kellys-korner-xp.com · Domains

Re:Sabotage? by hairyfeet · 2009-10-16 15:58 · Score: 2, Informative · on Sneaky Microsoft Add-On Put Firefox Users At Risk

Uuuuhhh...never heard of a .reg file? If you have somebody who is afraid of using the reg they really ain't hard to cook up. if you need one here is a nice tutorial on how to modify and delete reg entries with a .reg file. Certainly a lot easier to go "clicky clicky" on a reg file than risk having the user bone something in CLI.

That is one of the nice things about the Windows registry-it really isn't hard to cook up a .reg file in notepad and send it to someone having a problem. Oh and if anybody needs it here is a page of the most common fixes for those little problems that pop up from time to time, and nearly all of them are nice simple .reg files that makes it simple to send to someone having trouble or keep on a flash in a misc tools folder. Despite all the hate out there for the reg is actually pretty simple to backup, fix, and maintain, with little effort.

Re:De Icaza Responds by hairyfeet · 2009-10-06 14:06 · Score: 2, Informative · on London Stock Exchange Rejects .NET For Open Source

The .reg files are about as repeatable as can be. In fact i keep a couple of them on my flash for the more common "gotchas" like the new Realtek HD borking Windows sound server issue. Just clicky clicky and reboot, it don't get easier than that. The Linux guys can scream about homogeneous environments, but to me that is one of the nice things about dealing with Windows. WinXP is WinXP is WinXP, and the reg works the same pretty much everywhere. And why bother writing my own, when there are Prebuilt solutions that already work just fine? No reason to reinvent the wheel and all that.

Look I don't have ANY problems with Linux or think that one is better than the other. Like screwdrivers and hammers, each has its place. Linux kicks ass on servers, cell phones, and the embedded space. But dealing with home users the simplicity of .reg files makes my life a WHOLE lot easier, and saves my customers my $70 an hour service calls to boot. For all those funky ass desktops, filled with funky ass Chinese parts, I have found that Windows and .reg files "just work" which is why I don't get all the hate. I mean why in the hell would you want to spend hours writing shell scripts, or having to SSH into somebodies box, or worse yet try to walk a clueless user through a myriad of CLI commands, when you can just say "see this file I sent you? Yeah just clicky clicky and reboot".

Hell it don't get any easier than that. I personally would much rather deal with that than deal with tons of .ini files, which is what the ton of Linux conf files reminded me of. On a server where pretty much nothing is changing and you need insane up times? Yeah Linux is the way to go there, just as it is the way to go in the embedded space, where every byte counts. But there is a REASON why windows is so popular, and that is because for the masses it is quite easy. A good 95% of your Windows problems can be solved by having a decent AV or if worse comes to worse reinstalling a driver, which is a "clicky clicky, next next next" deal. And I just haven't seen anything on Linux that is as easy to deal with as .reg files are on Windows. Maybe it is because there are a bazillion distros, maybe its because the developers like it that way, who knows?

But for ease of problem solving you really can't beat .reg files, so I really don't get why there is such hatred out there for the registry. Vista hate I get, because it was the second coming of WinME. But I can't even remember the last time I worked on a machine that was borked because of the reg, maybe Win98SE? With just a tiny bit of common sense it really does work well, and for those without common sense? Well that is why they make tools like Tuneup Utilities and CCleaner. For home users it just don't get any easier than that.

Re:De Icaza Responds by hairyfeet · 2009-10-06 11:53 · Score: 3, Funny · on London Stock Exchange Rejects .NET For Open Source

OT I know, but I never have understood why the Linux guys hate the registry so much. Do you really think hunting down a bazillion config files and editing them is better? I can just hand my customers Tuneup utilities and it automatically cleans out any cruft left over from uninstallers, and you really can't beat .reg files for fixing little niggling problems remotely. Got a borked sound server? just double click this .reg and reboot. Display problem? Borked autorun? .reg file. For having to work on a machine across town or across country it sure is a hell of a lot easier for me to just send them a .reg than it is walking them through a bunch of CLI.

So really, what is the hate? as someone who lived through the .ini days I'm quite happy with the way the reg works on WinNT based machines. I'm sure for Linux guys with lots of It experience editing a bunch of config files is just fine, but as someone who has to deal with home users on a daily basis, it is just easier IMHO to deal with the registry, especially with sites like this at your fingertips. So I just don't get it. The MSFT Bob jokes I understand, and as someone who suffered with WinME and Vista before tossing them for the goodness of Win2K and WinXP pro respectively, yeah get the joke there. But seriously what is wrong with having a registry?

Re:XP support by hairyfeet · 2009-04-07 10:31 · Score: 1 · on XP Reprieve, Downgrade May Continue After Win7

I can copy a file in regedit, pack it up in a zip, send it to someone and "clicky clicky" they are done. No actual knowledge required. hell there are whole websites out there dedicated to nothing but little regedit files that fix little problems. Download the file, "clicky clicky" and you're done. Show me any way to do deep level system fixes THAT easy in Linux. For everyone's bitching and moaning about the registry, it actually works pretty damned well and more importantly is butt simple to back up, restore, and send easy fixes across long distances through simple regedit files. I have yet to see ANYTHING that matches that level of simplicity in Linux.

Like it or not MSFT went 110% when it came to making a PC easy for the masses. And it still to this day is a lot simpler to deal with that "open up bash and type" or editing one of a bazillion config files. Working in Linux reminds me of the old days of dealing with CLI and .ini files in Win3.1x/Win9x. And frankly I'm damned glad those days are gone and have NO desire to go back, thank you very much. Sorry, but for me and my customers? Linux equals No Sale.

Re:Bricking? by FoamingToad · 2007-12-06 03:42 · Score: 1 · on EVE-Online Patch Makes XP Unbootable

Admittedly, you don't have any MS-based tools to edit the registry in recovery console but FixBoot should be able to resolve this pretty easily. There are methods by which you can turn the recovery console into a more DOS-like environment (by default, you can't interrogate the file system directly). There's a little information here.

Re:AHA! :D by AP2k · 2007-10-30 07:00 · Score: 1 · on Ubuntu May Be Killing Your Laptop's Hard Drive

Then you should have enabled BSODs:

By default when WinXP encounters a system failure, it reboots without warning. The setting that controls this can be changed:
Control Panel/System/Advanced/Settings (Startup & Recovery)/System Failure/Uncheck-Automatically Restart. To view the event log: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/eventvwr.To bypass the BSOD altogether and enable the instant "Auto Reboot" feature: Start/Run/Regedit http://kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_restart.htm

Re:Which is why... by UnknownSoldier · 2007-09-25 04:55 · Score: 1 · on WordPress 2.3 Does Not Spy On Users [UPDATED]

Are you thinking of WordPad (text editor), not Word Press (blog software) ?

Re:The little dog in Windows Search by compro01 · 2007-04-16 12:20 · Score: 2, Informative · on PC World's 20 Most Annoying Tech Products

here it is

the first entry (clears the pagefile on shutdown) is not needed, but is included in every page on this for some reason.

the waittokill is in miliseconds and i like to have it around 5000 personally to give the program a little more time to clue in before it gets killed.

System Restore isn't equivalent to Time Machine by Gary+W.+Longsine · 2007-04-14 08:51 · Score: 2, Informative · on Why Apple Delayed Leopard for the iPhone

Time Machine solves a different problem than Windows System Restore. Time Machine is a backup system designed to make it so easy for ordinary users to back up and restore data that they actually do it. It can back up over the network or to a secondary hard disk (FireWire, USB, internal, Airport Disk). It allows restore of individual files.

Time Machine
Leopard Technology Series for Developers
Time Machine

Although System Restore on Windows is a useful concept on Windows, it's not designed as a backup system for user data.

Windows System Recover
What is restored and what isn't?
System Restore FAQ: What files are monitored by System Restore?

Finally, System Restore solves a problem that to a large degree doesn't exist on Mac OS X (which has less of a tendency to randomly degrade into an un-usable or non-startable state due to regular activity like software installation and removal) and even if a system is rendered non-bootable, the Mac OS X installer allows easy restore of the system without losing user data.

Securing Windows for a lab by wicked_little_critta · 2006-10-24 07:13 · Score: 1 · on Securing a High School Windows XP Computer Lab?

I run a grad-school lab, and what we do sounds a lot like what you need.

I think you're saying that you have a single account on each machine that every student logs in as. If that's the case, enable the "Guest" account, and let students use that (passwordless) account to log in. the Guest account has the tightest restrictions, and most of the things you can change as Guest get wiped away by a simple reboot. This is what we do, with the systems set to automatically log in as Guest - see http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_passwords.h tm for details.

If I'm wrong, and you need individual accounts for each student, then you'll need Windows XP Pro on every machine and some flavor of domain controller (SaMBa does a dandy job for us). Make your student accounts members of the "Domain Guests" group, and viola!

One other note: ditch the "administrator" account. It's trivial to find tools that will let a person reset the password of the default "administrator" account. Create another administrator-level account, then delete or disable "administrator".

This being Slashdot, somebody of course suggested that you "put Linux on it", but in this case they might be on the right track. We have a general-use lab that is running Ubuntu with Crossover Office, and the users are happy as clams (and these aren't techies, folks - these are writers, pastors, and chaplains). We use a single shared unprivileged account with automatic login (similar to what I described above for Windows), and everything works beautifully. It's also more stable than the Windows lab, which makes everybody happy!

Re:Good, but... by jambarama · 2006-06-03 12:00 · Score: 1 · on Ubuntu 6.06 Reviewed

Just like Cmd-S on a Mac or recovery mode on Ubuntu - on Windows press F8 on Windows and boot into "Safe Mode". Instant "Administrator" access - no password needed. Not to mention you are getting a gui which makes it a whole heck of a lot easier to hose a system or swipe stuff if you want.

Even better boot into "Safe Mode with Networking". Networking gives you access to the internet and any trojans you can find, or storage space you can access. Nice eh?

"But it is harder to find!" you cry. Of course it is - IF YOU'VE NEVER USED WINDOWS XP! If anyone has local access to a machine and wants to get in, they know this trick And I dare say editing grub.conf is a lot easier than editing the registry or running a vbs file.

Re:Too many broken apps by Lukey+Boy · 2005-06-26 03:27 · Score: 1 · on Windows Users Ignoring LUA Security

Yeah, it's so hard to change the default My Documents location.

Re:MS Integration by Bambi+Dee · 2005-02-19 06:41 · Score: 1 · on Richard Clarke on Microsoft security

You're welcome, and thanks for not making me feel like an idiot for using Windows ;). How did I find this "trick"? I'm not a guru at all, just poking around. "netsh.exe? Net Shell? What's that for?" - "Let's try mounting this volume inside the shared docs folder!" - "There's got to be a way to run explorer as admin without killing the process first." - "Wonder if I can get KDE to run!" - just like that. Doesn't mean I know what I'm doing. (And KDE stopped at the splash screen.)

I'm sure it's all mentioned in Windows' "Help and Support" somewhere (there's a cmd.exe reference and an explanation of the ACL stuff - at least in XP Pro, the Home Edition may not have all the same features). And then there're websites like Kelly's Korner. Yes, the built-in "Help and Support" is the closest I've seen to a manual; not sure there're any inside the retail boxes or for the "server" editions. The flimsy brochure that comes with the XP OEM discs is more like an introduction to the new GUI elements.

I share your impression... "not running as admin" doesn't appear to be part of the Microsoft Way except to keep other people from messing up. (In fact it's recommended to make them admins too in case some Win9x/DOS/misbehaving app doesn't run properly. No other workarounds are mentioned -- at least not where I looked.) I guess they wanted to make it look user-friendly above all. After all they didn't really bother newbz with the firewall either until SP2.

Good luck with your friends' computers...

Re:None of these "killer" articles mention... by Dulcise · 2004-12-23 02:02 · Score: 1 · on Latest "iPod Killer" Takes Aim at the Mini

why not write a batch file that just copys the whole of your music collection across and add it autoplay. they is a neat resistry hack for doing to with blank cd media here (http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/add_burner.htm/) could someone try this with a mp3 player or something, i would be interested to see if it works just my uninformed 2 cents