NicolBlog : Vista

NicolTIP#001: edit easily your machine's HOST file

NicolD — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:57:38 GMT

Edit the HOST file in Vista is difficult than ever, thanks to UAC. If you’re a geek that changes HOST file daily this can be a bit frustrating. I circumnavigated the difficulty with a shortcut.

Right click on the folder you want to place the hyperlink (i.e. desktop) and select “new->Shortcut”
As location of the item type: notepad.exe C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
As Shortcut name type “Edit HOST file (as administrator)”
right click on the new shortcut just created and select “properties”
Select “Advanced”
Select “Run as Administrator”

Now, if you need to edit the HOST file (and folder where you put the shortcut is indexed by vista search) just click on start button and type “edit host”

Polipo Matico

NicolD — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:17:02 GMT

PolipoMatico is a Windows Vista sidebar gadget that allows to retrieve and show italia traffic infos from octotelematics web site (www.octotelematics.it)

Why
Because traffic in Italy is a serious topic, and because we like to be at home, at the end of the day, with less stress as possible:-)

Usage
Just install the gadget, and add it to the sidebar. Main commands:

Mouse wheel: zoom in and out
Use the orange icon to select "rotate" or "drag" mode
to rotate or drag, just click and drag the image
double click: reset image position

Supported Areas
Roma - GRA (Grande Raccordo Anulare)

Download it from CodePlex: Polipo Matico

How to access Hyper-V (RC0) machine (workgroup) from Vista SP1 joined to a domain

NicolD — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:11:47 GMT

Step 1: Install this update to enable remote management of a Windows Server 2008 computer running the Hyper-V RC0 role

Step 2: If the server is either a member of WORKGROUP or is in a different domain that is untrusted by the client, then the connection from the server to the client used to return asynchronous results is created as an Anonymous connection. An anonymous connection fails with either the 0x80070005 error or the 0x8007000e error unless Anonymous connections are given the DCOM Remote Access permission on the client. The following steps grant DCOM remote access permissions from the server to the client in this scenario.

Click Start, click Run, type DCOMCNFG, and then click OK.
In the Component Services dialog box, expand Component Services, expand Computers, and then right-click My Computer and click Properties.
In the My Computer Properties dialog box, click the COM Security tab.
Under Access Permissions, click Edit Limits.
In the Access Permission dialog box, select ANONYMOUS LOGON name in the Group or user names box. In the Allow column under Permissions for User, select Remote Access, and then click OK.

Step 3: from command prompt execute the following command:

cmdkey /add:yourhyper-vmachine /user:hyper-vdomani\administrator /pass:hyper-vadministratorpassword

in example:

cmdkey /add:srv04 /user:srv04\administrator /pass:123.password.123

NOTE: use netbios name (i.e. SRV04) and not FQDN name (i.e. SRV04.myintranet.local)

Oh damn... where is my "Hibernation Button"?

NicolD — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:14:47 GMT

On Vista, even if is extremely easy to disable hibernation, re-activate or activate it for the first time, is an activity that you can do only via command line. While if you search on Live || Google you can find many answers to this question, my personal suggestion is to use information provided by Microsoft official support (KB929658 - The Hibernate option is not available in Windows Vista).

"Window Vista SP1 File Removal Tool" AKA "how to recover disk space after Vista SP1 installation"

NicolD — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:36:24 GMT

as described below you can use vsp1cln.exe to remove SP1 uninstallation information and recover up to 1Gb of disk space...

Windows Vista SP1 File Removal tool (Vsp1cln.exe). Vsp1cln.exe is an optional tool that you can run
after you install SP1. This tool removes older versions of components that have been updated in SP1,
which are stored during the installation in case you need to uninstall SP1 later. Saving these older
components increases the amount of disk space that is used. Typically, you should run Vsp1cln.exe if
you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1. Note,
however, that you cannot uninstall SP1 after you run this tool. You can use this tool both online and
offline, but you must have SP1 installed and you must use the correct version of the tool. If you are
running this file on an offline image, you should use the Vsp1cln.exe included in the Windows OPK or
AIK. However, if you are running this file online (on a computer that you are booted into), you should
use the Vsp1cln.exe file located at %windir%\system32\vsp1cln.exe.

More info: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/5cf710a1-1414-4d11-97de-
0748abdcec651033.mspx?mfr=true

Vista with SP1 hangs with CPU usage at 100% (99% of kernel time)

NicolD — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:29:00 GMT

UPDATE: I think that information below are not correct because in days after this post, I continued to have this problem in other scenarios too. At the end of the story I just re-installed the machine with a "Vista&SP1 integrated" and now, after one month, everything is working fine. At this time the only hypothesis I have is that for some reason the SP1 setup didn't the right job, how knows:-S
N

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Since I installed SP1 RTM on my Vista (Toshiba Tecra M7 dual core tablet PC) I discovered that the system after a boot, remained with CPU usage constant at 100%. A deeper analysis shown that 99% of that CPU usage was kernel time:-(

After a Sunday afternoon spent to find a solution, I discovered the problem: I have an old PCMCIA card reader from GEMPLUS (GemPC400) that, if present when I boot the laptop, produces the issue and the behavior described above.

When Vista started with CPU ad 100%, even if I removed the card reader, system remained with CPU at 100% (== unusable). The only way to unlock the situation, was to reboot the system (without the card!).

Because I needed that card reader, I found a workaround: infact, if I start Vista without the card reader and after the boot I insert it into PCMCIA port everything goes fine.

Lession lerned: if you discover that your Vista uses 99% of CPU time as "kernel time", try to analyze peripherals you have installed because there could be a driver that is not working as it should.

Apple released the world's thinnest notebook

NicolD — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:43:39 GMT

Apple just released the world's thinnest notebook you can install Vista on:-)

Cool.

Automatic Wallpaper Changer for Vista

NicolD — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 19:45:00 GMT

I just found this ~~free~~ cardware Wallpaper Changer. It looks interesting and compatible with Vista. Have a look when you have time.

Don't you know what cardware software mean? Here there is a cardware definition from wikipedia:-)