NirCmd Elevate Switch Added – Some Useful Uses

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We’ve covered the excellent multi-purpose command-line tool NirCmd from Nirsoft earlier. This post talks about the new command-line switches added in the current version of NirCmd. Earlier this month, I sent a NirCmd feature request to Nir Sofer, asking to include an “elevate” switch, which should launch an application elevated (Windows Vista, Windows 7 & 2008.) Nir was kind enough to incorporate this feature in the immediate version update (v2.40). Later another update, to fix a bug I reported, v2.41 was released.Read more

How to Disable Full Row Select in Explorer in Windows 7?

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I’m writing this article specifically for Windows 7, because the FullRowSelect registry value that you used in Windows Vista, doesn’t work in Windows 7. (REF: Enable or Disable Full Row Select feature in Explorer in Windows Vista). After some of our readers reported that setting FullRowSelect to 0 doesn’t do anything in Windows 7, I decided to have a look at this issue. Playing with different bitmask values, I finally got what I wanted – to disable full row select feature in Windows Explorer (Details mode) in Windows 7, but with a minor side-effect which is explained in the later part of the article.Read more

How to Find Current Wallpaper (Desktop Background) File Location in Windows 7

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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 more

[Fix] Aero Shake Feature Stops Working in Windows 7

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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 on your PC all of a sudden and you’ve tried running the Aero Troubleshooter, here are some other things that you can try.Read more

How to Disable Start Navigation or the Clicking Sound in Internet Explorer

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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 more

How to Add UAC Shield Icon for a Right-Click Menu Item in Windows

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Most users customize the right-click menu by adding additional verbs in the registry in order to launch programs or scripts. Windows 7 (and higher) lets you add the UAC Shield icon for static context menu items. 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 more

Fix for Desktop Icons Layout Not Getting Saved Upon Restarting Windows

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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/login cycle.

This turned out to be a Permissions issue with a registry key, which kept Windows from writing to it. Here are some fixes for this issue, which apply to all versions of Windows, including Windows 10.Read more