Untold Windows Tips and Secrets

To fully reap this Manual you need to have a basic understanding of the Windows Registry,
as almost all the Tricks and Tips involve this file.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft and 5 Star Support cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using the Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Important Note: Before you read on, you need to keep one thing in
mind. Whenever you make changes to the Windows Registry you
need to Refresh it before the changes take place. Simply press F5 to
refresh the registry and enable the changes. If this does not work Restart your system.

Exiting Windows the Cool and Quick Way

Normally it takes a hell lot of time just Shutting down Windows, you have to move your mouse to the Start Button, click on it, move it
again over Shut Down, click, then move it over the necessary option
and click, then move the cursor over the OK button and once again
(you guessed it) click.

This whole process can be shortened by creating shortcuts on the Desktop
which will shut down Windows at the click of a button.
Start by creating a new shortcut( right click
and select New> Shortcut).
Then in the command line box, type (without the quotes.)
'C:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec'
To create a Shortcut to Restarting Windows, type the
following in the Command Line box:
'c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows'
This Shortcut on clicking will shut down Windows immediately
without any Warning.


Ban Shutdowns : A trick to Play on Lamers

This is a neat trick you can play on that lamer that has a huge ego,
in this section I teach you, how to disable the Shut Down option in
the Shut Down Dialog Box.

This trick involves editing the registry,
so please make backups. Launch regedit.exe and go to :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
\Policies\Explorer
In the right pane look for the NoClose Key. If it is not already there
then create it by right clicking in the right pane and selecting New >
String Value.(Name it NoCloseKey ) Now once you see the
NoCloseKey in the right pane, right click on it and select Modify.
Then Type 1 in the Value Data Box.

Doing the above on a Win98 system disables the Shut Down option
in the Shut Down Dialog Box. But on a Win95 machine if the value
of NoCloseKey is set to 1 then click on the Start > Shut Down
button displays the following error message:

This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on
this computer. Please contact your system administrator.
You can enable the shut down option by changing the value of
NoCloseKey to 0 or simply deleting the particular entry i.e. deleting
NoCloseKey.

Instead of performing the above difficult to remember process,
simply save the following with an extension of .reg and add it's
contents to the registry by double clicking on it.
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersio
n\Policies\Explorer] "NoClose"="1"


Take Over the Screen Saver


To activate and deactivate the screen saver whenever you want, goto the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
\ScreenSavers
Now add a new string value and name it Mouse Corners. Edit this
new value to -Y-N. Press F5 to refresh the registry.
Voila! Now you can activate your screensaver by simply placing the mouse
Cursor at the top right corner of the screen and if you take the mouse to
the bottom left corner of the screen, the screensaver will
deactivate.


Deleting System Options from the Start menu

You can actually remove the Find and Run options from the start
menu by performing a simple registry hack. Again like always
Launch the registry editor and scroll down to the below key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Right-click on the right pane and select New, DWORD Value. Name
it NoFind.(To remove the RUN option name it NoRun). Double-click
the newly create DWORD to edit it's value and enter 1 as its value.
This will disable the FIND option of the Start Menu and will also
disable the default Shortcut key(F3 for Find.)
To restore the Run or find command modify the value of the
DWORD to 0 or simply Delete the DWORD value.
Fed Up of the boring Old Yellow Folder Icons?[Drive Icons Included]

NOTE: This trick hasn't been tried on Win98.
You can easily change the boring yellow folder icons to your own
personalized icons. Simply create a text file and copy the following
lines into it:
[.ShellClassInfo]
ICONFILE=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension

Save this text file by the name, desktop.ini in the folder, whose icon
you want to change. Now to prevent this file from getting deleted
change it's attributes to Hidden and Read Only by using the ATTRIB
command.
To change the icon of a drive, create a text file containing the
following lines:
[Autorun]
ICON=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension
Save this file in the root of the drive whose icon you want to change
and name it autorun.inf For Example, if you want to change the icon
of a floppy, SAVE THE icon in a:\icon_name.ico One can also create
a kewl icon for the Hard Disk and create a text file [autorun.inf] and store it in "c:\".


Brand XP

My new HP came loaded with an OEM version of XP on it. I noticed that they had their own icon under Run in the start menu. If you would like to brand your PC with your own clickable icon that will take you wherever you would like to go (eg: website, program), just follow the simple instructions below:

Note: This involves a registry tweak, please take all precautions by backing up your registry prior to making any changes to it.

1. Start up Notepad and insert the following information via copy and paste:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@="YOUR TITLE HERE"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\DefaultIcon]
@="YOUR ICON HERE"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance]
"CLSID"="{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
"CLSID"="{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}"
"method"="ShellExecute"
"Command"="YOUR TITLE HERE"
"Param1"="YOUR FUNCTION HERE"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000

2. Edit where it says YOUR ICON HERE to a path to an icon (ex. c:\\5staricon.ico), it must be 24x24 pixels and in *.ico format. Use double back slash for path names.

3. Edit both places where it says YOUR TITLE HERE to what you want it to say in the Start Menu (eg: 5 Star Support).

4. Edit where it says YOUR FUNCTION here to what you want it to do when you click it, it can be anything... your website, a local HTML document, a program, a Windows function, whatever your imagination can provide (eg: http://www.5starsupport.com).

5. Save this file as brand.reg, double-click it to enter in your information into the registry then refresh Explorer (log off/on) to see it in the Start Menu! This will work in both Home and Professional editions.


Lock PC by just double clicking the mouse


You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.