Geek Tips » Windows

Repair Windows MBR with Ubuntu LiveCD

benriley — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:54:51 +0000

If something happens to your Windows Master Boot Record (MBR), here is a very quick and easy way to restore it with nothing but an Ubuntu LiveCD

WARNING: You are working with your disks in a very direct manner throughout this process. As always, having thorough and recent backups is essential.

Boot into your Ubuntu LiveCD on the offending machine.
Once Ubuntu has started up, go to System > Administration > Software Sources and enable the Universal Repository.
Open a terminal session (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and type sudo apt-get install ms-sys
Now you need to figure out which partition is the one hosting your Windows operating system. Start by typing sudo fdisk -l in to Terminal window.
From the resultant list of available partitions, you are looking for a partition that says something like:
/dev/sda1 1 8619 94723115 81 NTFS

The two important bits are the /dev/sda1 which is the partition label and the NTFS which tells us it is a Windows formatted partition. So, in this example, your Windows partition exists on the drive sda and it is at partition 1.
We nned to fix the MBR on /dev/sda so type sudo ms-sys -m /dev/sda. You will need to change the sda text if your results from step 4 are different.
Remove the LiveCD from the CD drive and reboot the machine. Windows should come back to you.

Of course, you could do this by inserting the correct Windows CD and booting into repair mode but the Ubuntu way doesn’t care about versions and is actually a bit faster.

Removing the Links folder from Internet Explorer Favourites

benriley — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 07:02:37 +0000

Does it irritate you that Internet Explorer insists on showing you its Links folder in your Favorites (I know, American spelling but that’s just how Microsoft make it)? Sure, you can remove the Links toolbar by simply right-clicking an area of the Internet Explorer toolbar and de-selecting it from the popup menu.

However, the Links folder will still appear in your Favorites menu. You should NOT just delete this folder as it can cause problems. Instead:

Open your Favorites menu and right-click the Links folder
Select Properties from the popup menu
Click the check box to make the folder hidden
Click on OK and close Internet Explorer

Next time you look in your Favorites menu there will be no Links folder!

Windows User Account Control

benriley — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 10:41:29 +0000

Among many nice features of Windows 7 and Vista, one of the more annoying is User Account Control (UAC). This is a system gatekeeper, which is a good idea, but UAC just goes too far. It doesn’t just want permission to install software but pops up when adding, removing or renaming any Start Menu folders, or setting the system clock, or various other common, every day, relatively safe tasks. One solution is to turn UAC completely off:

Click on Start then Control Panel
Click User Accounts and Family Safety and select User Accounts
Click Turn User Account Control on or off
When prompted by UAC itself, click Continue
Uncheck the box and click OK
Choose the restart option when prompted

Bear in mind that this method does put your computer at greater risk, especially if you routinely log on as an administrator.

Improve Windows start up performance

benriley — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:36:57 +0000

One of the more frustrating problems with Microsoft Windows is its start up performance. It has been a problem since day one really and remains so even with Vista, in fact Vista could well be the worse offender thus far. There are, however, a few things you can do to improve the situation.

Device Drivers
Your computer could be loading device drivers for hardware you no longer use. To save on system resources, uninstall these drivers. Be careful though because a careless choice can cause significant problems. Create a restore point in System Restore Point before proceeding. By default, Device Manager does not show devices that are not currently connected to your system so we start by making them visible and then work in the Device Manager:

Open a Command Prompt window (normally found in the Accessories folder on the Start Menu)
Type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 and press Enter
Hold down the Windows key and press r
Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter to open Device Manager
Choose View and then Show Hidden Devices
Click the plus sign (+) next to each of the branches to examine all of the drivers on your system

Devices that are not currently connected appear with a pale version of the icon. If you come across a device that you are sure you no longer use, right-click on it and choose Uninstall. Then follow the prompts shown on screen to complete the process. When you have finished, close the command-prompt window you opened in step 1 above to re-hide your unconnected devices.

Network Mappings
Once you have mapped a network drive to a letter on your computer, Windows will automatically try to restore that connection every time you log on. Since restoring network connections takes time, you can speed your start up process by dropping the connections you are not using:

Open Windows Explorer
Type Alt-T then D to open the Disconnect Network Drives dialog box
Select the drives you want to disconnect and click OK

In the future, if you want to connect a drive only for the current session, make sure Reconnect at logon is unchecked when using the Map Network Drive command.

Start Up Programs
You can free up system memory and recover processor cycles by clearing out some of the programs that start each time you log in. Download Autoruns, a free application from Microsoft-owned Sysinternals to find out which programs are loading on your PC at start up. Autoruns includes a line of description for each entry in plain English and lets you hide signed Microsoft entries, allowing you to quickly narrow your focus to third-party programs. Disabling or deleting entries takes just one click so be careful. You can also consult the Startup Applications List by Paul Collins, which is a searchable reference of common startup items providing a description and classification for each one.

Reset Outlook nicknames

benriley — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:26:28 +0000

Microsoft Outlook maintains a nickname list that is used by the automatic name checking and completion features. The nickname list is automatically generated as you use Outlook. If the nickname cache becomes corrupted, Outlook may not be able to identify recipients, may offer incorrect recipients when automatically completing the e-mail address, or may send the message to the wrong person. Additionally, if one of your contacts changes their email address, Outlook will continue to remember their old address indefinitely. Use this procedure to reset the Outlook nickname cache in MS Windows XP:

Quit Outlook
Click Start and then Search
In the left-side panel of the Search Results window, click All files and folders
In the All or part of the file name text box, type *.nk2
In the Look in selection box, select Local Hard Drives
Click More advanced options and click the Search hidden files and folders check box
Click Search
Once found, right-click the appropriate NK2 file (most probably “Outlook.NK2″) and select Rename
Rename the file to Outlook.bak and then press Enter
Close Windows Explorer
Launch MS Outlook

Outlook will now generate a brand new nickname cache.

Cycling between windows

benriley — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:19:02 +0000

To quickly cycle through open applications in MS Windows, hold down Alt and repeatedly press Tab. Just let go of all keys once the desired application is highlighted. Similarly, in Apple OS X, hold down Command and repeatedly press Tab. Another option in OS X is to use Expose. Press F9 to invoke it and then just select the desired window with your mouse. However, if you have Spaces enabled in OS 10.5 (aka Leopard), Expose will only show you open windows in your current Space whereas the Command-Tab method will cycle through all applications across all Spaces.

MS Office XP menus

benriley — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:17:09 +0000

One of the most irritating things I find about Microsoft Office XP is its insistence on automatically customising all the menus based upon how often you use each command, leaving all the other menu options hidden under those infernal double-arrows. To turn this off and have your MS Office XP applications show their full menus all the time, open any Office application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), and select Tools then Customize. Now select the Options, check the box marked Always show full menus and hit the Close button. Those hideous double-arrows will never be seen again.