Windows Vista Build 5270 Tips & Tricks

Windows Vista Build 5270 Tips & Tricks

The long awaited 3rd CTP of Windows Vista™ has finally arrived. We got around to installing it Monday evening and began testing out the build, putting it through its paces. Everything seems to be coming together now, the user interface looks more polished, there are a lot of new features included, and driver issues with NVIDIA graphics card causing STOP errors and lockups are no longer present.

Some of the new features include:
• Aero colorization (8 presets to choose from: Aero, Frost, Smoke, Seafoam, Heritage, Sky, Heart, and Candy). You can also create your own by using an advanced color slider; modify hue, brightness, saturation, and intensity (opacity) as well.
• Windows Media Player 11 user interface improved.
• New icons throughout the user interface.
• “Places” bar improved.
• Flip3D has been improved.
• The Start menu has been overhauled, and now includes the ability to disable the search box, and whether to link to a folder or a library for the Documents, Music, and Pictures selections.
• Most of the control panel applets have been overhauled and are now embedded in a Windows Explorer view.
• Control Panel has been improved.
• Windows Audio has been improved yet again, the audio controls are now more fully featured and work without crashing.

Overall, this build is impressive to say the least. While it is not beta quality, this build is more stable over the last two interim builds, and is showing a lot of improvement. We are also beginning to see a glimpse of Beta 2 with this CTP.

Unlike our previous tweaking and optimization guides, this one will not require disabling any of the features in Windows Vista; instead we will be focusing on tweaking the interface and guiding you through some of the new features that you may not normally find.

This way you will be able to experience the operating system at its full potential.
Now that we got all that out of the way, lets get down to it, shall we?

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Display the classic menus in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer temporarily
If you are used to the older style Windows Explorer, which has the Classic menus (File, Edit, etc), but you don’t want to have them on all the time, just press the Alt key. This will display the classic menus temporarily. Also, if you have the Classic Menus turned off in Internet Explorer 7, this trick will also show the menus in IE.

Restore Access to Virtual Folders on the Start Menu
In previous Windows Vista builds, the Start menu items for Documents, Pictures, and Music all pointed to Virtual Folder / Library listings. In the December CTP, this functionality has been changed back to the Windows XP style; by linking to the actual folder. If you wish to regain access to these virtual folders, you need to change a few settings:

1. Right click on the Start button, and click “Properties”.
2. In the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” dialog, click “Customize”.
3. Change the selection for Documents to “Link to this library”. Repeat this for Pictures and Music if you wish.
4. Press OK and dismiss the dialogs.

Enable “Run” on the Start Menu
The one thing that has been in the same place since Windows 95 has been the “Run” command. In the December CTP, this has been hidden by default. To enable it, simply perform the following commands:

1. Right click on the Start button, and click “Properties”.
2. In the “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” dialog, click “Customize”.
3. Scroll down and in the list you shall find “Run command”. Check the box next to it.
4. Dismiss all dialogs by pressing OK.

Enable “Express” look
If for any reason you are not a fan of the new Aero look (also known as Glass), or you have a low-end video card, you can change this behavior without needing to use Windows XP drivers or toggling DWM (Ctrl+Shift+F9). Aero Express is the lighter, less graphics intensive look.

To enable it:

1. Click Start, and then click “Control Panel”.
2. Click “Appearance and Personalization”.
3. Under “Personalization”, click “Customize colors”.
4. Under “Change your color scheme”, click on “Open classic appearance properties”
5. In the “Personalization” dialog that appears, under “Color scheme”, change the selection from “Default” to “Express”.
6. Press OK to apply the change.
7. Press “Save” in the “Change Your Color Scheme” window to save all your changes.

Disable the transparent taskbar without disabling Aero Glass
If you wish to have your taskbar a solid color instead of semi-transparent, but you don’t want to disable the Aero look, simply turn on the Windows Media Player taskbar control. You don’t even need to actually use Windows Media Player for this to work. To try this out:

1. Right click on an empty space or on the clock in the taskbar, and under the “Toolbars” list, click “Windows Media Player”.

Disable User Account Protection (UAP)
Once you have installed the December CTP and set up an every day user account, one of the first things you will notice is that you have almost no rights to do anything administrator related on your system. Disabling this is purely up to you but if you find UAP is getting in your way, or some applications refuse to run because of it, you may want to take a look at this. Here are the instructions:

NOTE: You should be logged in as Administrator to do this, or you could run the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) elevated.

1. Press WinKey (the flag key on your keyboard) + R and type “secpol.msc”. (Without the quotes). If asked to permit Microsoft Management Console to run, allow it.
2. In the Local Security Settings window, in the left hand pane, navigate to “Security Settings, Local Policies, Security Options”.
3. In the pane to the right, scroll all the way to the bottom.
4. Set the first two User Account Protection items to “No Prompt”, and “Disabled” on the remaining three items.
5. Close the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), and if you are asked to save the settings for “Console1”, press “No”.
6. Reboot or log off and log back in to enforce the new settings; or alternatively open an elevated Command Prompt and type “gpupdate /force” (without the quotes), and then press Enter..

Internet Explorer 7 User Agent String
Copy and paste the following code into Notepad, and save it to your desktop as IE7UserAgent.REG.

Double-click the file to merge it into the Windows Registry, and then restart Internet Explorer for the change to take effect. If UAP is turned on, permit the operation to take place.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 6.0”
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform]
“SV1″=-

You can easily undo this change by copying and pasting the following code into Notepad, and then saving it as IE7Undo.reg and merge it into the Windows Registry. If UAP is turned on, permit the operation to take place.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
“Version”=-
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform]
“SV1″=””

You can test these changes using a simple page that checks the User Agent. We recommend: http://www.fiddlertool.com/useragent.aspx.

Increase Performance
The December CTP is quick right from installation, however there is one bug that causes a slow down with the user interface. This bug involves the sliding buttons on the taskbar; by disabling this, performance increases a bit. It’s really up to you, but the bug can be very annoying at times. To disable it, just carry out the following actions:

1. Press WinKey+R and type in “sysdm.cpl” (without the quotes).
2. Click the Advanced tab, and then under “Performance” click “Settings”.
3. In the Visual Effects tab, uncheck “Slide taskbar buttons”.

We have also compiled a registry file that changes a few key settings involving the timings for menus, hover events, etc, which makes the Windows interface more responsive. You can download that here. Included in the file is also a registry file for enhancing your internet connection speed. Both of these were tested and are fully working without any issues, and have also been scanned for viruses.

Disable Un-Needed Services
There are some services in this build that can be disabled without impacting any features (except the Security Center service, some people may find this annoying).

Disable the following:
• IIS Admin Service - if you don’t plan on using IIS, you don’t need this enabled.
• Offline Files – Disabling this helps to speed up Windows Explorer when performing network tasks.
• Peer Name Resolution Protocol
• PRNP Auto Registration
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) – if your computer isn’t going to be running as a mail server, you don’t need this.
• Tablet PC Input Service – If you do not use a Tablet PC or you’re on a desktop computer, you don’t need this.

Workarounds for Known Issues in this build
Microsoft has added several workarounds to the Release Notes for the December CTP. For your convenience, they will also be outlined here.

Windows Backup Failure Error
Windows Backup will fail with error 0×80070026 when you attempt to back up.

To fix this issue:

1. Press WinKey + R on your keyboard, and then type “regedit.exe” (without the quotes). If UAP asks, permit the action.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\POLICIES\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\SYSTEM. If this key does not exist, create it by right clicking on “WINDOWS”, and from the context menu, select “New” and then “Key”. Name this key “SYSTEM” (without the quotes).
3. In the “SYSTEM” key, create a new DWORD (32-bit) value, and name it “CopyFileBufferedSynchronousIo” (without the quotes).
4. Double click on the DWORD and set its value to 1.

Installation Instructions for IIS7
If you are interested in installing or testing out IIS 7 (Internet Information Services) on Windows Vista or Windows Server Code-name “Longhorn”, you must perform the following command:

1. Press WinKey+R on your keyboard, and then type “cmd.exe” (without the quotes).
2. Copy and paste (or type it out, doesn’t matter) the following command:
start /w pkgmgr.exe /iu:IIS-WebServerRole;IIS-WebServerFeature;IIS-FTPServerFeature
3. Press Enter on your keyboard and IIS will install on its own.

User Accounts Control Panel – Can not modify account properties for other accounts but your own
If your computer is not joined to a domain, administrators are unable to modify account properties for other users via the user accounts control panel.

In the December CTP build, when an administrator clicks another user’s tile in the “Manage Accounts” page in the User Accounts Control Panel, nothing happens and as a result they are unable to get to the page that allows them to change settings for another user’s account. You may workaround this issue by changing the account properties from within that account or from an administrative account, press WinKey+R and type “control userpasswords2″ (without the quotes), select the user you wish to modify and click “Properties”.

Opening ZIP files that contain folders hangs Windows Explorer
The built in ZIP file handling in the December CTP does not seem to work well, if you open a ZIP file that contains folders, Windows Explorer may hang and the only way to close the unresponsive window is to end the Explorer.exe process with Task Manager.

A quick workaround to this issue is to use a program like WinZip or WinRAR for handling ZIP files.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 does not run correctly with UAP turned on
If you are trying to run Adobe Photoshop CS2 on the December CTP of Windows Vista (build 5270), you have User Account Protection enabled (which I personally recommend), and you are being prompted with the following error:

An error has been detected with a required application library and the product cannot continue. Please reinstall the application.

Here are the workaround methods:

1. Right click on the shortcut for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and click “Run Elevated…”; when asked, click Permit.
2. Right click on the shortcut for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and click Properties. Click the Compatibility tab. Check “Run this program as an administrator”, and press OK.

With the second workaround, you will be asked to permit Photoshop to run when you lanch the shortcut (same as the first one, but one less step - no need to Run Elevated).