Digital Quest » Windows Vista

Customizing ‘Send To’ context menu in Windows Vista

Suresh — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:33:45 +0000

Adding your own destinations to the ‘Send To’ context menu in Windows XP is quite easy. While it isn’t too difficult to do the same in Windows Vista, it is a little different. Here is how to do it in Vista.

Open the Control Panel, then Folder Options, then move to the View tab and select the option labelled ‘Show hidden files and folders’ and click OK. Now click Start, Computer, and open the C drive. Open the folder called users, then the one with your user name and navigate through the folders AppData, Roaming, Microsoft, Windows and finally SendTo. Add any shortcuts you want in the Send To menu to this folder.

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Vista - Copying file/folder paths made easy

Suresh — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:54:50 +0000

In the pre-Vista days, copying a file or folder path to the clip-board involved 5 steps. You had to right-click on the file or folder, select Properties, highlight the path, right-click again, and select Copy. That’s way too many steps for a task as simple as copying a path.

In Vista you have a much simpler and straight forward way of doing the same. Hold the Shift key when right-clicking on a file or folder and select Copy as Path.

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Can Windows Vista activation be postponed indefinitely?

Suresh — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 18:35:50 +0000

In an earlier post, I had written about how you can continue to use Windows Vista without activation upto 120 days. But now it looks like that 120 days can become 360 days or even indefinite.

And unbelievably, you can do it with just a little tweak to the Registry. This workaround was discovered by Windows expert Brian Livingston. This isn’t a hacker exploit. It doesn’t require any tools or utilities whatsoever. All it involves is changing a Registry Key called SkipRearm from its default its value of ‘00000000′ to any positive integer like ‘00000001′. Once you have done that you can use slmgr -rearm at the command prompt to postpone the activation by 30 days as described in my earlier post. You can postpone activation 3 more time now. In other words everytime you reset the SkipRearm key in the Registry, you can user slmgr -rearm 3 times.

You can find more about this here.

Looks like Microsoft has labeled this method a hack, a term usually used to mean changing something illegally.

But I don’t understand why SkipRearm even exists in the first place.

If it is offered it will be taken.

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How to run a legal copy of Vista for 120 days without activation

Suresh — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 02:25:56 +0000

All versions of Vista allow a 30-day period without activation, except the corporate-oriented Vista Enterprise, which supports only a three-day trial.

But there is a way to extend the trial period from 30 days to as much as 120 days. A very simple way.

Just start a new command prompt and type:

slmgr -rearm

Reboot your pc and you will have 30 more days to play with your Vista. However, you can extend the grace period only 3 times, which means you can use Vista for upto 120 days without activation.

If you are wondering if the above method is legal, stop worrying. Using the above command to extend the grace period is not a violation of the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA). This has been confirmed by a Microsoft spokeswoman.

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Windows Vista Home license forbids virtualization

Suresh — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 02:32:58 +0000

If you want to run Microsoft’s new Vista operating system on a Mac using Parallels Desktop for Mac, you’re going to have to buy the Enterprise or Ultimate editions.

With the release of Vista, Microsoft has reworded its End User License Agreement (EULA) to forbid the use of Vista Home Basic and Home Premium Editions with virtualization products like Parallels and VMware.

The EULA reads, in part: USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.

Meanwhile, the EULA included with Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions allows that operating system software to be installed on virtual or emulated hardware systems.

Read full story here.

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