I had to RDP to a server several times before this actually started to bother me:
Dell has their own image set as the default background during the login prompt. RDP over the internet enough and the slow loading of the background starts to eat away at you.

It’s a simple registry hack to fix it:

Start – Run
regedit
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Find a key named Wallpaper
Change the key’s data to (None) instead of C:\windows\dellcrap\dellcrapimage.bmp
Close out of the registry editor
Wait a few minutes and it should be gone when you try to login.

This worked on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

I wanted to change the login screen for Windows 7 and Vista. I know I had a program on Vista that allowed me to change it without a problem, but I can’t seem to find it after I wiped out the drive :).

So anyway, here’s another free way to change it without going into the registry yourself:
http://it.thelibrarie.com/utilities/W7C%20LogonUI%20Changer.exe

Open it up, click on the middle, select your picture, and away you go. It resizes and everything. Yay.

Or for the jerks out there that want to remotely have fun with coworkers:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

Check to see if a DWord value named OEMBackground exists and has a value of 1. If not, right click the white-space and create a DWORD Value for this.

Put an UNDER 256KB file in this directory:
%windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds
Name the file backgroundDefault.jpg

I like software that just works. If it works well and uses minimal resources all the better. That’s why I like foobar 2000. I’m using it to play all of my songs and it’s using a slim 20MB. And yes, it works under Windows 7 64bit.

But one feature that was missing was the ability to show my fellow MSN (or Windows Live Messenger) users what I was currently listening to. Not that anyone cares, but it bothered me that both iTunes and Media Player could provide this information but foobar couldn’t.

There’s a plugin just for this reason – it works well under 0.9.6.9 so far.

Download this: http://it.thelibrarie.com/utilities/foo_msnalt.dll
Put the file in your foobar 2000 components folder (in my case it’s C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\components)
Restart Foobar2000

You should now notice that MSN will display the song (assuming you set it to do so) in your status. Rock on.

I believe I already posted a how-to regarding installing Windows XP from a USB key flash drive thumb drive. Now we’re onto the next OS – Windows 7. This should work with Vista as well as they use the same boot loader. This will NOT work with XP.

You must have a USB Flash Drive of 4GB or more
You must have the Windows 7 or Vista installation files handy – OEM, Retail, or VL works ON CD OR ISO not just in a random folder
This process will ERASE your Flash drive, so make sure you don’t have anything on there you need to keep

Open the command prompt (Windows Key + R)
If you have any problems with the commands, try typing “cmd” into the Start Menu search box and then press Control + Shift + Enter to activate the admin privileged command prompt

Type diskpart
This will start the disk partition utility

list disk
This will show all of the disk’s currently in the disk management utility. In most cases Disk 1 will be your USB drive. MAKE SURE that this is the case BEFORE trying any of the following commands.
select disk 1
This selects the disk that you found from the previous command
clean
This clears out the partition tables
create partition primary
This creates a primary partition – primary is needed as a boot device
select partition 1
This selects the primary partition
active
This makes the primary partition active so it can be booted
format fs=ntfs
This formats the device with the filesystem NTFS. It took almost 30 minutes on a 16GB device
assign
This assigns all changes to the device
exit
Exits the utility

Keep the Command Window open though. We’ll be needing it again.

Now insert the CD or mount the ISO image. We need the 7 or Vista files to be mounted as a drive letter. Take note of the drive letter, in my case it’s G:
Also take note of the drive letter for your Flash Drive – in my case it’s F:

G: hit enter
cd boot hit enter
bootsect.exe /nt60 f: hit enter

Now copy all of the files from your DVD/ISO to the USB Flash Drive.

Once you’re done, reboot your machine and select the USB HD as your boot device.

That’s it!

I was trying to activate Windows 7 on my desktop after I installed 7 and all of the required updates when I received this error:

DNS name does not exist.
0x8007232B

Yay! Turns out that I forgot to put the key in after I installed. Or, if I remember correctly, if you used vlite to auto input the key you will have to change the key to the same one and then reactivate.

So after changing the key, typing it in again, and then clicking activate, everything went smoothly.

BTW – Windows 7 is much faster than Vista SP2.

I had a user receive an attached file in Outlook. The Excel spreadsheet was needed for budgeting or something important. The user opened the attached file, edited the file, and then clicked Save. The user then closed out of Excel.

This user needed to send the edited file back to the original source but could not locate said file. They said at their old job the file would automatically update in their outlook and they could just forward the original email back to the source and everyone would be happy. So I had the task of locating this important file.

Here’s where I looked:
Outlook 2003
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLKRandomNumbers

Outlook 2007
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\RandomNumbers

Vista/Windows 7
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook\xxxxxxxx

But I couldn’t find the documents in question. So I dug a little deeper and found if the user had edited the registry, they could point the temporary files toward another directory.
Outlook 2003
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security

Value Name: OutlookSecureTempFolder
Data Type: REG_SZ
Outlook 2007
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security

Value Name: OutlookSecureTempFolder
Data Type: REG_SZ

And thus I found the files, and all was great again!