Computers

Group policy on Windows 2000/XP:

At FullArmor you can find the ebook about Group Policies on Windows 2000/XP.

23. August 2004: As far as anti-viruses go, I have uninstalled my Norton Antivirus 2004. Besides being a bloatware (less than in previous years, but still), several viruses managed to pass by. And the performance decrease was noticeable lately, especially with eDonkey hashing files. After reading about and testing several other antivirus packages, the conclusion is that the NOD32 is the best active scanner, while KAV is the best on-demand scanner. NOD32 is also better at scanning for common viruses while KAV excels at scanning trojans and other malware. TDS-3 seems to be the best anti-trojan software, but I have not tested it as of yet.

Tip for Overnet / eDonkey2000:
If you have this software crashing on startup, press F8 to bypass some startup options and settings.

File Associations:

To restore default file associations in Windows, see this web page.

Gaim (gaim.sourceforge.net):

MSN connection error: Reading error was fixed by deleting and recreating msn accounts with this error. No idea what caused the problem but it is gone now.

Firefox Tips(mozilla.org):

Firefox stopped properly showing animated GIF files. It displayed still images instead. Advanced Preferences, Image.animation something. Changing setting from None to Normal fixed the problem.

ShellNew

To create a context menu for another file type (for example HTML File - New HTML Document) under Windows Explorer's New menu it is easiest to use TweakUI. Manipulate file types under the Templates tree item. There are ways to do it manually and it is relatively simple. My blog contains links to some texts explaining the procedure.

The problem I had, even using TweakUI, was that file extensions .htm and .html had no title associated with them. Windows Explorer -> Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types, setting the file-type title solved the issue. The shortcut appeared under New context menu.

Microsoft Office Tips

To disable drawing canvas in Word, go to Options->Tools->General-> automatically create drawing canvas.

Bluetooth

WidComm bluetooth drivers - install latest from manufacturer's site.

My Bluetooth Places - To hide the My Bluetooth Places from the desktop, use TweakUI.

Tray icon - (orig.) to show/hide tray icon go to Control Panel -> Bluetooth Devices, Options tab, Show the Bluetooth icon

Services

Scanner

To enable scanning (or simply using a scanner) start the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service (C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k imgsvc).

Fax

Fax requires the Fax service to operate.

NetGraph

NetGraph sometimes goes crazy on startup with the processor at 100%. To reset it delete the registry key "HKCU\Software\Nikola Dachev" OR change the UserHide key to 0 instead of 1. The later will keep other settings like graph color, position, etc.