disable dim screen at secure Desktop win7

Since I replaced my monitor for a bigger one I find it more annoying that the whole screen gets dimmed during secure desktop so I was looking for a way to stop the dimming.
This can be achieved by lowering your UAC setting one notch (one below default)

Although not really what I wanted because I don't like the fact my security is lowered a bit.

Explanation from Microsoft:
This setting is the same as "Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer," but you're not notified on the secure desktop.

Because the UAC dialog box isn't on the secure desktop with this setting, other programs might be able to interfere with the visual appearance of the dialog box. This is a small security risk if you already have a malicious program running on your computer.

Note: The outcome of the registry change as described here also lowers the security

Eventvwr: Customer Experience Improvement Program EventID 1008

To prevent this message in your eventvwr: A problem prevented Customer Experience Improvement Program data from being sent to Microsoft, (Error 80004005).
Disable the consolidator Task 

uninstall and clean tool from Microsoft Support

URL: http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall
(Fixit-portable)

What it fixes...

• Removes bad registry key on 64 bit operating systems.
• Windows registry keys that control the upgrade (patching) data that become corrupted.
• Resolves problems that prevent new programs from being installed.
• Resolves problems that prevent programs from being completely uninstalled and blocking new installations and updates.
• Use this troubleshooter for an uninstall only if the program fails to uninstall using the windows add/remove programs feature.

remove service from Services

If you need to remove a service from services you can with a simple command:
Prerequisite:  stop the service before removing
To remove "AMD External Events Utility" service for example:
run cmd.exe with elevated privileges, type the following:
sc delete "AMD External Events Utility"

C:\Windows\system32>sc delete "AMD External Events Utility"
[SC] DeleteService SUCCESS
C:\Windows\system32>

Microsoft Security Essentials issues

Using MSE I noticed slow rendering of icons on my desktop and sometimes high CPU usage of MsMpEng.exe process.
As a "Solution" I added these in to the excluded files Settings of MSE and so far so good.

"import" vmx file in VirtualBox

I prefer to use Virtualbox over vmware but received a vmware image consisting of vmx and vmdk files. I managed to get a Win2000 vmx image up and running in Virtualbox 4.1.6
Before the import I removed the vmwaretools. This was mentioned as a prerequisite. I used VMware player to startup the vmx and did an uninstall of vmwaretools

BTW ovftool from vmware could not convert the vmx file to ovf: complaining about unsupported hardware so I left this path and did the following:

from http://dietrichschroff.blogspot.com/2008/10/using-vmware-images-with-virtualbox.html I used the tip to replace all scsi references in the vmx file to ide using notepad. In the vmdk there was no reference to lsilogic so I left these untouched.
Created a new VM in Virtualbox and choose use existing disk and pointed it to the vmdk files.
I had to tick enable IO APIC

It booted fine and found several new hardware and after the usual reboot I installed the Virtualbox Guest additions and it is working fine.

How to disable and re-enable hibernation on a computer that is running Windows

source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920730

Let me fix it myself

To make hibernation unavailable, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4. At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press ENTER.
5. Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

To make hibernation available, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4. At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate on, and then press ENTER.
5. Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

Gigabyte motherboard RAM settings

I was looking for some info regarding my AMD motherboard (Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 rev2.1(Bios F6)) and found this useful info

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2515.0.html
You are better off not trying to run your RAM above 1333 Mhz. when using an AM3 Phenom or Athlon CPU.
If you do so, you run the risk of system instability and even damaging the Memory Controller on the CPU. If, like me, you have invested in 1600 Mhz RAM, you will actually benefit from running your RAM at 1333 Mhz and tightening the timings. You also gain better performance by slightly overclocking your CPU. If, however, you do overclock your CPU, it is stongly recommended that you purchase a good quality 3rd party CPU heatsink to aid CPU cooling and also remember that officially, neither Gigabyte or AMD support overclocking of their products.
If you wish to run RAM above 1333 Mhz. and your RAM is rated at a higher speed, you are not overclocking your system. However, AMD recommend that you only use memory that appears on the QVL as this has been tested for compatability at higher speeds. If you are unsure about the compatability of the RAM you have bought the safest option is to run it at 1333 Mhz to avoid damaging the Memory Controller. If you are looking to buy RAM that is faster than 1333 Mhz. and it doesn't appear on the QVL be prepared to downclock the modules to gain system stability. There are no guarantees that the RAM will run as stated and you could possibly damage the CPU's Memory Controller.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT:If you do manage to get your RAM running over 1333 Mhz., your system can appear to be fine and might even pass Memtest and other benchmarking utilities successfully. However, AMD have discovered that, in certain scenarios, the system may fall over after a period of use, depending on system usage and if you are stressing the CPU. This normally indicates a problem with the Memory Controller and you may need to replace your CPU if this happens.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,7439.0.html
What is the DRAM EOCP?

It stands for Easy Over Clock Profile and the BIOS can read the information on the RAM (if it is present) and automatically set the system to run at this.

As I said previously, with the Athlon processor AMD recommend running RAM at 1333MHz or slower. You will probably have to set this in BIOS and you do this under the MIT section.

Change Set Memory Clock to Manual
Next set the Memory Clock to x6.66 (1333 MHz)
Change System Voltage Control to Manual
Check the Voltage for your RAM Modules (printed on the label or on the packaging) then set the correct voltage under the DRAM Voltage Control. If the Voltage for your RAM is over 1.50V you will notice a warning message that flashes in red you can ignore this. So if, for example your RAM is rated at 1.7V you will need to set this here and it is safe to do so even with the warning message

align Samsung harddisk

(Source: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/downloads/support_in_aft.html)
Samsung Electronics offers Samsung Alignment Tool (Software) with the Samsung 4K sector HDDs.
This program is only required for OS prior to Windows Vista, or an operating system backed up and
recovered with an image copy software (cloning software) that does not enable 4K sector drives.
(Note: Hitachi got a similar tool) 

With the provided tool "AcronisAlignTool-Samsung" you can check and realign your partitions.
To see if your partitions are aligned  correctly go into system Information and check if the "Partition Starting Offset" for each partition can be divided by 4096; this should return an integer value.
(example:  1048576/4096= 256)

Enable AHCI mode afterwards

(source: http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/showthread.php?5465-How-Do-I-Enable-AHCI-With-AMD-890-And-Win-7)

Typically, (IF you did not install AHCI initially but went with the default IDE setup) with mechanical SATA drives, the process is to do the AHCI registry hack: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Excerpt:
To resolve this issue yourself, enable the AHCI driver in the registry before you change the SATA mode of the boot drive. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Exit all Windows-based programs.
2. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
3. If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
4. Locate and then click one of the following registry subkeys:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV
5. In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7. On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.

, then reboot, go into the BIOS, change to AHCI, save and reboot and all is well.

remove SYSTEM-owned files Win7

(source:http://www.blogsdna.com/2166/how-to-delete-undeletable-files-in-windows-7.htm)

In order to access the files and folder for manipulation, modification or deletion, we will need to take control of the files under Windows 7. Here are two command line syntaxes to instantly take ownership of such files,

For Files:

takeown /f file_name /d y
icacls file_name /grant administrators:F

For Directories (will perform action recursively):

takeown /f directory_name /r /d y
icacls directory_name /grant administrators:F /t

Please keep in mind above syntaxes will grant full permission to administrator group hence you must be a part of administrator group to take advantage of above command.

Report of chkdsk Win 7

Source: http://janetalkstech.com/2009/windows-tip-of-the-day-viewing-your-chkdsk-report

If you want to look back the reports of the chkdsk runs you have done there are 2 ways to see the old reports:
1. Powershell
To start powershell go to START=>Run .. type "powershell" hit OK
With the use of PowerShell command it is easy to get the information gathered by chkdsk:
Copy and paste that into the Windows PowerShell command window:
get-winevent -FilterHashTable @{logname="Application"; id="1001"}| ?{$_.providername –match "wininit"} | fl timecreated, message

2. Eventviewer:
Go into eventvwr.msc, right-click Custom Views and choose "Create Custome view". Give it a name for example Chkdsk.
Use the settings from the pull-down menu from this picture and save your view.

Event logs: tick the boxes as seen below
Event sources: check from the pulldown: Chkdsk and Wininit

Totalcmd start with your own settings

In order to launch Total Commander with specifiying your own custom locations of those two ini files, you just have to change the shortcut to main EXE file to something like this:
d:\totalcmd\TOTALCMD.EXE /i=d:/totalcmd/wincmd.ini /f=d:/totalcmd/wcx_ftp.ini

Sandisk Sansa Clip volume too low

Using my sansa clip with a Sennheiser PMX 680 headphone I noticed the volume was pretty low on max volume.
The reason was I set the region to Europe. Too get more volume out of it you have to reset it to region "Rest of the World":
(source: http://www.avforums.com/forums/portable-music-mp3/1181368-sansa-clip-too-quiet.html)

1.Turn on your Sansa Clip
2.Make a note of any settings you would like to keep (we're going to reset them in a minute)
3.Select 'Settings' from the main menu
4.Select 'Reset All'
5.Select 'Yes'
6.Select your language of choice (English for me)
7.Select 'Rest of World' as your region
8.Optionally: ◦Scroll through the settings menu to 'Volume' ◦Select 'High'
9.Set the volume as you normally would - you should have lots more oomph now

language setting for skydrive

MS has stopped Myphone apps for backup of my mobile phone and switches to skydrive. I noticed my language setting was not as desired.
Log into Windows Live and go to:
http://home.live.com/options/language

Here you can change the language

Show advanced settings for Network cards

Source: http://www.techrena.net/windows/view-change-network-adapter-card-priority-binding-order-windows-7/

Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet (View network status and tasks)> Change adapter settings and now you will now be in “Network Connections” window.

2. Now press Alt button and a hidden menu will appear beneath the location bar.

Dell Dimension 5150 amber light flashing (solved)

at startup of my Dell it failed showing an amberlight flashing. Due to it's age I replaced the cmos battery but that didn't help. I opened the powersupply and saw some elco's that were brown on top. Funny was that I could get it to run by setting the reset switch on the motherboard and reconnect power. It would than flash amber fast and after a few seconds boot itself up. So I was sure nothing wrong with the pc itself. I found on the internet This pc uses a standard psu so I replaced it with an Antec BP350-EC and everything fitted nicely and my DELL is back in good shape.

Audio: Do not map through this device

A setting used in DAW in XP known as "Do not map through this device" has been replaced in Win7 by "Exclusive Mode", see Control Panel => Manage Sound Devices => Highlight your sound card => Open Properties => Advanced Tab

change connection order LAN/WLAN Windows7

If your win7 is connected to LAN and WLAN you can set priority going to Network Connections. There is a hidden menu that can be made visible by the the use of the ALT-key. Now you can change the order.

Plextor PX-L890SA only recognized as CDROM (solved)

The burner was connected to GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 rev 2.1 motherboard. This board has 2 SATA controllers:

1 AMD South Bridge: 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors supporting up to 6 SATA 6Gb/s devices
1 Gigabyte SATA2 controller: 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices

I connected the disk for OS and Plextor to this Gigabyte controller in AHCI mode
Plextor worked fine during installation of WIN7-64bit.

After installation of OS I tried to burn a disk and then it appeared the disk was recognized only as a CDROM-device not capable of erasing/burning disks. This was also revealed by the plexutilities self test where all results were negative. (Upgrading firmware from 1.03 to 1.05 did not help either)

In order to finish the installation I bought another PX-L890SA and to my surprise it showed same behavior. I could not believe 2 burners were in error so I connected the burner to the Southbridge controller (also AHCI-mode) and to sum it up: All went fine: Plexutilities selftest all OK, and burning CD-RW without problem.

Hopefully this can help you in future situations,

VirtualBox: add SATA controller to VM (remove IDE)

Problem
When you assign the CD-ROM to the SATA port in your guest system the guest hangs during startup and takes 100% CPU time of both cores. When you assign the CD-ROM to IDE it works fine.

To use SATA for both Disk and DVD do the following
(source: http://forum.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&p=168263)

If your VM was created with IDE-controller you can change it into SATA:
switch off your VM
In Virtualbox Manager add SATA controller to Your VM (don't attach drives yet)
Boot your VM (new hardware found but will fail, cannot find driver)
Download From Intel: Intel Matrix Storage Manager (IATA89ENU.exe)
Install it and shutdown VM

In your VM Settings Add Sata controller and assign your vdi to this Controller
Remove the IDE Controller (don't add a CDROM/DVD on sata1 yet)
so you only have 1 SATA controller with an attached vdi (to SATA Port 0)
Boot your VM (should go fine)

Now update your SATA driver within your VM (iaStor.sys to 10.1 or higher)
(http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/chpsts/imsm)
I used the floppy files from Intel® RST Driver Files (for version 10.1) - F6 Install (32-bit): f6flpy-x86.zip
Unpack the files in your VM and goto Device manager and choose update driver for your SATA controller
After installation it needs a reboot of your VM
I checked to see if it booted fine (it did)

With this updated driver installed I shutdown VM again and in Settings VM I added my CD/DVD on SATA Port 1.
started VM and all is fine (see below, VM with only SATA)

Microsoft Security Essentials (update definitions failed)

If auto update of virus signatures fails for MSE delete your temporary internet files and try again.
Note: you can choose to install MSE by running WindowsUpdate. It will show it as one of the options.

When I could net get the definition update I changed within VirtualBox the Network Settings from NAT to Bridged for the VM and update succeeded

windows explorer slow or not responding

Open the command line and disconnect all the drives
Start > Run > cmd > net use * /d

this might show some "hidden" shares that make your explorer not responding
remove them and hopefully it is working again

readynas cannot open tray (solved)

I too had a problem opening the disktrays of my readynas. On netgear's forum there is the solution using a pin:
insert pin at "B", and move pin toward to buttom gently to release latch. This will move plastic block (colored in Cyan) behind front cover.(source: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5286)


After that I removed the harddisk from the tray and used a spray on the latch and so far it is better than before.
The spray I used was Instant Cleaner from Philips which is used to clean off fingerprints and so on from electronic equipment.

Vista - Start of Task manager CTRL-SHIFT-ESC

It used to be CTRL-ALT-DEL but in Vista it brings up first a new screen from which you have to choose task manager. Luckily there is a faster way: CTRL-SHIFT-ESC.