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Windows VISTA’s most useful tool – Snipping Tool

snipping Tool - Windows VISTA's useful tools

This is one of the most useful tool which is present only in Windows VISTA (and also Windows XP tablet PC edition). It eliminates Print screen functionality of Windows. This is probably the best screen capturing freeware available. Everytime I go back to XP I miss this tool badly. Snipping tool is available for Windowx XP Tablet PC edition only (other than VISTA)  and can be installed with experience pack for Windows XP tablet PC edition.

It allows you to capture only the portion you want in your screen as you can see in the below picture the screen will be made frosty and the only the clear area (which will be selected by snipping tool) will be snipped and it can be saved as a image file.  But to do the same process using print screen you will need to do a print screen and then edit in Microsoft Paint or Photoshop.

snipping tool - Best screen capturing tool

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How to disable UAC warnings in Windows VISTA?

This post talks about how to disable UAC prompt / disable UAC alert / disable UAC warnings in Windows VISTA. If you are looking for something elseor need help  drop in a comment or send a mail to admin. Your queries will be answered within a day.

UAC – The user Account Control is one of the annoying security features of windows VISTA,  It is common to all the Windows VISTA editions like Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate or Business versions.

This feature can be very helpful to users who dont know anything about computers or internet or even the careless internet user, But to most advanced or regular users this can be very annoying and they might even get used to this. But luckily there is a simple way to turn off this feature. Just follow the below instructions

The below screen by screen tutorial on How to disable UAC is meant for novice users. If you know how to go to control panel skip the first few steps. 

Before you start ensure you are logged in as a administrator.

Click start menu (or press windows key)  and click  control panel as shown below

 

How to go to control panel in Windows VISTA
How to go to control panel in Windows VISTA

In control panel select –> Icon which says User Accounts

User Accounts - How to disable UAC in Vista?

Once you open User Accounts you will see links like below in the middle of the new window

then click Turn User Account Control on or off

(if you dont see this option you are not logged in as administrator)

Disable UAC in Windows VISTA

A new popup will open as below, uncheck the check box , ie  click on the box below so the tick mark disappears as shown in below picture.

uncheck uac checkbox - How to disable UAC

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How to enable USB drives , USB ports and USB Mass storage devices ?

This post answers the below questions. If you want answers for these you are in the correct place. Else please leave a comment to editor for more information.

1.How to Enable USB Mass storage devices in Windows XP PC within corporate Networks or Public PCs ?
2.How to enable USB drives ?
3. How to enable USB Flash drives or Portable hard disks or Pen drives?
4. How to install USB flash drives in Windows ?
5. How to enable USB registry ?
6. How to download UsbStor.inf for Windows XP?

[ Warning: You can get fired from your company if you are caught doing this or caught stealing information from your company . This information is just for essential usage.]

Now if you are someone looking for enabling USB Mass storage devices in your corporate Network or public PC , You need to have access to your c:\Windows\System32\inf folder  or Your windows driver folder.

You also need USBStor.inf file in the folder or anywhere else in your PC. If you don’t have the file most likely your IS team would have deleted this file.

Download the file USBStor.inf  Download here. 

You can copy this file to your drivers folder C:\Windows\System32\Inf\ if you want others using PC to install USB mass storage devices or keep in your folders just for you alone.

If you don’t want copy to drivers folder your USB Mass storage devices wont be installed automatically, You will need to go to Device Manager and select device (the device with exclamation) And click update driver and point to the USBStor.inf file.

And you also need to change a registry entry to enable to USB Mass Storage devices – How to enable USB registry entry? 

Change value of the below key to 3 to enable USB Mass Storage device, if it already
3 no need to change this value. If your USB Mass storage device is not working even after installation using driver this will be the culprit, companies set this value to 4 to block the USB Mass storage devices.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor

When you do this, the USB storage device is detected and works automatically if it is installed already.
To set the Start value, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3. Locate and then click the following registry key:
4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor

5. In the details pane, double-click Start.

6. In the Value data box, type 3, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then
7. click OK.

8. Exit Registry Editor.

But many companies wont keep the drivers under C:\Windows\System32\Inf\ folder
So you might need to go to Folder options in and enable * show hidden files as below

And then do a search for *.inf and find your driver folder. Companies with smart Infrastructure teams do this so users wont copy drivers directly.