sarah. word.

Windows Tweak: Remove Desktop Icon Titles

Have you ever tried to completely remove the titles under your desktop icons? With certain Windows icons like “My Computer” and “Internet Explorer”, a simple rename using a single spacebar keystroke will do the trick, but not with most of your other programs. They need an actual name, and will revert back to their originals if you try to remove them completely.

Today’s tweak is a great trick that replaces text you can read with text your computer does not display. Windows will not let you name an icon with a single spacebar entry, but it will let you use the ASCII code for a space, which is 0160.

Here’s how you do it:

1. To rename your icon, right-click and choose Rename.

2. Erase all text.

3. Make sure the NumLock key in on. Hold down the Alt key while typing 0160 on your number pad.

4. After typing in 0160, let go of the Alt key. You’ll see a blank space inserted with your cursor.

5. Press Enter to save the new name.

This method gets more complicated when you want to remove the text of multiple icons. Since Windows still needs each icon to have a unique name, the above instructions should only work for one icon. A solution is to enter the ASCII code following directions 1-5, then repeating steps 1-5 again within the same icon (which will move the cursor two spaces). As long as each icon has a different “name”, you’ll get the same results.

I recommend this tweak for anyone who likes a simple, clean desktop free of any unnecessary clutter. Of course, not having too many icons is a plus or you run the risk of forgetting what they all mean.

:)
s

Windows Tweak: Hide Drives

Back by popular demand...

Ever wish you could make one of your computer's drives invisible to anyone snooping around on your system? Well, happy days are here my friend! Whether you have sensitive docs, pictures, or any other private data, this is one of the easiest ways to keep them safe. Keep in mind that you'll still be able to access your hidden drives; you just won't see that they exist in Windows Explorer or the My Computer folder. Back up your registry before you start!

1. Open Regedit.

2. Navigate to one of these strings:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer - this only changes the settings for the current logged in user

HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer - this changes the settings for all users on the machine. You may have to create the key folder "Explorer" manually.

3. In the Explorer key folder, create a new DWORD value by right-clicking Explorer, then choosing New DWORD value. Name the value "NoDrives" (without the quotes). This value defines local and network drive visibility for each logical drive on the computer. All drives will be visible as long as this value's data is set to 0.

4. Following the table below, enter the decimal number corresponding to the drive(s) you want to hide as NoDrives value data. When you right-click on NoDrives and choose Modify, make sure you select Decimal base, not Hexadecimal.

Drive Number to hide
A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32
G: 64
H: 128
I: 256
J: 512
K: 1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432
All drives 67108863

If you want to hide more than one drive, you simply add the drive amounts together for a combined total.

For example, to hide the D:/ and T:/ drives, add the decimal value for the D:/ drive to the decimal value to the T:/ drive.

8 (D) + 524288 (T) = 524296

To disable all of your visible drives, set the value to 67108863.

You must reboot your PC to see your changes. Have fun!

:)
s

Your Time to Shine

Ok, now's your chance to help me make the new TSS better than ever! Got a great download I haven't covered yet? How about a Windows tweak or trick you've just been waiting for me to discover? I want to hear your ideas. Comment below or send your ideas to sarahtss@gmail.com . Let's see what y'all got!

If you can turn me onto something new and/or crazy, I'll give you credit if I feature your idea on the show. Weird and clever websites are also welcomed (I'm trying to incorporate a little more wackiness into all of our lives).

Thanks in advance!
s

Win Tweak: Customize Windows Explorer

I've gotten about five million complaints from folks who just hate how Windows Explorer opens in the My Documents folder by default. So today I'll show you an easy way to change that.

First, locate the shortcut that launches Windows Explorer. If you don't have one, go to Start/Programs/Accessories/Windows Explorer and create a shortcut on your desktop. Now, right-click the new shortcut and choose Properties. Click on the Shortcut tab at the top. In the target field, add " /e," to the end of the string (without the quotes). In other words, space, forward slash, the letter e, comma to the end of the current string. At this point, add your destination of choice to the end of the string addition you just added, without any extra spaces.

For example:
" /e,C:\Windows" will open up C:\Windows.
" /e,E:\Sarah's Rollercoaster Pics" will open up that pic folder on my E drive.

Let's say you prefer to launch Windows Explorer via keyboard shortcuts. Right-click the shortcut again and choose Properties. Under the shortcut tab, there is a field called Shortcut Key. It's set to none by default. You can modify it as long as the first two keystrokes are "Control+Alt". I modified mine by clicking in the field and typing "E". It will automatically convert the E into "control+alt+E". You can use any letter you want, as well as many other standard keys.

Now, let's say you prefer to launch Windows Explorer from your Quick Launch toolbar. All you have to do is right-click the current shortcut sitting in your Quick Launch toolbar and delete it. Now, take the shortcut on your desktop we've just modified and drag it into your Quick Launch toolbar. Voila! Now your Quick Launch shortcut for Windows Explorer is updated with your new properties.

Below are two that have me stumped. If you can help, please comment below!!

1. How to carry my new properties over when I use the "Windows Key+E" keyboard shortcut.
2. How to carry my new properties over when I use the "Start/Run/Explorer" launch command.

Customization. The new black.
:)
Sarah

TechTV Archive Lives!!!

Go to G4TechTV.com and you'll see a brand-new section called the TechTV Vault. This is where around 50,000 tips, tricks, opinions, rants, and general yummy gooey TechTV treats are finally seeing the light of day again! Holla!

I know a lot of you have been extremely frustrated without access to the content you've grown so used to over the past 6 years. This is a start in the right direction.

I'll probably continue to post new articles here at sarah.word. until things are a little smoother online, but if you're looking for any of my content before the last month or so, just hop on over to....

THE VAULT!

:)
s

Fun With Firefox

Not only does the new 0.9 version of Firefox rock the house, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Mozilla's proud to have slimmed down the new download size to only 4.7 mb for Windows, but the truth is, this uncomplicated browser can be as fancy as your little heart desires.

The secret? Firefox extensions. With Firefox 0.9's new Extension Manager (Tools>Extensions), it's never been easier to keep track of your customizations. Plus, you won't pay a cent for any of them!!

Here are some of my faves:

1. IE View- adds an option to context menu to view in IE if something looks funky in FF
2. Googlebar- Like IE's Google Toolbar, but better
3. Adblock- Tired of ads on your favorite sites? Kill 'em with this tool. Slightly buggy on 0.9, but still worth it.

Want even more helpful extensions? Visit Texturizer.net's page for almost 200 fun ones. Keep in mind that some extensions may have been created before FF 0.9, so note the release date and any accompanying documentation before proceeding.

Also worth mentioning: After each extension install, you'll need to close all open FF windows and relaunch the browser to enable the extension. At one point I installed about 5 cool extensions before restarting my browser, and ended up being unable to launch FF because it was eternally "finishing installing extensions." After some cursing and a couple system restarts, I ended up having to launch FF in safe mode (Start>Programs>Mozilla Firefox>Safe Mode) and uninstalling all my extensions to get past the freeze-up and start over. Keep it simple and add 'em one by one, with a FF restart each time, to prevent such chaos for yourself.

Now that I'm totally converted to the Mozilla side, I'm obsessed with Firefox extensions. Please share your favorites in the comments section below... the more we all know, the more power we have.

:)
sarah

Restrict Users from Launching Apps in XP

This tweak is a great way to keep certain users on the system from launching certain apps. For example, your kid shouldn't be launching AIM since he got caught abusing it last week. Or you've got a community computer and you don't trust certain folks to leave your settings alone in Photoshop. Whatever your reasoning, wouldn't it be nice to know that Joe and Bob can't launch that app, even when you wander off?

Check out this WinGuides article for the steps. Make sure you read it carefully, as it relates to making both key and value registry edits. And never, ever edit your registry without making a nice backup first!

Keep in mind that this tweak will only apply to the current user logged in as you perform the tweak, which can be quite inconvenient if you're working on the down low or don't know their user/pass. As long as you're an admin, check out Daniel Petri's page for a tutorial on editing the registry for other users.

Later!
:)
s

Hack XP's Start Button

I've gotten so many requests on how to change the Windows XP Start button, I'm going to teach you how to hack it to pieces manually.

Before you get started, you might want to print out this page for easy reference.

Change the Start text

1. First of all, make sure you download Resource Hacker. You'll need this puppy to edit resources inside your Windows shell.

2. Locate explorer.exe in your c:\Windows directory. Make a copy of the file in the same directory and rename it explorer.bak.

3. Now launch Resource Hacker. In the File menu, open explorer.exe. You'll now see a bunch of collapsed folders.

4. Expand the String Table folder and then find folder No. 37 (folder No. 38 if you're in Windows Classic mode).

5. Click on resource 1033 and locate the text that says "Start." This is your Start button, and now you've got control over what it says! Change the "Start" text to your text of choice. You don't have a character limit, but the text takes up valuable taskbar space, so don't make it too long.

6. Click on the button labeled Compile Script. This updates the settings for your Start button. But nothing will happen until you complete through step #20, so keep going!

Change your hover text

7. While you're here, why not also change the text that pops up when your mouse hovers over your Start button?

8. Right now it says "Click here to begin." Well, duh! We already know that's where to begin!

9. Open folder No. 34 and click on resource 1033.

10. Find the text that says "Click here to begin" and change it to something cooler. Might I suggest "Click here for a good time, baby."

11. Click on the Compile Script button to update this resource.

Customize your Start icon

12. For an added bonus, you can also change the Windows icon to the left of the text, too.

13. Collapse the String Table folder and expand the Bitmap folder at the top of your folder list.

14. Click on folder No. 143 and click on resource 1033. You should see that familiar Windows icon.

15. Go to the Action Menu and select "Replace bitmap." Select "Open file with new bitmap", and locate the replacement image on your machine. Note: The image must have a .bmp extension and a size of 25 pixels by 20 pixels. Then click the Replace button.

Here's the image I've been using instead of the Windows icon, in case you want to use it.

16. Now that you've made your changes, save the file in your Windows folder with another name, such as newstartbutton.exe. Don't name it Explorer.exe, because that file is already being used by your system. Close all open programs and restart your system.

17. Boot into Safe Mode With Command Prompt by pressing F8 on startup. Then choose Safe Mode in the command prompt.

18. Log on as administrator and enter your password.

19. When the command prompt comes up, make sure you're in the right directory by typing "cd c:\windows" (without the quotes).

20. Now type "copy c:\windows\newstartbutton.exe c:\windows\explorer.exe" (no quotes). Type "yes" (no quotes) to overwrite the existing file, then restart your system by typing "shutdown -r" (no quotes).

When Windows relaunches, you'll see your new Start button in all its glory!

Take care,
Sarah

Hack Your XP Boot Screen

Maybe you really like the "Windows XP Pro/Home" screen that appears when WinXP boots up, but I doubt it. Jeez. You know what OS you run. You know Microsoft made it. Does it really need to remind you at every startup? No. Allow me to show you how to make the currently obvious (and boring) boot screen say whatever you want. You have two options.

1. Use a boot screen changing program that walks you through the process.
2. Hack your boot screen.

Boot screen programs

I really like Stardock's BootSkin, a free program that works with Windows 2000/XP. Plus, you don't have to mess with the Windows kernel, which can really suck if you do something wrong. I like another good program called Screen Booty even better. It works with Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP, but you'll need to pay $18 when the 60-day free trial period ends.

Hacking = more fun

I never like doing things the easy way, so I'm going to explain how to hack your WinXP boot screen by modifying the Windows kernel in Resource Hacker. Modifying the kernel is really risky, and if you mess things up, Windows may not even start. Please be careful. No, onto the danger! Start by getting the tools you need.

Every smart Windows tweaker needs Resource Hacker. Download it.

You'll also need an image editor that can import palettes such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. I'm using Paint Shop Pro's free trial edition.

The step-by-step

1. Locate ntoskrnl.exe in your \Windows\System32 folder. You might have to unhide the folder.

2. Make a copy of your ntoskrnl.exe and rename it ntoskrnl.bak for backup safety.

3. Launch Resource Hacker and open ntoskrnl.exe.

4. In the left hand you will see a list of resources to edit. Open the first tree called Bitmaps and you'll see numbers 1 through 12. The Windows XP Pro bitmaps are numbers 1, 8, and 10. Windows XP Home bitmaps are numbered 1, 7, and 9. The bitmaps are slightly different shapes and sizes based on the graphics and text for each. In this tutorial we'll work with Windows XP Pro. If you use Home, substitute the numbers for your OS.

5. Select No. 1. The bitmap will appear completely black, but it really isn't. For some reason Microsoft removed the color palette from the logo to another location in Windows XP. We'll fix it later in our image editor.

6. Go to the Action Menu and choose "Save Bitmap." You can save the bitmap wherever you want, but remember where you put them for later. Repeat this process for numbers 8 and 10.

7. Open your image editor (my steps are for Paint Shop Pro 8, but you Photoshop experts can go that route). Open all three of your saved bitmap images. When opened, they should appear totally black.

8. We'll have to import the palette to see the actual images. Save the following file to Program Files\Jasc\Paintshoppro\Palettes.

Download Paint Shop Pro Color Palette

Side note: you might need to right-click and "Save Target As" if your browser tries to open the file as a bunch of numbers. Make sure you rename the file with the extention ".PSPpalette" if that's not the extention by default.

9. In Paint Shop Pro, make sure the bitmap 1 window is active and press Shift + O to import your palette. If you have multiple palettes available, select your new one to import the colors used in the original boot screen.

Important: Make sure to select Maintain Indexes in the bottom options before importing. If you've already got all three images open at once in your canvas, you will need to apply the palette to bitmaps 8 and 10 as well with the steps above to make the images visible.

10. Modify the bitmaps however you like and save them over the existing bitmaps 1,8, and 10. They will make up your new boot screen.

11. Open Resource Hacker again, and reopen the ntoskrnl.exe. Under the Action menu, choose "Replace Bitmap." Select Bitmap to Replace for bitmap 1, then click "Open file with new Bitmap" and find your edited image. Click replace. Follow the same steps with bitmap 8 and 10.

12. Once you replace all 3 bitmaps, choose Save As and save your new ntoskrnl.exe to a directory other then the system32 directory. You don't want to overwrite the original while it's in use. Saving it to your desktop is fine.

13. You have the option to test out your new boot screen before totally overwriting the original. First, name your new ntoskrnl.exe something different (like ntsarah.exe). In boot.ini, locate this string:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Add a line just above it with this string:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="My new boot screen" /fastdetect\kernel=ntsarah.exe (or whatever you named your new ntoskrnl.exe)

Now, move your new and renamed ntoskrnl.exe back into your system32 folder. This will allow you to choose which kernel you boot into before Windows starts.

Now go ahead and restart. When you get to the prompt, choose "My new boot screen" and see if you like it. If you're happy, go back into boot.ini and delete the string you added.

14. You don't want to keep multiple booting options in your boot.ini. When Windows has critical updates or other updates it needs to install on your system, it only updates what it considers the original kernel, the ntoskrl.exe. Basically, you want to overwrite the original ntoskrnl.exe file so you only have one copy in the System32 folder. Remember, you did make a backup of the true original before at the very start of this exercise, so you can always revert back if you absolutely have to.

In order to overwrite properly, Windows File Protection makes you reboot into safe mode (reboot and hit F8 before the boot screen appears). You could also boot off a DOS bootdisk to overwrite the original ntoskrnl.exe in the System32 folder. Once you overwrite the file, reboot. Your new screen should appear!

If you're still with me, I commend you. I found this exercise really fun. Hopefully you did too.

XO,
Sarah

Hack Browser Titles in IE and Firefox

This is a perfect tweak for those of us who love to put our own original stamp on things. In this case, it's our Internet Explorer or Firefox browser title. Allow me to clarify: when you open up your browser window, the upper left corner displays the current page, followed by "Microsoft Internet Explorer" or "Mozilla Firefox". Follow my directions to make it say whatever you like. I've tested this tweak successfully on XP and Win98 systems.

Steps for IE

<warning> Before you mess with the registry, please back it up so that if you make a mistake, you don't get screwed. </warning>

1. Open up Regedit (Start>Run>Regedit).

2. Navigate to this string: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

3. Create a new string value (Right-click "Main" key folder, select New>String Value).

4. Rename the value "Window Title" without the quotes (Right-click value, choose Rename).

5. Right-click "Window Title" and choose Modify. In the value data section, type your title of choice. Mine says "Elect Sarah in 2004!"

6. Now, launch a new instance of IE and marvel at your clever changes!

Steps for Firefox 0.9 and up

Wouldn't you know it... there aren't really any complicated steps to do this. Just download an extension called Titlebar Tweaks and you'll be good to go.

:)
s

Hack Your XP Login Screen

If you're really into bland stuff, the default Windows XP login screen is right up your alley. But I want my computer to greet me with gusto, so I have some serious plans for my own login screen. As far as I'm concerned, that dull default XP password-prompter has got to go.

On tonight's episode of "The Screen Savers" I'll show you how to turn that yawn-inducing XP login screen into a devil-may-care thrill ride of customizable excitement! For free! Can I get a what-what from my peeps in the back of the club?

Back up your files first

To change your XP login screen, you need to make changes to a file called "logonui.exe," which you can find in the c:\windows\system32 folder. Before you do anything, make a copy of logonui.exe in your System32 folder and rename it "logonui.bak."

If you don't see logonui.exe in your System32 folder, perform the following magic trick.

1. Go to Tools > Folder Options.
2. Select the View tab.
3. Under the Advanced Settings header, make sure the button is selected next to "Show hidden files and folders." Also make sure the box is unchecked next to "Hide protected operating systems files."

Once you've located the file, open logonui.exe in your favorite resource editor. If you're still looking for a resource editor, I recommend Resource Hacker or ResBuilder.

Once you open logonui.exe in a resource editor, you'll see the breakdown of bitmaps and text info associated with the file. As you can see, there are a lot of individual images to edit.

Now you've got two options.

Option No. 1: the hard way

You can build your own login screen from the ground up by creating your own images to replace the default bitmaps. Once that's done, you can save the file as a new executable with a name such as "new_logonui.exe."

I went over this process in my Hack Your XP Boot Screen Windows Tweak, so visit that page for a step-by-step tutorial.

Option No. 2: the much, much easier way

If you don't want to go through all those steps, use a premade login-screen theme!

You can download them from a variety of online sources, but my favorite is ThemeXP. Click the Logins link in the left navbar for thousands of login-screen choices.

Once you download the Zip file and unzip it, select the executable (.exe) file. You replace the original logonui.exe file with this file. You can further edit this new file with your resource editor, if you want to.

Finalizing your new login screen

However you decide to edit logonui.exe, you'll need to save your changes by overwriting it with your new file. Just restart in safe mode with command prompt.

1. Reboot your machine and press F8 before your boot screen kicks in. This will bring up a menu screen with a choice called "Safe mode with command prompt." Select it and press Enter.

2. Log in as administrator.

3. At the command prompt, type "cd c:\windows\system32" (without the quotes) and press Enter.

4. At the command prompt, type "copy new_logonui.exe logonui.exe" (no quotes) and press Enter. Make sure you use the actual name of the new logonui.exe file.

5. At the command prompt, type "yes" (no quotes). Press Enter to overwrite the original file.

6. At the command prompt, type "shutdown -r" (no quotes). Pressing Enter will then restart your computer.

Now when you boot up, you should see your new settings! Take that, boring old login screen!

Ah, the joy of absolute power.

Love,
Sarah