On a conventional wired network, physical security is a given: If someone plugs a computer into your hub, you’ll know about it immediately, and you can trace the physical wire back to the intruders computer. On wireless networks, however, anyone who comes into range of your wireless access point can tap into your network and intercept signals from it.
By default, a Remote Assistance invitation expires six hours after it’s created. For the best security, reduce the expiration time if the expert can respond quickly to your request.
To begin a Remote Assistance session, the novice must ask for help. That’s done through either an instant messaging program or by opening the Remote Assistance program and sending an invitation file.
The two parties in a Remote Assistance session are called the novice and the expert. (On some screens and in some documentation, the expert is referred to as the helper.)
Remote Assistance in Windows Vista uses some of the same underlying technology as Remote Desktop Connection, a program that allows you to connect to your computer from a remote location and use it as if you were sitting right it front of it.
After you install a program, Windows announces additions to the Start menu by highlighting the changes on the menu itself.
By default, taskbar grouping comes into play only when the taskbar fills up. Even if you have multiple windows from the same application open, if there’s room for a separate button for each window, that’s what you get.
The list of recently used programs - the items that appear below the pinned programs on the left side of the Start menu - is controlled by Windows. The list includes only shortcuts to .exe files; other executable files you open (such as .msc files) do not appear.
By opening a Command Prompt session with administrative privileges, you can use the defragmentation program with various command-line options. (For details, type defrag /? at the command prompt.).
A volume must have at least 15 percent free space before Disk Defragmenter can completely defragment the volume. If you have less free space available, the operation will run, but only partial defragmentation will result.
The command-line version of the Disk Defragmenter allows you to exercise fine-grained control over the defragmentation process and uses the exact same program code as the scheduled version.
If you are using Windows Aero, you can perform a neat Registry trick to slow down the animations (minimize/maximize) when you hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. But you are going to have to modify the Registry a little.
The problem that many users have with startup programs is not creating them (that’s easy, and in many cases it happens more or less automatically), but getting rid of them. Having too many startup programs not only makes your system take a longer time to start, it also has the potential to waste memory. If you don’t require a program at startup, its a good idea to get it out of your startup path.
Administrators can enable or disable Windows Firewall on all connections or on a per connection basis. To do so, click Windows Firewall from within Windows Security Center and then click Change Settings to display the Windows Firewall dialog box.
Administrators may want to disable offline files and folders altogether. As administrators, they have the ability to specify which files are or are not available for offline use.
By default, the Power button on your Start menu is set to put your PC in Sleep mode. Though this might be fine for some, you might want the Power button to simply shut down your PC. For example, if you usually choose to shut down your PC instead of putting it into Sleep mode, then you’re likely aware that it takes an added click to the arrow on the Start menu to shut down your PC. In other words, it’s a waste of time. Reconfiguring the Start menu Power button shaves a few seconds off the usual process.
AHCI is the acronym for the Advanced Host Controller Interface. It is a new interface specification that allows the SATA controller driver to support advanced features like Native Command Queuing and Hot Plug.
When your web browser or email program connects to another computer on the Internet, it does so through a TCP/IP port. If you have a web server or FTP server running on your PC, it opens a port through which other computers can connect to those services. Port numbers are used to distinguish one network service from another.
The Guest user account, as mentioned, is sort of a catch-all account for guests, people who want to borrow the computer for a short time. Allowing such people to use the Guest account prevents them from accessing any other user accounts.
One of the things we spend most of our time doing at a PC is waiting for applications to start. Larger applications, particularly, can take what seems like an eternity - OK, 10 to 15 seconds on a fast PC - before they're ready to use. And small programs, even though they load quickly, don't always "pop" on screen as quickly as one would like.
By default, Device Manager doesn't show devices that aren't connected to your computer, even if the drivers for those devices are installed and loaded. But why would you want to do this?
Bad memory can manifest itself in anything from frequent error messages and crashes to your system simply not starting. Errors in your computers memory (RAM) aren't always consistent, either; they can be intermittent and can get worse over time.
You can optimize Vista all you want, possibly shaving 15 or 20 seconds off your boot time, or you can approach the problem from a different angle.
Theoretically, when you shut down Windows, your computer should be powered down in less than 15 seconds. The problem is that all of the cleanup Windows tries to do before it considers it "safe" to power the system down can sometimes cause delays. This includes shutting down your
open applications, stopping any running services, and writing any pending cache data to the disk.
When you add a permanent entry to the DNS cache, it will always override the information provided by the nameserver. Here are a few reasons why you might want to do this.
Windows understands a bunch of common image and movie formats out of the box, and can produce thumbnails for your files in Medium, Large, and Extra Large Icons views. To get Windows to recognize a new format, though, you need to install the appropriate Windows Imaging Component (WIC) codec.
Windows is basically just a collection of components, and at any given time, some of those components may be loaded into memory and listed as running processes in Task Manager. In fact, you'll probably see more programs running than you expected, especially after you turn on Task Manager's Show processes from all users option.
Automatic logins are also good for machines you wish to use in public environments (typically called "kiosks"), but you'll want to take steps to ensure that a visitor can't log in to a more privileged account. There are two ways for a user to skip the automatic login and log in to another user account.
Like the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer found in Windows XP, Vista's own Windows Photo Gallery application is not easy to get rid of. You can install a new application that makes itself the default for your image files, and in some cases, the Windows Photo Gallery will still appear when you double-click image files.
If you assign a password to your account, or if you add a second user account in Control Panel, Vista will show you the Welcome screen when Windows first starts.