Category Archives: Tech Notes

Windows 7 shortcut keys

In a follow up to my previous post about restoring the standard right-click menu options on a window below are a list of further Windows 7 shortcut keys.

General

Windows Key + UpMaximise window
Windows Key + DownRestore window if maximised, otherwise minimise window
Windows Key + LeftSnap window to left
Windows Key + RightSnap window to right
Windows Key + Shift + LeftJump to left monitor
Windows Key + Shift + RightJump to right monitor
Windows Key + HomeMinimise or restore all other windows
Windows Key + TFocus on first taskbar entry, multiple presses cycles each taskbar entry
Windows Key + Shift + TFocus on first taskbar entry, multiple presses cycles each taskbar entry in reverse
Windows Key + SpaceAero Peek, peek at desktop
Windows Key + GBring gadgets to the front
Windows Key + PExternal display options
Windows Key + <number>Launch the taskbar program at position <number>
Windows Key + PlusZoom in
Windows Key + MinusZoom out

Explorer

Alt + PToggles display of preview pane

Taskbar

Shift + Left-clickOpen a new instance
Middle-clickOpen a new instance
Ctrl + Shift + Left-clickOpen a new instance with administrator privileges
Shift + Right-clickShow window menu
NB: Used to be standard right-click on previous versions of Windows
Ctrl + Left-click <on grouped icons>Cycles through each window in that group

How to restore ‘Minimize all windows’ in Windows 7

As great as Windows 7 is it does have a few annoyances one of which is the changed taskbar, I’m getting used to the taskbar but one I am missing is the ability to minimise multiple windows grouped by the program. Apparently this has been removed by default due to the implementation of Aero Shake and Aero Peek. After a bit of research I did find that you can restore the options by holding Shift and right-clicking on the button, this should display the menu with the old options of Cascade, Show windows stacked, Show windows side by side, Restore all windows, Minimize all windows and Close all windows.

Cascade, Show windows stacked, Show windows side by side, Restore all windows, Minimize all windows and Close all windows taskbar options

As an extra I also found that if you hold down Shift and left-click then it will open a new instance of the icon you clicked on, very handy.

Installing Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7

When recently upgrading my work PC to Windows 7 Enterprise I was told that I needed to uninstall Virtual PC 2007 before installation. I did this but as I use it for website compatibility testing I needed to reinstall it afterwards. I found that Virtual PC 2007 has been superseded by Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 so I installed that instead, the only problem is my work PC does not support hardware virtualisation and as such I could not use it. I then tried to reinstall Virtual PC 2007 but kept getting the following error:

Virtual PC 2007 Installation Message

Read the rest of the article in order to see how to get around this.

Continue reading Installing Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7

Assassin’s Creed and Xfire

I recently started to play Assassin’s Creed on the PC again after a long break and I started getting graphical corruption such as in the picture below, floors and walls were disappearing completely, it was like a wall hack had been enabled. Checking online I found out the it is a conflict with Xfire and can easily be solved by disabling the in-game xfire just for Assassin’s Creed . This can be done by opening ‘Tools > Options’ and then click the ‘Games’ tab, select ‘Assassin’s Creed’ under the ‘Installed Games’ then check ‘Disable Xfire In-Game’ and finally click ‘OK’, this will save the setting for future use.

Assassin's Creed and Xfire

Style testing on multiple browsers

One of the trickest parts of web development is ensuring your code is backwards compatible, there are a variety of utilities that can be utilised in order to assist with this, below I’ve listed the most useful ones that I have found.

Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image

The most useful of these utilities is provided by Microsoft, realising that a lot of people were still using older versions of Internet Explorer they release Virtual PC (external link) images containing versions of Internet Explorer from version 6 onwards. The images expire after a few months but Microsoft are constantly updating them to include the latest Windows updates.

Download the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images (external link) from Microsoft’s site.

BrowserShots Logo 

Browsershots (external link) is a open source web farm running multiple versions of operating system and browsers which can be used to check rendering of a single web page. As it is free it can sometimes fail to render your page on certain selections and can also take a long time to render but it is very helpful to see what it will look like on more obscure operating system and browser combinations.

Litmus Logo 

Litmus (external link) is a website that offers paid for and free versions to show you how your web pages and emails render in various browsers and/or email readers. It is more reliable than Browsershots but the free version’s list of browsers is limited.

Fix Windows Update error code 80240025

Disclaimer: Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.

Please note that this fix was tested on Windows Vista but should work on other versions of Windows.

Recently I was experiencing some issues with a Windows Vista machine not updating from Windows Update correctly, eventually it was tracked down to a single registry key in the following location:

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\WindowsUpdate

If you set the DisableWindowsUpdateAccess flag to 0 then it should now work, if you do not want to do this manually you can also download a fix below:

Windows Update Error - Code 80240025 Fix (6739 downloads )

Default Microsoft Outlook PST location

When email is downloaded by Microsoft Outlook (external link) it is stored locally in a special file format with the extension PST, the default location of your PST file varies by which version of Microsoft Windows you have installed.

For Windows 2000/XP (external link) the default location is:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user_id>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

For Windows Vista (external link) the default location is:

C:\Users\<user_id>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

This is because Microsoft changed the LOCALAPPDATA location when they created Vista, yours can be found by opening a Command Prompt window (Run > cmd.exe) and then running set.exe, this will display a list of special strings that have been setup for your current login. If you search through them you should find the LOCALAPPDATA string, this is then used to build the default location by adding MicrosoftOutlook onto the end.

Grand Theft Auto IV command line options

Below is a list of various command line options that can be used with Grand Theft Auto IV (4) (external link) on the PC:

Tools

-benchmarkRuns the benchmark tool and exits the game
-helpDisplays a list of command line options

Graphics

-renderquality

(0-4)

-shadowdensity(0-16)
-texturequality(0-2)
-viewdistance(0-99)
-detailquality

(0-99)

-novblankDisable vsync
-norestrictionsDo not limit graphic settings within the game
-width 
-height 
-safemodeRuns the graphics in the lowest setting possible
-frameLimit

Limits frames to a multiple of the refresh rate

i.e. if your refresh rate is 60Hz then setting this to 1 would locks the frame limit at 60

-refreshrate 
-fullscreen 
-windowed 
-availablevidmemSet amount of available physical video memory
-percentvidmemPercentage of video memory available to the game

Audio

-fullspecaudioForce high-end CPU audio
-minspecaudioForce low-end CPU audio

System

-noprecacheDisable the precaching of resources
-nomemrestrictDisable memory restrictions

You can these commands easily by creating a commandline.txt file within your default GTA IV install folder (the default is C:Program FilesRockstar GamesGrand Theft Auto IV), put each command on its own line to run multiple commands at once.

Civilisation III in Windows Vista

Installing Sid Meier’s Civilization 3 (external link) under Steam will still not load correctly when using Vista, in order to get it to function correctly you will need to import the following keys into the registry, both of these fixes assume you have used the default installation path for Steam:

Download links:

Civilisation 3 Registry Fix - Windows Vista 32 bit (1241 downloads ) Civilisation 3 Registry Fix - Windows Vista 64 bit (1215 downloads )

Vista 32 bit

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames\Civ3PTW]
"Install_Path"="C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\sid meier's civilization iii complete\\Civ3PTW"
"Gold_Version"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames\Conquests]
"Install_Path"="C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\sid meier's civilization iii complete\\Conquests"
"Complete_Version"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames Interactive]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III]
"Install_Path"="C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\sid meier's civilization iii complete\\"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III - Play the World v1.27F]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III - Play the World v1.27F\1.27F]
@=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III v1.29f]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III v1.29f\1.29f]
@=""

Vista 64 bit

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames\Civ3PTW]
"Install_Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\SteamApps\\common\\sid meier's civilization iii complete\\Civ3PTW"
"Gold_Version"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames\Conquests]
"Install_Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\SteamApps\\common\\sid meier's civilization iii complete\\Conquests"
"Complete_Version"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames Interactive]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III]
"Install_Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\SteamApps\\common\\sid meier's civilization iii complete\\"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III - Play the World v1.27F]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III - Play the World v1.27F\1.27F]
@=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III v1.29f]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III v1.29f\1.29f]
@=""