When logged on to an administrator account in a Windows Vista or Windows 7 PC and attempt to merge a .REG file, you’ll see the User Account Control (UAC) prompt asking for your consent to allow the process to start. Regedit.exe uses the highestavailable execution level (as specified in its manifest) and thus it prompts for consent to launch with the highest available privilege.
registry
How to Disable Full Row Select in Explorer in Windows 7?
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 Disable Aero Shake (Another Method) in Windows 7?
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. Here’s another way to disable Aero Shake using the registry.Read more
How to Find Current Wallpaper (Desktop Background) File Location in Windows 7
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
How to Add UAC Shield Icon for a Right-Click Menu Item in Windows
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
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
File Association Fixes for Windows 7 and Windows Vista
This page contains the file association fixes for some of the common file types. These fixes are applicable for Windows® 7 and Windows® Vista systems only. File association fixes for Windows 7 AVI IMG SCR BAT INF TIF/TIFF BMP JPE/JPEG/JPG TXT CHM JS VBS CMD LNK WMA COM MP3 WMV EXE MPE/MPEG/MPG XML GIF MSC … Read more
How To Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview in Windows 10 & Earlier
Windows does not have a GUI option to disable the taskbar thumbnail preview feature. I’ve experimented with the registry setting TaskbarNoThumbnail and its equivalent GPO Turn off taskbar thumbnails. That setting seems to apply only to Windows Vista and has no effect in Windows 7 and higher. You can, however, disable the taskbar thumbnail feature … Read more
Fix for Event Log Service Startup Error 1079
When you start the Event Viewer, the following error message may be shown. Event Log service is unavailable. Verify that the service is running. Any attempts to start the Event Log service results in the following error: Windows could not start the Windows Event Log service on Local Computer. Error 1079: The account specified for … Read more
Miscellaneous Registry Fixes for Windows (All versions)
Here is a compilation of some useful registry fixes for Windows 7/8/Vista/XP. I might add more fixes as more issues come in. If you have a specific request, please be sure to add it in the Comments section. # Description REG Fix OS 1 Error 1719 Windows Installer Service Could Not be Accessed, when installing … Read more
