Vista Tips - Changing Skin of Windows Media Player 11

When you feel a little boring using the default skin of Windows Media Player 11, you can change it. Vista provides two other skins that you can use.

Clearing List of Recently Played Files on Windows Media Player 11

When you play a music or a video using Windows Media Player 11, then WMP add the music/video path into recent list. You can see the recent list in the File menu.

Vista Tips - Saving a non .txt file using Notepad

Basically, notepad is not aimed for .txt file only. You can use it to edit many kinds of files such as .html, .asp, .php, .htm, .js, .css, or else, except binary files (executable or library files, or else).

Getting Special Characters from Character Map on Windows Vista

Like its predecessor, Windows Vista comes with a program called Character Map, which can display the character look of each fonts available in your System.

Viewing The Amount of Free Space on Your Drive

When you try to copy a large amount of files or some big files into your specific drive or into your flash disk, you need to know how much the capacity of free space that your storage device has.

Saving Harddisk Space by Disabling The Hibernate Feature

Hibernate is one of shut down options, that functions to put your PC into a power-saving state by saving your work to your hard disk so that you can safely turn off your mobile PC. You can see the Hibernate button from the Start menu:

Vista Tips - Showing Favorites Menu, Printers, and Run Command on the Start Menu

By default, Favorites menu, Printers, and Run command are not visible on Start menu. You can set it from one dialog box so that they can appear.

Vista Tips - Putting a Program Shortcut on The Start Menu

Putting a program shortcut on the Start menu makes it faster to access the program. Actually you can put it on Desktop for faster access, but if you want to locate it on Start menu, you can do these steps:

Vista Tips - Hiding Control Panel From Start menu

You probably want to hide the Control Panel link from Start menu to prevent others from changing any options inside it.

Vista Tips - Enable or Disable List of Recently Opened Files and Programs on Start menu

When you click the Start menu, you'll see the list of recently opened programs, and if you then click Recent Items, you'll get list of recently opened files. If you want to disable/enable these features, you can do that from the Taskbar and Start menu Properties dialog box.

Vista Tips - Customizing Items on the Right Pane of the Start menu

You can add or remove items, such as Computer, Control Panel, or Pictures, that appear on the right side of the Start menu. You can also change some items so that they appear as links or menus.

Vista Tips - Change the Amount of Recent Programs on Start menu

When you click the Start menu, you'll see the list of programs that you recently opened. You can set the amount of them to be displayed up to 30 items.

Using Classic Start menu on Windows Vista

Windows Vista comes with new design of Start menu appearance. However, if you still like using Classic one which gives you the look and functionality of previous version of Windows, Windows Vista provides it for you.

Windows Vista Tips - Viewing Histories When Programs Got Failure

Windows Vista provides a tool called Realiability and Performance Monitor where you can view histories for any system changes including hardware and software failures, and software installs/uninstalls.

Windows Vista Tips - Setting the Priority of a Program

In Task Manager, you can set the priority of running programs. Generally, the priority of programs are set to Normal. When you set a program to higher priority (Above Normal or High), then the program will be executed earlier then others with lower priority.

Windows Vista Tips - Disabling Windows Sidebar

Some people like to use Windows Sidebar on his computer, but some people don't. The reason maybe that Sidebar is not too necessary for him, or maybe it just becomes the annoying thing on his screen (:-). However you can disable it if you wish, which means it will not run automatically again when Windows Vista starts.

Windows Vista Tips - Booting with All Processor Core

If you are using computer with multi core processor, you can increase your Windows Vista booting speed by employing all core of your processor.

Where Can I Manage Startup and Services Programs?

Startup and Services programs are programs that run when Windows is starting. If  too many programs run in startup or services, it can make your Windows Vista loads slower. Another case, you may get error messages about programs failure or missing links when Windows starts. If you get problems like those, one of ways for you to try solving them, is by managing (disable/enable) your startup or services programs.

Vista Tips - Disabling the Windows Search Index on Certain Drives

Actually, the Windows search index improves the efficiency when you are performing a search. However, this feature is running in the background, so that it will affect your computer performance, even though not very much. In Windows Vista, you can prevent the Windows search index from scanning a certain drive.

Vista Tips - Add or Remove a Folder in Search Index

By using a search index, Windows can help perform a search for certain files quickly. But by default, not all of the folders in your harddisk are included in the indexed location list. Windows Vista allows you to add or remove a folder into/from the indexed locations list.