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I'm still waiting for ...focus follows mouse...

A second of googling turned up this:

"Believe it or not, Windows does support focus-follows-mouse, though there is no GUI configuration exposing it. Instead you must edit a registry key and then log out and back in for the change to become effective. You can use regedit to edit the key. On Windows NT, set the following registry key to have a value of 1: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse\Active Windows Tracking On NT it has some bugs: some apps auto-raise on focus, and alt-tab doesn't move the mouse. On Windows 2000, XP, or 2003, you need to change a binary-valued registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\UserPreferencesMask This is a little-endian bitmask. For focus-follows-mouse, add the flag 0x1. For example, my XP SP2 laptop originally had a value of 9E 3E 05 80, which is 0x80053E9E. To activate focus-follows-mouse I changed to 0x80053E9F, or 9F 3E 05 80 in regedit. According to http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/18/ you can also achieve raise-on-focus by adding the flag 0x40. I haven't tested that as I don't like raise-on-focus."

As for virtual desktops, I'm using a decent open-source third-party add-on called Z-Systems Vista/XP Virtual Desktop Manager...

When I tell a computer to shut down, I want it to _shut down_; I do not want to come back hours later and find it didn't do what I told it to.

Is there any way to disable that M$ key or move map it to another key instead? Having it go to the "Scroll Lock" key would be nice. Out of the way, can be used if needed.

I googled, and found this registry hack to disable the Windows key. Enjoy!

No it doesn't. http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/148/

I'm all for making GNU/Linux accessible to the end-user. In fact, I think GNOME is doing great on this aspect. Unfortunately, it does so by "dumbing down" the interface. I could probably live with that, if I had the option of editing ~/.gnome/settings/input/keyboard/keybindings/deskt opbindings/obscure-setting.conf to bind "C-t a M-x ESC F4 # q" to "maximize window, then move it to the next workspace if that workspace is empty; otherwise, blink the screen and run the command 'uptime >> ~/uptimelog'". However, gnome consistently removes those options, much to the frustration of power users.

It's not like I crave for customizability, I'm willing to accept reasonable defaults for keybindings (case in point: I don't even remap my vi keys even though I use the dvorak keyboard layout, which is y/hjkl/jcvp/). However, for a feature I really want, "" is not a reasonable default--I need to be able to change that. Gnome won't let me. (and it's not only keybindings, although that's what sprung to mind right now--I'm sure you can find other examples if you use or dislike gnome enough).

However, gnome is not the OS (...)

sidetrack {

I define "OS" the Stallmanian way, meaning that GNU/Linux is an OS and Linux is a kernel. If you define an OS the Tanenbaumian way (I name it that way because it was in OSes:D&I I first encountered the other definition), deal with it for now. I'd like to discuss that, but it's a different issue.

Off stage: GET ON WITH IT!!!

}

(...) which is what saves it: due to it not being the OS, it can't get in the way of me doing the things where "sorry, we won't let you do that" would reeeeally hurt (managing (grub|xorg|modules|ld.so).conf, setting the MTU, iptables, ... basically, all the down-and-dirty low-level hacking).

That is, GNOME doesn't prevent you from doing any sysadminly things, it only prevents you from doing some userly things. Even if I didn't have an alternative, I'd probably be able to accept it. Luckily, I do have an alternative (if you really care--why would you?--I use fluxbox).

Windows (all of them?) also dumbs itself down. Sure, it may make easy tasks easy (wget -qO - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/printerFriendly/uibo ok/fog0000000249.html | grep excel | grep lists--okay, it's for office, not windows, but you get the idea), but it also makes hard tasks impossible (I recall hearing that setting the MTU is impossible, and that the default of 1500 is really asinine, due to it being larger than 1492).

sidetrack {

Funny note from http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/280/ (which--the page, not the note--seemingly proves me wrong)

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Now that made me smile.

}

Anyways, I guess I can't prove my point about windows, so I'll resort to vigorous gesticulation (handwaving in particular): I feel antagonized when

He's the head of security, not tech support. Until you've made your issues reproducable on a vanilla system, I'd have to suspect that your issues arise from a software conflict or configuration issue. You seem like a power user, surely you have lots of software that binds to your context menu and interfaces with Explorer.

Just a hint, you can run explorer and iexplore windows in their own processes. Here's one guide for it:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/964/

I don't have a machine that OS X will run on. I don't want to pay the 'full retail at the Apple Store' tax.

Man, get a job and pay $500 and get a mini and hook it up to one of your monitors. You will be pleasantly suprised.

Back when 'Personal Computers' started you had a prompt to stare at and it was up to you to make it do more, and doing so involved figuring out how it works.

Now most people turn on their computer, and see a 'Start' menu. If they figure out how to launch internet explorer and find google.com they can then search for 'Windows Start menu', and get googlebombed worthless information on what to do. You get things like http://www.winguides.com/registry/category.php/16/ , and then usiful information like from the Windows Pop-up Start Menu, or even on the third link, cryptic stuff like:

By simulating the pressing of the "Windows" menu - or better yet, of the Ctrl-Escape key combination, which also works on older keyboards - you can programmatically bring up the Start menu. You can't use the SendKeys function to do so, though, and you have to resort to the keybd_event API function:
Private Declare Sub keybd_event Lib "user32" (ByVal bVk As Byte, _
        ByVal bScan As Byte, ByVal dwFlags As Long, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Long)
Private Const KEYEVENTF_KEYUP = &H2

' Press the Ctrl-Esc key
keybd_event vbKeyControl, 0, 0, 0
keybd_event vbKeyEscape, 0, 0, 0
DoEvents

' Release the two keys
keybd_event vbKeyControl, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0
keybd_event vbKeyEscape, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0
DoEvents

So, we have all learned that Windows starts and ends about the same. Fun.

Seems to be quite easy, if the info on the page is correct. All you would have to do is basically add that to some kind of program, maybe "Crack.exe", "XXX.jpg.exe" (with icon from a pron image, or for the /. crowd still on the dark side: "Breasts.jpg.exe" with the same trick.

mvps.org has a lot of the registry hacks needed to make security policy changes. So does windows registry guide, labmice, elder geek, and technet.

Good books to get are the XP Registry Guide and xp hacks. But the easiest thing to do is to run a copy of XP Pro.

XP Pro needs a paired down version of Windows 2003 Server "Security Configuration Wizard (SCW)"

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/627/

"Show Super Hidden File Extensions (All Windows) Popular"...
"To remove the potential to hide files, open your registry and using the search function find each occurance of a value named "NeverShowExt".
When this value is present the associated file extension will not be shown. To display the file extension highlight the "NeverShowExt" value and press Delete. Repeat this process for each extension you want to display. "

What do I win??

Hmmm look at this:
http://www.winguides.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=& Board=genwinxp&Number=38254&page=20&view=collapsed &sb=6&part=

If this is scripting, which it sounds like, it can easily be disabled. Disable Windows media scripting. This will disable videos from opening webpages and such. Nice. The article is vague, but this is what it sounds like. The webpages, would then load spyware through normal ie holes.

On my Windows box, I noticed that after running and closing Firefox, my CPU meter would shoot up to 100% and stay there. I fixed the problem by forcing Windows to unload all DLLs all the time, see here. I didn't bother to figure out what DLL caused the problem, but the point is, the culprit could be as much a Firefox DLL as a Windows one. And no, you can't blame the OS for keeping the DLLs loaded, a Windows programmer should be aware of the OS's behavior and write the DLLs to take this into account.

To answer your question, right-click My Computer, and go into Properties. Go into the Advanced tab, and in the Performance section, hit Settings. Go into the Advanced tab again, and under the Virtual Memory section, hit Change. Choose the appropriate partition and you can either set the paging file's min and max size, or choose No Paging File. In my experience, Windows does not undo what settings you've applied.

If you still want a swap file (I know Photoshop bitches at you if you don't have one, and it says you reap no Photoshop performance benefit from having none), there is a registry setting that minimizes usage of the swap file, at least with core Windows stuff.

Not totally. Use the Windows install CD or a Linux live CD to boot up to a command line. Then add the startup switch /BASEVIDEO to your boot.ini file. This gives you a basic VGA driver to allow you to fix your video drivers.

Customization you speak of is done through applications, not OSes

If my task is CPU/memory intensive (graphics), I choose a very simple window manager

Tho you really can't change Window's window manager, you could shut off all the crap that slows it down (animations, active desktop, etc)...with modern day computers, I've never had a speed issue with my machines related to windowing

Do I have to repeat a task? All it takes for me is a simple two liner script to do it, while on Windows I almost always end up having to install Cygwin to do my tasks (do not give me the batch file crap, batch does not do regex or any of that stuff, nor can I pipe my outputs and inputs)

Now this one I'll give you. Piping/regexing/etc are infinestimally easier on linux, as is most anything that requires a command line.

if I do not like the messages during bootup, I can change that

TweakUI lets you configure alot of things involving bootup. Or you could manually edit the boot.ini file. Though you may not get the "bare metal" control you seem to desire, how often have you changed anything so trivial in your kernel? I certainly haven't on any of my UNIX boxen.

And another thing that pisses me off to no end in Windows is permissions. I have to be logged in as administrator to install the simplest of applications.

Name a few? I know many people that regularly run in non-privledged mode on Windows.

Anyways, overall I think you suffer from the same bias as alot of UNIX users. You seem to think Windows isn't customizable at all, thus leading you to not even spend time researching all the stuff that Windows can in fact be tweaked to do.

Just look over at WinCustomize and tell me if you still think you can't make Windows to look and behave how you wish it to.

The tweaking, however, is *exactly* what most Linux users get a charge out of. Using an OS which is infinitely customizable, with dozens of options for most any type of application you can imagine, is appealing to many people (present company included).

Try out this nice password generator. You can customize the output based on what you feel would be most secure and easiest for you (randomness, length...). Just don't complain if an admin of that site craxx0rz j00.

I lost my faith in tech-support after that experience.

Damn, they are pretty underhanded. Consider using the disable HomePage changes group policy. Also turning off the downloading of ActiveX controls should help with some of netster's hijacking.

IE supports URL keyword shortcuts just fine. You could use TweakUI or read this page to implement it using regedit.

Microsoft has some documentation of the registry. Look here for Windows 2000 and here for Windows 2003. Also try Winguides for some great documentation of the Explorer components of the registry.

It's a nice browser; I tried it but went back to Firebird. The only problem I had is it modifies IE's user agent string, appending Avant Browser. The uninstaller didn't catch this. I finally got rid of that text after finding this registry page.

A great resource is www.winguides.com. They have a good app you can demo for free that has lots of Win Registry tweaks it will apply for you. The program also does "live update" from their site, so you get new tweaks people figure out.

I echo many of the other statements below: turn off all non-essential services/programs/tray extensions etc. (unless you like the functionality more than performance).

One of the biggest performance suckers is the "Sytem Restore" crap that takes "snapshots" of the system everytime you change anything. It eats hard drive space too. Unless you are a compulsive fiddler, and don't want to have to reinstall a driver manually, turn that right off.

Finally, in XP, you absolutely must turn off all the crappy eye-candy. Go to "System->Advanced->Performance Settings" and select "Fastest" or whatever. That turns off all the dumb GUI effects. Using the old Windows "theme" also seems to improve GUI performance significantly.

Finally, run AdAware, and keep careful track of what is getting installed on your system. (e.g. turn off Google Computing if you run the toolbar!) In the Windows world, everyone is always trying to put their junk on your box.

A great resource is www.winguides.com. They have a good app you can demo for free that has lots of Win Registry tweaks it will apply for you. The program also does "live update" from their site, so you get new tweaks people figure out.

I echo many of the other statements below: turn off all non-essential services/programs/tray extensions etc. (unless you like the functionality more than performance).

One of the biggest performance suckers is the "Sytem Restore" crap that takes "snapshots" of the system everytime you change anything. It eats hard drive space too. Unless you are a compulsive fiddler, and don't want to have to reinstall a driver manually, turn that right off.

Finally, in XP, you absolutely must turn off all the crappy eye-candy. Go to "System->Advanced->Performance Settings" and select "Fastest" or whatever. That turns off all the dumb GUI effects. Using the old Windows "theme" also seems to improve GUI performance significantly.

Finally, run AdAware, and keep careful track of what is getting installed on your system. (e.g. turn off Google Computing if you run the toolbar!) In the Windows world, everyone is always trying to put their junk on your box.

i'm an avid windows user, and i have no use for those keys, in fact, i find them to be annoying because i'll be doing something and hit the context menu key and i can't do anything until i get rid of the menu!

Disable them. I was never happier than I was the day I discovered how to do that.

We've been locking down XP boxes for use with custom medical software, and we have managed to lock the systems down to the point where you really can't even breathe on them. We lock down one system then use Ghost to create all the other systems.

A program that you might find helpful for managing your registry hacks is Winguides Tweak Manager. It offers a pretty simple way to turn on/off most registry hacks, and includes links to their website detailing exactly how to manually perform most of the hacks. I don't know if there is a version for W2K, though.

True enough. We use this in high-schools, where the same kind of problem exists, and have solved it by also setting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DeleteRoamingCache property. That way, the local cached copy of the profile is deleted as soon as the user logs off, leaving nothing with which the next user could tamper (however, this doesn't work if the profile is stored on a NTFS partition)

... it also works on mail settings and pre-configures mail profiles with the user's correct information.

For this purpose, we use a %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Mozilla\registry.dat file, which points to a directory on the user's home directory (H:\ drive). The user's personal settings (mail username, full name, etc.) are stored in the user's H:\Mozilla\prefs.js file on the server, and we have a server side utility ("greenbutton") accessible through our webmin based administration interface with which we can reset it to default values taken out of /etc/passwd and /etc/userDB

Windows File Protection sucks, that's why I disabled it.

For PPPoE links this should be set to 1492.

Sometimes. Sometimes less. I actually ran into this problem with my old DsL connection; I couldn't reach the "My Yahoo" series of sites, of all places. I don't know about a full-blown academic paper on the subject, but here are a couple of references you might find useful if you're on PPPoE and you find sites mysteriously unreachable:

windows : http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1104 /

Linux: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/Modems/Tweaking_You r_Modem_with_MTU_and_MRU.html

Basically, what you do is ratchet down the MTU until you can see the sites you weren't able to before. It might only need to be reduced to 1492; maybe lower, though.

These were both near the top of the google list for their respective searches; dozens more are obviously available through the same proceedure.

"MSIE" in the User-agent

Granted this is a problem but there is a fix. Just Disable Processing of HTML Scripts in Media Files.

quote:
Windows XP, and all current Windows operating systems, have a file called the registry in which configuration information is written. If this one (large, often fragmented) file becomes corrupted, the only way of recovering may be to re-format the hard drive, re-install the operating system, and then re-install and re-configure all the applications. The registry file is a single, very vulnerable, point of failure.

quote:
Microsoft apparently designed it this way to provide copy protection. Since most entries in the registry are poorly documented or not documented, the registry effectively prevents control by the user.

I use IE (forgive me, I used to use NS, but the lack of compatibality (at the time) was too annoying). IE by default opens all windows in the same process, but there's a very simple registry hack to fix that. I know it should be an option, but this is M$ software, don't expect it to make sense. Link to registry hack

www.winguides.com/security/password.php?guide=secu rity

You forgot that it also allows you more non-work time while you wait for the damned thing to load and it increases computer memory sales, helping other geeks out there.

Seriously, Moz is a great browser, but its *bloated*. Horribly so. Opera has a brief loadtime on my Win98SE/AMD 1.33Ghz/256M memory home machine, but Moz takes a relatively long time to load. In fact, I'm guessing if I decouple IE from Explorer, IE would still load faster.

Sure, I'm patient enough to wait for Moz to load, but OTOH, I don't expect bloat from any of my web browsers.

And no, I don't want to use the quick launch. I like to conserve my memory.

I use the Winguides.com Random Password Generator!!

This is how I got my password of "WrOc6eJo723od@a"

> I would certainly hope that a cookie wouldn't
> contain that information. Usually a cookie just
> has an identifying number, and all information
> is stored server side. I can't imagine anyone
> doing otherwise

You don't have to imagine in it. You can just go here . Or here . Or here, or here, or here, or here...

Chris Mattern