Windows XP , Windows Vista and Linux secrets | Optimizing your PC | Tweak your PC

Access Windows Live Hotmail through POP3

2009-02-28T16:19:00.000-08:00

Access Windows Live Hotmail through POP3

You might be aware that Windows Live Hotmail POP3 access is now available to most of the countries including Pakistan and India. Alas, IMAP is still a question. Anyway, better late than never.

So now you don't need to purchase a PRO subscription to get your Live Hotmail emails in Outlook, Thunderbird or any other email client including mobile devices.

Just set up the POP3 settings as mentioned below and you should be all set

POP server:
pop3.live.com (Port 995)

POP SSL required?
Yes

User name:
Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@live. com

Password:
The password you use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live

SMTP server:
smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)

TLS/SSL required?
Yes

By enabling POP3 access Windows Live Hotmail has opened to its users a little bit without charging a subscription fees. Not sure why it takes so much time for Microsoft to enable these useful features. Noticeably, Hotmail is way behind GMail and AOL in enabling POP3 access. GMail and AOL have POP3 and IMAP both since the very beginning. Yahoo! - don't even talk about it. They have POP3 access to its UK users but not for US users.

sourc: Windows tricks, Windows Secrets, Hotmail trick, Windows mail trick, user windows mail on Outlook express, use hotmail on MS Outlook

'CON' Folder

2008-09-08T22:39:00.000-07:00

'CON' Folder

Myth - "Not being able to name a file or folder 'CON' is a bug or a secret"

Reality - "Several special file names are reserved by the system and cannot be used for files or folders: CON, AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, NUL. This goes back to DOS 1.0 which didn't support subdirectories, lowercase, or filenames longer than 8.3. 'CON' is a reserved word from the old DOS days, simply meaning 'console'. If you wanted to create a new text file in DOS you could type 'copy con newfile.txt' meaning copy from the console to newfile.txt. This would let you type some lines and when you ended the file you would have a file called newfile.txt containing whatever you wrote in the console. Since they are still relied on with things like batch files (redirect to >NUL) they are still reserved today."

How to: change the start button text on Windows XP

2008-09-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

How to: change the start button text on Windows XP

Tired of the boring old “start” button at the bottom left corner of your Windows XP’s monitor? Want something new to replace iit? Well here’s how to change it.

With a few modifications in the Windows Registry, you can replace the “start” text with anything you like. Great for achieving a new, custom look for your Windows XP. So let’s get started.

Warning: this tutorial is more for advanced users, and I'm not
responsible if your system gets messed up. Only attempt the following
at your own risk.

Step 1: Modify explorer.exe

If the warning didn’t scare you enough, then the title of this step probably did. Yes, we are going to change Explorer, the backbone of your Windows XP, but don’t worry. Everything should be safe as long as you follow the steps closely.

As explorer is a binary file, we need a special tool to modify it. One of the best ones for this purpose is Resource Hacker. There are of course others that will get the trick done, but we will be using RH this tutorial so I recommend installing it to avoid making mistakes. Install it and let’s continue.

As always before changing anything. you want to back up. So open My Computer and navigate to and look for explorer. Copy paste it to a safe location on your hard drive.

Now that you’ve backed it up, fire up Resource Hacker and find the same explorer.exe.

When you’ve found and opened explorer in RH, navigate to String Table -> 37 -> 1033. The “start” value is on line 4, after the 578. Change the text “start” to anything you want, making sure you keep the quotes. In this example. I changed the text to secrets-windows.blogspot.com.

Press the Compile Script button to make Resource Hacker put together the code. Now click File and Save the script as explorer.exe. into C: \WINDOWS\inf or another C: \WINDOWS subfolder.

Note: make sure you choose Save AS, NOT just save!!

And that’s all for the first step! Now let’s move onto the second one -modifying the registry.

Step 2: changing the registry.

By now, you have a modified explorer sitting in the /inf/ subfolder, so we need to tell Windows to use that one, instead of the original one still resting untouched.

To do this, we need to make just one simple registry modification. To open up the registry, press start (something else soon ) -> run and type regedit.

In the registry editor window that opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon and look for the registry entry “shell”. Click it.

Change the explorer.exe to inf/explorer.exe or whereever you saved the modified explorer.

And believe it or not, you’re done! All you have to do now is reboot or log out to see the changes. Enjoy your new custom Windows XP start button!

How to: visit password-protected websites without registering

2008-09-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

How to: visit password-protected websites without registering

We all know how annoying it is when we search Google for something and the result we are looking for leads to a password protected forum or site. You have to register to view content, but who likes doing that?

Fortunately there is a solution to save your time and email account from spam - pretending to be Googlebot. For those of you that don’t know, Googlebot is Google’s “spider” that crawls sites and indexes them for Google’s search results. More about Googlebot. The owner of a password protected site also wants their site to be on Google, so they make a separate account on their site for Googlebot.

We can use this small security hole and visit a website pretending to be Googlebot. This way you are automatically logged into the site or forum and don’t need to enter any password or login info. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Here’s how:

Step 1. If you’re not using it already, get Firefox! It’s a lot better than Internet Explorer.

Step 2. Download and install the User Agent Switcher pl ugin for Firefox.

Step 3. Restart Firefox to complete the installation and go to Tools -> User Agent Switcher -> Options -> Options. In the window that opens, select the User Agents tab and press Add.

Step 4. Add a new user agent. Write Googlebot for the description and Googlebot/2.1+(+http://www.google.com/bot.html)” in the User Agent box as shown above. Press OK and you’re good to go!

Now you can visit most password protected sites and forums that appear on Google’s search results. Here are a few to try:

http://secrets-windows.blogspot.com/

Windows Secret - Display Hibernate Option on the Shut Down dialog

2008-08-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

Shutdown

Secret - Display Hibernate Option on the Shut Down dialog
Instructions - Go to "Start", "Turn Off Computer..." and press either Shift key to change the "Stand By" button to "Hibernate".

Windows Secret - Instant Win in Solitaire

2008-08-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

Solitaire

Secret - Instant Win
Instructions - Press Alt + Shift + 2 during game play to instantly win.

Secret - Draw single cards in a Draw Three game
Instructions - Hold down CTRL + ALT + SHIFT while drawing a new card. Instead of drawing three cards you will only draw one.

Secret - Windows Pin Balls

2008-08-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Pinball

Secret - Extra Balls
Instructions - Type 1max at the start of a new ball to get extra balls.

Secret - Gravity Well
Instructions - Type gmax at the start of a new game to activate the Gravity Well.

Secret - Instant Promotion
Instructions - Type rmax at the start of a new game to go up in ranks.

Secret - Skill Shot
Instructions - Launch the ball partially up the chute past the third yellow light bar so it falls back down to get 75,000 points. There are six yellow light bars that are worth a varying amount of points:

First: 15,000 points
Second: 30,000 points
Third: 75,000 points
Fourth: 30,000 points
Fifth: 15,000 points
Sixth: 7,500 points

Secret - Test Mode
Instructions - Type hidden test at the start of a new ball to activate Test Mode. No notification will be given that this is activated but you can now left-click the mouse button and drag the ball around. While in test mode press the following keys for more secrets:

H - Get a 1,000,000,000 High Score
M - Shows the amount of system memory
R - Increases your rank in game
Y - Shows the Frames/sec rate

Secret - Unlimited Balls
Instructions - Type bmax at the start of a new ball. No notification will be given that this is activated but when a ball is lost a new ball will appear from the yellow wormhole indefinitely. Once this is activated you will be unable to activate other secrets without restarting the game.

Secret - Reveal Mines (Minesweeper)

2008-08-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

Minesweeper

Secret - Reveal Mines
Instructions - Minimize or close all running applications. Launch Minesweeper, then type xyzzy. Next hold down either shift key for one second. Now when you move the mouse cursor over a Minesweeper square you will see a tiny white pixel in the top left corner of your desktop screen. This pixel will change to black when your mouse moves over a mine. You may need to change you desktop background to a solid color other then white or black to see the pixel.

Secret - Stop Timer
Instructions - Launch Minesweeper and start a game so the timer starts counting, then press the Windows Key + D to show the desktop. Now when you select minesweeper from the taskbar you can continue playing with the timer stopped.

Hearts

2008-08-28T12:20:00.001-07:00

Hearts

Secret - Show All Cards
Instructions - Edit this registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Hearts and create a new String value named ZB with a Data value of 42. Start Hearts and Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F12 to show all the cards.

Background - This secret is a reference to Douglas Adams' book the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 'ZB' is the initials of the character Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Galactic President. '42' is the answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Secret - Instant Win

2008-08-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Instant Win

Secret - Instant Win
Instructions - Hold down Ctrl + Shift + F10 during game play. Then you will be asked if you want to Abort, Retry or Ignore. Choose Abort, then move any card to instantly win.

Secret - Hidden Game Modes
Instructions - In the "Game" menu choose "Select Game". Enter -1 or -2 to activate the hidden game modes.

Windows Chat

2008-08-27T14:53:00.001-07:00

Windows Chat
Secret - Hidden Windows Chat Program
Instructions - Go to Start, Run, type winchat

Notes - You can use Windows Chat on your computer to communicate with someone on another computer. Both computers must be connected to the same network (for example, a local area network [LAN] or the Internet). Also, each computer must be running a similar protocol, such as TCP/IP.

Private Character Editor

2008-08-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Private Character Editor
Secret - Hidden Font Editor
Instructions - Go to Start, Run, type eudcedit -

Notes - You can use Private Character Editor to create unique letters and logos for your font library.

View Faulty Device Drivers

2008-02-01T13:28:00.000-08:00

View Faulty Device Drivers

If you are having problems with lockups, blue screens, or can only get to safe mode,
often the problem is due to a faulty device driver.
One way to help identify them is through the use of the Verifier program
Go to Start >> Run>> Write This Command Verifier
Keep the default of Create Standard Settings
Select the type of drivers you want to confirm
A list of drivers to be verified on the next boot will be shown.
Reboot
If your computer stops with a blue screen, you should get an error message with the problem driver To turn off the Verifier, run verifier /reset

Increasing Your Internet Connection Bandwidth By 20%

2008-01-25T11:35:00.000-08:00

Increasing Your Internet Connection Bandwidth By 20%

Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC etc
To get it back Click on Start then Run and type "gpedit.msc" without quotes.This opens the group policy editor.
Then go to Local Computer Policy then Computer Configuration then Administrative Templates then Network then QOS Packet Scheduler and then to Limit Reservable Bandwidth. Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.It works on Win 2000 as well.

View Faulty Device Drivers

2008-01-22T02:01:00.000-08:00

Opening Shared Folders

2008-01-18T02:50:00.000-08:00

Opening Shared Folders

To manage all your shared folders, you can run the snap-in directly
Start >> Run write this command fsmgmt.msc
This will show you all your shared folders in a single window
You can also see what other computers are connected and what files they have opened

Increasing Your Internet Connection Bandwidth By 20%

2008-01-18T02:49:00.000-08:00

Remove Windows Messenger

2008-01-15T14:49:00.000-08:00

Remove Windows Messenger

Go to Start >> Run and type:

"rundll32setupapi,InstallHinfSectionBLC.Remove128%SystemRoot%INFmsmsgs.inf"

View Installed Drivers

2008-01-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

View Installed Drivers

To View the installed Drivers on Your Computer Open MS DOS and Write The Command Driverquery This will show you the complete list of installed drivers.

Defrag

2008-01-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

Application Secrets - Defrag

Secret - Hidden Command Line Switch
Instructions - Go to "Start", "Run" and Type defrag c: -b to defragment the Boot and Application Prefetch information.

Notes - Windows XP will run this automatically every three days or so, during system idle periods. BootVis will evoke this when you run the "Optimize System" function. There is no need to manually run this unless you wish to immediately optimize a newly installed application's load time.

Changing Colors of DOS Window

2008-01-11T15:35:00.001-08:00

In Windows XP you can change the color of DOS window to any Color of Your Choice. To Change Color, Open DOS and use "color" command . e.g Color 12 or Color bc etc.

Running NetMeeting

2008-01-11T15:34:00.001-08:00

To run NetMeeting
Go to Start >> Run

Enter conf

Answer the prompts.

Speedup your Windows XP and windows Vista

2007-12-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

Optimizing tips

1) Disabling Display of Drives in My Computer :

This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer go to :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh. When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item. It's .reg file is as follows:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoDrives"=dword:03ffffff

2) Pop a banner each time Windows Boots :

To pop a banner which can contain any message you want to display just before a user is going to log on, go to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinLogon

Now create a new string Value in the right pane named LegalNoticeCaption and enter the value that you want to see in the Menu Bar. Now create yet another new string value and name it: LegalNoticeText. Modify it and insert the message you want to display each time Windows boots. This can be effectively used to display the company's private policy each time the user logs on to his NT box. It's .reg file would be:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"LegalNoticeCaption"="Caption here."

3) Secure your Desktop Icons and Settings :

You can save your desktop settings and secure it from your nerdy friend by playing with the registry. Simply launch the Registry Editor go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane create a new DWORD Value named NoSaveSettings and modify it's value to 1. Refresh and restart for the settings to get saved.