Everything is Crap » windows 7

Go away, Aero Shake!

paul — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:19:00 +0000

It was cool the first time I did it, but since I accidentally trigger this frequently (because I use a trackball and not a mouse), it's not so cool. I was pleased to learn that you can disable Aero Shake. I learned about this on the How-To Geek site, where he has downloadable .REG files that will disable/enable Aero Shake, but here's what you need to do in a nutshell. Navigate to…

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsExplorer

…and set…

NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts = 1

Create the key if it doesn't exist.

Reboot.

Ahhhhh…now I can shake until the cows come home.

Go away, Thumbs.db!

paul — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:28:00 +0000

By default, Windows 7 RC creates Thumbs.db files on your network drives to store image thumbnails. Sometimes, in Windows Explorer, if you try to move a folder that contains images you get an error that says

"The action can't be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program. Close the folder or file and try again"

I took a look at the Resource Monitor (a wonderful tool in Windows Vista and even better in Windows 7) and discovered that the process stopping me was….wait for it…Windows Explorer! So, Windows Explorer can't move the folder because it has a file open, specifically, Thumbs.db!

So, to fix this I went into the local group policy editor (gpedit.msc) and enabled the following setting:

Turn off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files

Which is located in:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer

Reboot.

SO FAR that fixed the problem for me. Windows Explorer hasn't generated any more Thumbs.db files and I haven't had any problems moving folders.

This should be enabled by default. Grrrrr.

Mac: Doesn't play well with others. Doesn't Share. *UPDATED

paul — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:58:00 +0000

Vista cannot authenticate when trying to attach to a file share (SMB) on our old 10.2 Mac Xserve. Fixing the problem involves weakening the security of Vista file sharing, but we're all friends here behind the firewall, right?

I stole these instructions from z3r010 on vistax64.com:

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.
3. Click Continue for UAC prompt.
4. In regedit, go to:-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlLsa

5. In the right pane, right click LmCompatibilityLevel and click Modify.
NOTE: If it doesn't already exist, create a DWORD value named LmCompatibilityLevel

6. Set the value to 1
7. Reboot

*UPDATE 8-25-2009 – I just had this same problem in Windows 7 and this solution fixed it. -Kris-

Stuck: Can't unpin some items in Windows 7 beta

paul — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:50:00 +0000

Some items that I've pinned to the start menu in Windows 7 beta can't be unpinned. I found a blog post that details a workaround that deletse everything from the pinned menu; it's not an ideal solution, but here's it works.

Delete the following from the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerStartPageFavorites

That's it.