including Windows 10.Read more

How to Remove Album Art Images Embedded In MP3 Files?

Last Updated on: May 22, 2021 by Ramesh

Have you ever wondered how some of your mp3 files show up with the album art icon instead of the standard mp3 icon when browsing through the mp3 collection on the hard disk? Also, does the cover image appear in the background when playing an mp3 file using Windows Media Player or any other music player?

Thumbnail image of the mp3 files as seen in Windows Explorer.

How to Disable Adobe Flash Animations For All But White-Listed Sites in Internet Explorer 8

Last Updated on: May 12, 2019 by Ramesh

You can disable Adobe Flash animations in websites by disabling the Adobe Shockwave Flash Object using the Manage Add-ons dialog in Internet Explorer, or by setting a "kill-bit" in the registry. What if you want to enable Flash animations by default on a handful of sites (whitelist) but not on other sites? In Internet Explorer 7, only the developer of an ActiveX control could configure it as a per-site control, using the SiteLock ActiveX Control Template. In Internet Explorer 8, it’s possible for an end-user to enable ActiveX Controls on a per-site basis, via the Manage Add-ons dialog.Read more

Install MSI Packages With Logging via the Right-Click Menu

Last Updated on: June 6, 2024 by Ramesh

When a software installation that uses the Windows Installer Package fails, you enable Windows Installer logging and re-run the setup to capture the output to a log file for troubleshooting. Logging can be done using the Registry Editor, the Group Policy Editor, or the msiexec.exe command with the required parameters.

The first two methods are documented in the article How to Enable Windows Installer Logging. The third method uses the msiexec.exe command-line parameter. Here is an example:

msiexec /l*v "%temp%\verbose.log" /i "C:\Users\Ramesh\Downloads\7z465-x64.msi"

This starts the 7-Zip .msi installation (7z465-x64.msi) and records all the results, including verbose output, to a log file named verbose.log in the %TEMP% folder.

Do you find it difficult to type the entire command-line every time you need to log application setups? You can implement this in the context menu for .msi files to launch the installation with verbose logging.Read more