Windows Vista Secrets Part Three
Digital Studio | Guides | 21/04/2009 12:39pm
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Silence the Security Center
If Security Center is a little too keen to tell you every little thing it thinks about, launch it via the Control Panel then look at the left-hand side of the window. If you click Change The Way Security Center alerts me and select Don’t notify me, but display the icon, you’ll still know when things need your attention, but you won’t get pop-ups.
Tweak User Account Control
Change how User Account Control behaves without sacrificing security
1 LAUNCH UAC The User Account Control can stop nasties from getting on to your PC. However, if you’d like to reduce the frequency of its ‘are you sure?’ messages, click Start and type Local Security Policy in the Start Search box. Press Enter and OK the warning prompt.
2 EXAMINE OPTIONS In the left-hand pane, go to Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options. In the righthand panel there are lots of options. We want User Account Control Behaviour of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode.
3 DISABLE PROMPTS This option is responsible for the ‘Windows needs your permission to continue’ messages, and it’s safe to disable them if they’re getting on your nerves. To do that, right-click the option and select Properties.
4 NO MORE POP-UPS You’ll see three options: Elevate Without Prompting, Prompt for Credentials and Prompt for Consent. If you select Elevate Without Prompting you won’t get the UAC messages when you try to run administrative tools.
Encrypt your hard drive
If you have Windows Vista Ultimate, you can encrypt your hard disk so that ne’er-do-wells can’t access your data if they pinch your PC. In Control Panel > Security > BitLocker Drive Encryption click Turn On BitLocker. Have a USB flash drive handy; you need it to store the encryption key that lets you into your protected PC.
Split your hard disk
There are all kinds of reasons to partition your hard disk. You might want one drive for system files and one for data, or you might want to dual-boot your system. In the old days you needed a dedicated disk partitioning program, but Windows Vista has one built-in. To use it, click Start, right-click Computer, then click Manage. In the left hand panel, click Storage > Disk Management, and right-click the box that corresponds to your hard disk. Choose Shrink Volume and enter the size you’d like to shrink your primary partition to; once done, right-click the Free Space box and select New Simple Volume. Windows Vista creates a new volume from the remaining space on your drive. Choose a drive letter, choose a format – NTFS is the default – and you’ll have a new, blank partition that your PC sees as an extra drive. As with all disk management jobs, make sure you’ve backed up your important data before even thinking about repartitioning your hard disk.
Rename multiple pictures
Fed up with endless images with meaningless names such as DSC001.JPG, DSC002.JPG and so on? Select them in Windows Photo Gallery, right-click and select Rename. Type the new name in the box and Windows Vista will rename all of them. So if you type ‘baby pic’ they’re renamed baby pic (1), baby pic (2), and so on. The same trick works in Windows Explorer for any kind of file, provided they’re all the same type, so you can rename a bunch of Word documents, text files or anything else.
Search in plain English
The Start Search box understands plain English, but you need to enable the feature in the Control Panel. Go to the Control Panel and choose Appearance and Personalization > Folder Options then click Search. Select the Use Natural Language Search box and you can now use terms such as ‘music radiohead or portishead’. File names only tell you so much, but if you add tags to things, they’re much easier to find in the future. For example, you might tag work documents with the name of the project you’re working on, or you might tag a photograph with the names of every person in the picture or the location at which it was shot. Once you’ve done that you can search for those tags, quickly locating everything to do with a project or all the photos of a particular subject. Add tags in the Details Pane of Windows Explorer (or for photos, in the Info Pane of Windows Photo Gallery).
Bring back Start > Run
Remember the Run command? It’s still there but hidden…
1 START RUNNING If you’re a longterm Windows user, you’re probably used to running applications and utilities by clicking Start > Run, but there’s no Run command in the Windows Vista Start Menu. Adding it couldn’t be easier, though. Right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties.
2 BRING IT BACK In Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, click Start Menu. You can use this tab to revert to the Classic Windows Start Menu too, but we’re quite happy with the new version. Click the Customize button to bring back Run.
3 ENABLE RUN There are stacks of check boxes that allow you to enable or disable links on the Start menu, and you can also specify whether particular items should appear as links, menus or not at all. To add the Run command, tick the Run Command box. Click OK and then click Start. It’s back!
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: Windows Vista
