Vista Made Tolerable

The guide to making Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate configured in a way that is almost tolerable by experienced "old school" personal computer users.

Remember, Vista is the same ugly girl hidden under a new pretty dress. You will find most of the classic dialogs running the same legacy Windows programming code hidden under new menus. The book has a new cover, but the same tired story inside.

Files and Folders

show file extensions

1. Open a folder or open explorer
2. Click "Organize" to open the menu and select "Folder and Search Options"
3. Click the View tab
4. Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types
5. Click OK

The classic "Folder Options" dialog is hidden under ORGANIZE, FOLDER AND SEARCH OPTIONS.

sendto shell menu items

Profiles look a bit different under Vista. If you look in c:\users\<username> you will see a shortcut to "sendto." Clicking on the shortcut produces a permission denied error. Access the sendto folder via the complete profile path. For domain users look for "sendto" contents under the full profile path (hidden).

• c:\users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\sendto

Classic File Edit View menu bar

To make the classic menu items visible from an explorer window simply press and release the ALT key. They can also be configured to remain visible.

Enable or Disable Single Click Icons

Traditionally windows required a double click on icons to open files or launch programs. KDE desktop in Linux requires only a single click. Your preference may be set.

1. Click on the the Control Panel / Folders icon
2. Check Single click to open an item

 

UAC (User Account Control)

Does Vista prompt you to confirm actions too much to where it annoys you? Vista pretends to run as non-root, trying to imitate something UNIX has done since day one.

1. Click Start Menu
2. Click File and Run
3. Type in 'msconfig' and ENTER
4. In the System Configuration Dialog click the 'Tools' tab
5. Scroll down and locate 'Disable UAC'

This simply modifies a registry key. You can manually edit the registry to accomplish this also. You will have to reboot the Operating System.

When UAC is turned on (which it is by default), you must explicitly give permission to any program that wants to use "administrator" powers. Any program that tries to use admin powers without your permission will be denied access.

Registry hack to disable or enable UAC from the command line.

Disable UAC

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Enable UAC

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

If you are a computer administrator, and you still want to keep UAC for standard users, there's an easy way to turn it off for administrators only. Just open Local Security Policy from Administrative Tools in the Control Panel. Then go to Local Policies > Security Options. Scroll all the way down and find where it says something like: USER ACCOUNT CONTROL: Behavior of elevation prompt for administrtors in Admin. Approval Mode; Just double-click it and then click the drop down list and change it to "elevate without prompting." UAC should no longer annoy administrators.