If you’ve ever wanted to theme Windows Vista, or alter in any way the system files, you need to take ownership of them. This is a long and tedious process, which can now be simplified. Take Control will take ownership of any files that you put in the list, provided that you are running as admin. The download link is available at WinMatrix. Also, if you want to add a context menu button, there is a registry file download further down the page.
Admit it, of all of Windows Vista's new features, the one that you found least useful and exciting was UAC. UAC requests permission for many actions that require administrator privileges, even if you are logged in as admin. While it might stop you from making a bad choice, it is so annoying that users often develop the reflex of hitting continue whenever a UAC box comes up.
(A UAC box, courtesy of Wikipedia)
Often times, users just end up disabling UAC rather than allowing it to pester them while they try to work. Smart UAC Replacement is an attempt to fix this.
(Image from Brothersoft.com)
Smart UAC replacement can remember your choices for a particular program, and after a while the UAC boxes become far and few between. It can also determine some actions without user input, trap harmful processes using a malware database, and monitors for rootkits. Any rules created for allowing or denying actions of a program can be edited in text files stored in the root of your system drive. Smart UAC Replacement is available here. Once installed, it will disable regular UAC, and take its place.
Media Player Classic is a small and feature-rich media player that supports most modern codecs.
(The default window upon opening)
Just like VLC, Media Player Classic plays music and video files from a huge range of codecs and containers. Unlike VLC, Media Player Classic has a display in fullscreen mode showing playback information(time played, time left, volume), and has some easy to use playback controls for fullscreen mode.
Media Player Classic has a very low memory footprint, and low cpu usage. This allows smooth playback on older computers, even for DVD quality video with no hardware decoding.
The main advantages of VLC over Media Player Classic are network stream playback, cross-platform compatibility, and more settings and customization options. If you don't consider those to be important in a media player, then media player classic is an easy to use, minimalistic media player. If those are important, then VLC is the player for you.
Ever since Windows Vista was released, it has been criticized for being unstable and slow. While there are some merits to this, this article makes some good points. What it boils down to is this:
| Advantages of Linux | Advantages of Vista |
| 1. Update every piece of software with one click 2. Secure 3. Self-maintaining 4. Free 5. Portable Settings | 1. New Start Menu 2. Media Center 3. Better hardware support(wifi) 4. Huge software choice 5. Offline Support 6. USB drive for portable settings |
Yes, if you are on an older computer, stick with linux or xp. If you have less than 2gb of ram(and certainly less than 1), stick with linux or xp. But if you have the resources, Vista is a great option.
(Note, all information comes from the above article and is merely summarized here)
Also, don't worry, my post on Chrome is coming, I've just been very busy.
So you just got a new computer, or you reinstalled windows on your old one. You copied over all of your files, double-click on a video file, and are told that it can't be played. This usually means you need the codec for that video file. This is where Vista Codecs comes in. Available here, it will install most of the codecs that you could possibly use, including:
DivX
Ogg
Xvid
Mpeg 4
As well as many others. It should make just about anything playable by windows media player. Alternately, you could try media players with these codecs built in, such as VLC or Media Player Classic, which will be in two posts next week.
Tabs are a part of virtually every web browser made within the last year or two. So why has it taken so long for other software to adopt tabs? Many pieces of software have, but there is one notable exception on the windows platform, explorer. Windows explorer requires multiple windows to be open to perform lots of file manipulation easily, which causes lots of clutter on the desktop. This can all be avoided with QTTabBar.
QTTabBar is a program which resides right next to the set of menus beginning at File and ending with Help at the top of an explorer window(Note:This is hidden by default in windows vista, pressing alt will bring it up, but it must be manually configured in vista for QTTabBar to be visible).
Just dragging a folder to the bar adds it as a tab. Dragging folders and files on top of a tab will move them into that folder. QTTabBar replaces the standard nav bar in windows xp. There are several additional buttons that QTTabBar can add to your explorer window:
The buttons provide addition functionality such as:
Clone window
Filter Current Directory
New Window
Clone Window
Close Window
And a whole set of tools for closing specific tabs
QTTabBar doesn't seem to greatly increase the memory or cpu usage of explorer, and is available for download here.
System control is a very simple, yet very useful, windows vista sidebar gadget. The basic premise is this, many system functions are difficult(or at least tedious) to get to. This gadget fixes that.
Each icon corresponds to a specific program or function. Clicking the lock toggles the color. When the icons have color, they can be accessed. The functions starting at the top left and going through the bottom right are:
Shutdown, Restart, Lock
Switch User, Task Manager, Sleep
Run, Log-Off, C-Prompt
At the bottom, the time is displayed. This is the enlarged view. The small view looks as follows:
This is for those who need lots of gadgets, and have limited space. There are plenty of themes, as well as the ability to move the icons around. This gadget should be very useful to anyone who either makes extensive use of the C-Prompt, or uses the task manager even a few times a day, thanks to Vista's Ctrl+Alt+Del menu. You can get this gadget at BuildAGadget
