Index of /andrejciho » Windows

Reimaging your computer with Partimage

Andrej — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:04:41 +0000

Partimage is an Open Source software for capturing an image of a drive and restoring it later. It works with ext2/ext3, reiserfs, fat16/32, jfs, xfs, ufs, hpfs, hfs and ntfs file systems. You can create/restore images of hard drives, usb memory keys, floppy disks etc. So without further introduction, here’s how I prefer to use partimage:

I either boot from Knoppix live CD or into one of my Linux installs

Then I make sure that the partition I want to capture into an image file is NOT mounted and the partition where I want to save the image file IS mounted.

Then I open partimage by typing partimage

In the top of the screen that comes up…

I choose the partition to save/restore
In the “Image file to create/use” field I type in the path of the image file to create or use” e.g. /mnt/home/andrej/images/XPinstalled.gz
Then I select the action that I want to take – save or restore – and hit Next or F5.

When saving an image, in the next screen…

I select Gzip compression level
Tell it to split the image files into files whose size is 2037MB
Hit Next or F5

When saving an image, in the next screen I sometimes enter description of what I’m capturing. When I’m restoring an image I just confirm the image file I’ve selected.

When I’m in a command-line mood, to save a partition I type
partimage -z1 -d save /dev/sda2 /mnt/home/andrej/images/XPinstalled.gz
…and to restore it, I type
partimage restore /dev/sda2 /mnt/home/andrej/images/XPinstalled.gz

Minimize to System Tray

Andrej — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:53:10 +0000

(Windows XP)

If you keep a lot of windows/programs open and your cluttered taskbar bothers you, there’s a utility that lets you minimize any open window to the System Tray (also called “Notification Area”). The name of the program is PowerMenu and it can be downloaded from http://www.veridicus.com/tummy/programming/powermenu/

Disabling Windows Balloon tips

Andrej — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:24:00 +0000

Registry entry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] "EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000
NOTE: Some programs use the Balloon Tips to notify you about stuff, so disabling Balloon Tips may prevent them from doing so.

Free PDF maker

Andrej — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 01:22:10 +0000

I use PDFCreateor almost every day. It’s open source so no licensing hassles. How much better can it get? Well…. maybe if it could edit existing PDF’s….

Symbolic Links in Windows

Andrej — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 01:13:36 +0000

Didn’t think it was possible? Me neither until I read this article. Now my Windows profile (documents, media, settings, etc.) is stored on a different partition than my operating system. So the if I ever have to reinstall my Windows, I can just re-symlink to my profile. Actually, I have it more automated than that but that’s for a later post.

They show several utilities in the article, the one I have the best experience can be downloaded from Sysinternals.

Mounting a CD iso

Andrej — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:01:13 +0000

In Linux
mount -o loop -t iso9660 filename.iso /mnt/iso
For Windows (XP)…

…you’ll need to download a tool that does this :) There’s an unofficial one from Microsoft that I’ve been using and it works well. Make sure you read the Readme file.

Erasing last logon in Windows (XP)

Andrej — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:58:49 +0000

Visit the following registry entry
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
and change the default user and default domain values.

Prevent Windows’ Picture and Fax Viewer from opening pictures

Andrej — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:56:11 +0000

Simple. Just remove the following key.
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\ShellEx\ ContextMenuHandlers\ShellImagePreview]

MS-Outlook – disable Ctrl-Enter sending emails

Andrej — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 13:54:59 +0000

A few times, I have accidentally sent an email before I was finished with it by pressing Ctrl-Enter. While I see the practicality of this shortcut, I decided to disable it. To do this, you have make the following registry change, just remember, you’re doing this at your own risk :-)

Create the following entry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\ Office\11.0\Outlook\DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes] "CtrlEnter"="13,8"
And if you’re using MS Word as your default email editor, create this one too:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\ Office\11.0\Word\DisabledShortcutKeysCheckBoxes] "CtrlEnter"="13,8"