• Right click on "Command Prompt" and click "Run as Administrator", then type "regedit" and press enter.
• In the Registry Editor, browse to:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon

• Add a new key called "SpecialAccounts".
• Inside the new "SpecialAccounts" key, add a key called "UserList".
• Within the "UserList" key, create a 32-bit DWORD value called "Administrator" and set its value to 1.
• (Or if you are going to rename the Administrator account, create a 32-bit DWORD value to match and set it to 1.)


• Close the Registry Editor and back in the command prompt window, run "control userpasswords2".
• Click on the Advanced tab, then under "Advanced User Management" click the Advanced button.
• Next, click on Users and right click the Administrator account and select Properties.
• Finally, remove the check from "Account is disabled".
• (If you wish, you can rename the Administrator account and set a password for it here.
• Reboot and you should see the Administrator account on the Welcome screen.

• Right click on "Command Prompt" and click "Run as Administrator".
• Enter the command, "net user administrator /active:yes"
• Reboot or log out to see the Administrator account on the Welcome screen.

• Right click on "Command Prompt" and click "Run as Administrator", then type "control userpasswords2" and press enter.
• Remove the checkmark from "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" and click the Apply button.
• You will be prompted for the user name and password to automatically log in. Enter them and click OK, then click OK again.
• In the same administrative command prompt window as before type "regedit" and press enter.
• In the Registry Editor, browse to:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon

• Add a string keys called DefaultUserName and DefaultPassword if they aren't already present.
• Edit the data for those two keys to match the appropriate user name and password values entered above.

There are severals ways to do this. I prefer a simple registry edit instead of messing around with security policies or MSConfig.

• Open the Registry Editor with administrative rights and navigate to the following registry key:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

• Locate the following DWORD value, "EnableLUA" and assign it a value of 0.
• Reboot for this change to take effect.

• First, disable and stop the Security Center Service.
• Open a Command Prompt window and change to the \Windows\System32 folder.
• Take ownership of the files, wscapi.dll, wscsvc.dll and wscui.cpl.
  For example, issue the command "takeown /f wscapi.dll" in the command prompt window.
• Remove the service entirely by typing the command,
  

  "REG DELETE HKLM\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\WSCSVC /F"

• Run Windows Explorer and use the Security tab to add an entry for everyone and give them full permissions.
• Rename or just delete the three files.
• Finally, reboot the computer for the change to take effect.

From administrative command prompt issue command, "powercfg -h off"

The All Users Start Menu is now located: \ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

The Users Start Menus are now located: \Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

• Right click on your desktop and select Personalize.
• Click on Visual Appearance > Classic Appearance Properties > Advanced
• Select "Border Padding" in the Items drop down box.
• Change the border size and keep clicking OK to exit.

• Right click on the desktop and choose Personalize.
• On the left click on Adjust font size (DPI).
• Click on the button labeled "Custom DIP...".
• Put a checkmark in the "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling" box.
• Keep clicking "OK" buttons to exit.
• Right click on the desktop and choose Personalize again.
• Click on Windows Color and Appearance.
• Click on "Open classic appearance properties for more color options".
• Click on the "Effects" button.
• Use the drop down menu to change from Cleartype to Standard, then click "OK".
• Click on the "Advanced" button.
• Use the Item drop down menu to select various screen elements.
• Change the font for the items from Segoe UI to Tahoma (or whichever you like).
• Click "OK" to accept the changes and exit.

• First, right click on "Command Prompt" and click "Run as Administrator".
• Next, copy the follow line of text:

  reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons" /v 29 /d "C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll,11"

• and paste it into the Command Prompt window. (Use the upper left corner of the command prompt for this.)
• Press Enter and you should get a response back indicating it was successful.
• Reboot or log off and on again to see the results.

• Start Regedit with administrative rights.
• With Regedit browse to:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

• Find and edit the "link" value from 1D 00 00 00 to 00 00 00 00.
• Close Regedit and reboot or logoff for the change to take effect.

Vista defaults to using NTLMv2 authentication which does not work with versions of Samba <3.0.
Make this registry edit to enable NTLMv1 authentication, if needed.

• Start Regedit with administrative rights.
• With Regedit browse to:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

• Add a DWORD value called LmCompatibilityLevel if it isn't already present.
• Set the value of LmCompatibilityLevel to be 1.
• Reboot for this to take effect.

• Edit your Explorer shortcut so the target field contains,

  %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /e,c:

• The /e tells explorer to use a two-pane view, while the ,c: indicates which drive to select.

• Start Regedit with administrative rights.
• With Regedit browse to:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

• Change or create a Key called OEMInformation if it isn't already present.
• Inside this new key create the following String values setting their values as indicated:

Logo - OEMlogo.bmp, such as c:\windows\system32\OEMlogo.bmp
(The logo bmp file can be up to 120x120 or it will be scaled to fit.)
Manufacturer - Any name
Model - Any name
SupportHours - Any time
SupportPhone - Any phone number
SupportURL - Any URL


• To see the changes, open System Properties from the Control Panel or by right clicking on My Computer and choosing Properties.

• First, make sure the printer is installed properly on the network and that printer sharing is enabled for it.
• Install the printer on your Windows Vista computer as if it is a local printer. If you are prompted to connect to the printer, choose the option to continue without connecting.
• Then open the Printers applet in the Control Panel.
• Right-click on the new printer and choose Properties.
• Click on the Ports tab. Then select Add Port, then chose Local Port, and finally click New Port.
• For the port name, enter the network path and share name of your printer (e.g. \\Scratch\CanonPIX).
• Click OK, and make sure this new port is selected with the checkbox.
• Next try printing a test page and you're done.

• Open a "Command Prompt" with the "Run as Administrator" option.
• Enter the command, "netsh interface tcp show global" to check the status of TCP Auto-Tuning.
• Enter the command, "netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled" to disable TCP Auto-Tuning.
• Enter the command, "netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal" to enable TCP Auto-Tuning.

• Open a command prompt in the program's folder.
• Issue the command "start /affinity 01 program.exe" where 01 is the processor and program.exe is the finicky program's executable.

Windows Vista allocates 15% of the drive's total size or 30% of the drive's free space, whichever is smaller, as the maximum VSS storage. Sometimes this parameter is ignored so if you're running out of space you can check and/or adjust this limit with the vssadmin.exe utility.

• Open a "Command Prompt" with the "Run as Administrator" option.
• Issue the command "vssadmin /?" to see the available options.
• For example, to set the VSS limit for the C: drive to 20GB and to store these VSS backups on C:, issue the command:

  vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /On=C: /For=C: /MaxSize=20GB

• MaxSize must be at least 300MB or more and takes a KB, MB, GB, TB, PB or EB suffix.
• Leave out the MaxSize parameter to let Windows use any available space.

• Boot from the Vista DVD and select the Repair option.
• Then select the Command Prompt.
• Now you have full access with both Admin and System rights, so go ahead and "recover" whatever files you need.
• Hint: the SAM file ix in c:\windows\system32\config.