One of the frustrating settings in Windows Vista that doesn’t work correctly as it did in XP is the ability to apply folder view settings of the current folder to all folders. You can still set this option the same way you would in XP, but it just doesn’t seem to work. Well, there is a fix available here.

Just follow the instructions:

1. Copy the reg file to desktop and and merge it to the registry.
2. Close all windows before merging
3. Open folder options and apply the view settings to all like you do in XP.

Of course the usual disclaimer about the registry applies: if you are not comfortable making this change, do not do it. I did apply this on my work machine and it works as expected.

Windows Vista users, if Service Pack 2 hasn’t hit your Windows Update yet it probably will very soon. So if you are curious about what is in this upgrade, here are the full details from Microsoft.

Overall, there is nothing really to get excited about for home users (in my opinion at least). A few notable changes:

• SP2 improves performance for Wi-Fi connections after resuming from sleep mode.
• SP2 integrates the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless, which contains support for Bluetooth v2.1 and Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration.
• SP2 removes the limit of 10 half open outbound TCP connections.

Of course, SP2 rolls up all the previous hotfixes as well which is convenient if you have fallen behind on your updates.

I am going to upgrade my work machine sometime this week when I go home for the night. Has anyone else already installed Vista SP2 and if so, what was your experience?

One of the really nice improvements Windows Vista makes is the addition of the Search Bar to the Start Menu. This allows you to easily locate any program installed on your system by simply typing a few letters. A tool which enhances this functionality which you might find useful is Start++.

There is a nice page here which gives a description of what Start++ does as well as shows some screenshots of it in action. Basically, you can define your own shortcuts in the Search Bar which are interpreted by Start++ to perform a certain action.

For example, you could [...] type “g Stuff” to search for the work “Stuff” on Google. You could also launch programs, run scripts with parameters, and more.

This appears to be a pretty nifty utility for those of your who are into keyboard controls.

Certain commands in Windows Vista and 7 require “elevation” in order to execute. For example, if you run NETSTAT -B, a notice will appear that states:

The requested operation requires elevation.

What does this mean exactly? It’s means you need additional permission(s) to execute the operation. This is done by executing a Command Prompt as Administrator. See video below for instructions on how to do it (it’s easy).

AIM is the primary instant messenger I use. Out of all the IM services I’ve used over the years, it is the most reliable. In addition, it runs flawlessly on any operating system. Whether you’re on Windows, Mac or Linux, you can run AIM.

The latest client offering on the Windows platform is AIM 7 Beta 2.

Short review:

It’s awesome. If you use AIM, get it.

Long review:

This is best given in points.

• If you run multiple computers at home, you can run it on each computer at the same time. Previously I was only able to do this with AIM Lite.
• Following in the footsteps of AIM Express, messages from those not on your contact list will prompt a window asking if you want to chat with them or not. Previously this wasn’t there.
• Linked accounts work great. In addition, you can have them all set to invisible on login instead of having to set each individually.
• The interface is a whole lot cleaner and a lot less "cartoony" (something Yahoo and Windows Live suffer from in abundance).
• "Me" tab makes it super-easy to manage blocked users in just two clicks (you had to really dig for this previously).
• Integrates with Facebook and Twitter easily with new "Lifestream" tab.
• Integrates with Delicious and YouTube.
• Runs light and doesn’t eat up memory.
• I tested on my XP laptop and Win 7 PC. Runs great on both.

AIM 7 is full of awesome stuff. If you use AIM, you will really like this client.

I made mention last week that if you were running XP illegally, you could still get Windows 7 by buying Vista, then buying the Windows 7 Upgrade and the total cost would be around $138.

NewEgg now offers free Windows 7 coupons with certain Vista license purchases.

The cost now? $109.99. With free shipping. This is something that wasn’t available last week, but now it is.

This is $90 less than buying Windows 7 Home Premium which starts at $200.

You wanted a better price? You got it.

(Note: If you are running Windows XP or Vista legally, this article does not apply to you.)

I’m not going to pretend for a moment that there’s more than a few of you out there running Windows XP illegally. You’ve seen the very nice $50 price tag of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade and said, "Okay, I can afford that, but can I upgrade a pirated copy of XP to Win 7?"

Answer: No. When you hit the WGA, the upgrade won’t work.

However.. I can tell you how to get Windows 7 for significantly less than the full-version $200 price tag.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Buy a copy of Windows Vista Home Basic "System Builders" Edition from NewEgg. Cost is $84.99 with free shipping. This is a qualifying product for the Windows 7 Upgrade.
2. Pre-order your Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99. Remember, this price only lasts until July 11, 2009. After that it’s $119 for the upgrade and $200 for the full version.

Your total cost will be $134.98. Shipping will be free on both products. This is significantly cheaper than the full $200 price tag for the full-version Win 7 price. Granted, you’ll never use the license of Windows Vista you purchased, but it does take $65 off what you would have spent for the full-version Win 7 otherwise. This is an easy, and moreover legal, way to save cash on the purchase of the OS.

Why go legal with Windows?

There’s really only one reason. It’s for Windows Update.

Windows Update started with Windows 98 which was over 10 years ago, however the Windows Genuine Advantage validation check didn’t occur until 2006.

If you are running Windows illegally, you basically can’t use WU at all and that’s a problem. Whenever critical updates are sent thru the WU system, you won’t be able to install it. Not easily, anyway.

The common comeback to that is, "Well, I don’t have to use WU. I could install the patches manually." Yes, you could. But you know full well that’s decidedly inconvenient and a pain to get done.

If you don’t feel like paying for Windows, just use Linux. But if you do use Windows, the one-time license cost is worth the price for the updates.

Most people take WU for granted, but it is vital to make sure critical updates are applied without any hassle.

Said honestly, Windows Live Movie Maker Beta, in a word, sucks. It lost so many features compared to the old Windows Movie Maker that it’s just not worth using.

Are you stuck without a free video editor in Windows 7 at this point? No. You can install the old – and far superior – Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7.

All you have to do is download and install it.

What you want is Windows Movie Maker 2.6. You can download this here.

The installation went thru without a hitch and everything worked fine.

Above: Old but still great.

Above: This is what you want to see from Help/About.

Will this software work for Windows Vista?

Yes. It was designed for Vista originally so it will work in both Vista and 7.

Judging from the overwhelming positive response from Windows 7 users (including myself), I guess it’s no surprise that Gartner is telling clients to skip Vista entirely and just go straight to 7.

What’s more is that it will happen relatively quickly as Microsoft appears to be on target for a late 2009 launch – and that’s ahead of schedule as it was speculated to appear in 2010.

As many people know, what happens in enterprise is what happens to consumers soon afterward. And when Big Corporate says "Don’t bother with Vista", well.. you know the result.

Dell has said that the price of Windows 7 could possibly be a roadblock, but in the same conversation is also noting that 7 is beating the ever-loving crap out of Vista every which way but loose. One thing is clear: There is legitimate demand for 7 both for consumer and enterprise. But the price point will be a very important factor.

Vista was obviously not an XP killer. But 7 is geared up to be. It will kill off Vista for good, and after a short period of time, XP with it.

ZoomIt v3.01 by Sysinternals will allow you roughly the same screen-zoom capabilities that you have in a Linux desktop with 3D effects enabled (Compiz) or Mac OS X. It’s a nice small utility (only 129k before install!) and works in both XP and Vista.

If you use your computer screen on a live webcast or make presentations to people often using your computer, this is a must-have utility and you’ll make very good use out of it.

And yes, it’s free.

To those wondering if it has the same "smoothness" as Linux or OS X does, not quite. But it’s close and it works well.

As you may or may not have heard, the next Windows will be literally called Windows 7.

This has confused some people because the total number of Microsoft Windows releases has been way more than 7 – but I digress.

Windows XP is version 5.1.2600.

How do I know this?

…that’s how.

Windows XP was the NT kernel release after Windows 2000 (version 5.0.2195), so if you want to get really technical about it, XP is Windows 5.1.

Windows Vista is NT kernel version 6.0.6001 or just 6.0 for short.

Windows 7 has been reported that it will be using the same kernel as Vista, but will be version 6.1 and not 7.0.

So… Windows 7 has a very distinct chance of having an NT kernel that isn’t representative of the OS retail title.

Maybe Microsoft just likes odd numbers or something.

Windows NT 3.1 did have kernel 3.1. WinNT 3.5 had kernel 3.5, WinNT 3.51 had kernel 3.51 and WinNT 4.0 had kernel 4.0.

All those titles followed what was "under the hood", so to speak.

Windows 7 at present doesn’t.

Um, yeah. A bit odd to say the least.

I’ve mentioned on the PCMech Live show many times my disdain for the fact that if you’re one of the few running a 64-bit processor, your options for native 64-bit applications are few and far between on the consumer end.

Chances are very high that the computer you’re using right now has a 32-bit CPU in it.

Here’s the short-short definition of the difference between 32 and 64 concerning your CPU: Continued

One of the lesser-known features in Windows (ever since Windows 2000 and possibly even as far back as Windows 98) is the ability to have multiple application bars aside from the main taskbar itself.

See video below for details on how to do this.

A freeware utility called Rename Master is all you need to mass-rename any type of file you want to in Windows XP or Vista. While it’s true you can mass-rename file extensions from the command line in Windows, it’s not so easy to touch a specific part of a filename. But with Rename Master you can do this easily. See video below for details.

I just recently upgraded to Windows Vista from XP. Then I had to wait for all the updates to install, then go around to all my hardware manufacturers websites to download there drivers and that also took awhile. Well, I found this little tool called vLite, that I wish I would have had when I did the upgrade. vLite is a tool that allows you to customize a Windows Vista installation disk and add all the hotfixes, drivers, and updates to the disk before using it.

Slipstreaming SP1

1. Download and run vLite, then place your Vista disk into your optical drive and select it as your source of your installation files.
2. Then vLite will copy the files to a new location on your hard drive.
3. The next screen that is going to come up is one asking you what you want to add to the disk. So in my case I wanted to add SP 1, so I clicked that option.
4. After that it ask me for the location of the SP1 files so I download the SP1 files to my desktop and directed vLite there.
5. Then I clicked next and after about an hour I was done, I had just slipstreamed SP1 into my Vista install disk.

Adding Updates and Drivers

After you have slipstreamed SP1 click on the tasks tab and check all five boxes of tweaking pages then click next. Then you can click the hotfixes tab to add the patches you have downloaded. The driver tab is to add the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s website to the disk. You can also add additional language packs to the slipstreamed disk of you would like. Then, with whatever you have added, click Enable to slipstream the updates and drivers onto the disk. There is also a Components window that allow you to remove any features from Vista that you don’t want on this disk. The next page is the tweak page that allows you to turn off some other features like the user account Controls and the power schemes. This also allows you to turn off the services in Vista that you do not want to run. Then finally, click next and you’re done. Pick the imaging technique you want to use and burn your slipstreamed disk.

The process for creating a slipstreamed disk for XP is just as easy but, you will want to use a program called NLite.