UAC Shortcut is a free software that gives various options to control the Windows Vista UAC prompt. Many people who run Windows Vista get annoyed by the User Account Control Prompt (UAC) that keeps popping every now and then so this tool is for them.

Features of Windows Vista UAC Shortcut:

1. Disable the Windows Vista’s UAC consent prompt so that it will not prompt to grant permission.

2. Keep the UAC prompt switched OFF or ON for a specified period of time, option is also available to keep keep the UAC prompt enabled or disabled at a particular time.

Suggested Reading: Windows 7: User Account Control (UAC) Explained

3. Ability to turn ON or OFF the UAC functionality.

4. Assign mouse buttons as shortcut keys to enable or disable UAC.

Download Windows Vista UAC Shortcut (Direct Download) HomePage

Windows XP users should backup or copy their user profiles once in a while so that it can be restored in the event the profile gets corrupted. Profile Copier is a free tool using which you can backup your Windows XP user profile to a different location.

To backup a Windows XP user profile just enter the user name and select your backup location, if you would like to backup your lotus notes folder use the ‘Include Lotus Notes 6.x folder’ option to include that as well. Now the using the ‘Start’ button you can start the user profile backup process and it will completed based on the size of the user profile. This tool does not require any installation hence can be carried in a portable drive.

Download Profile Copier

If you want to run applications, programs, commands or scripts under the Windows system account name then you should use the free tool Run As System. Let us say for example when we launch Calculator program it runs under the user who has triggered the program. In this case we can see that the calculator program calc.exe is running under the user name ‘Shiva Test’

If you have an requirement to run the program calc.exe or for that matter any software or program under the Windows system user account ‘System’ we can use the Run As System free tool to accomplish that, run this tool point the location of the application or program and hit the OK button the program will be run under the windows system account user name ‘System’.

In this case we see that when the calc.exe i.e. Windows calculator program is launched using the Run As System it runs under the user name ‘System’ which is the Windows system user account. This is tool runs on all versions of Windows and does not need any installation hence can be used as portable application.

Download Run As System

Microsoft frequently provides updates and security fixes for Windows XP via automatic updates, each time an update gets installed a backup folder like “$NtUninstall…” gets created. So over a period of time folders like these occupy quite a large amount of disk space. These folders are created with backup files so that it can be easier to uninstall an update but if you are happy with an update or don’t have any issue with an update then it makes sense to remove this folder but the catch here is we cannot simply delete these folders as they have reference in registry with registry entries.

Windows Update Remover is a free software using which you safely remove folders like “$NtUninstall…” and also uninstall an Windows XP update safely.

Once you run this program all the updates listed in your computer are listed, you can either use the “Uninstall Update” option to uninstall an update or use the “Remove backup folder” option to delete the installed updates backup folder. If you are still running Windows XP then this tool is a must have for you.

Download Windows XP Update Remover

If you are planning to upgrade to Windows 7 it makes lot of sense to find out if your computer is capable of running Windows 7. Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor is a free tool that Microsoft has provided to find out if your computer is capable of running Windows 7. Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor checks your computer hardware and software with Windows 7 system requirements and generates a report that tells you if you can run Windows 7 on your computer or not. In the report that is generated incompatible devices and software on your computer is listed and recommended actions for that also given.

The results can be exported or saved which you can refer to later. Currently this tool in Beta status and the final version will available once Windows 7 is released.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2

• .NET 2.0 Framework or higher if running on Windows XP

Download Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

To create a folder in Windows we have to access File Menu of the Windows explorer or use the context menu that appears when we right click inside a folder which sometimes gets painfully bad if you have to do this over and over again. bxNewFolder is a free software that will add “New Folder” button to the toolbar of Windows Explorer.

It also adds the hotkey F12 using which you can quickly create folders in Windows explorer. This works in Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP but does not work in Windows Vista. So if you are not using Windows Vista then this tool is highly recommended.

Download bxNewFolder (Direct Download)

Ka Firetask is an easy to use task automation program for Windows using which you can run applications, copy files and folders, display message dialogs. The task that are created using Ka Firetask can be triggered by hotkey or scheduled to be triggered at particular time. This utility offers far more features than the Windows task scheduler hence is very useful tool if you want to automate lot of things in your computer.

This program uses a procedural scripting language called DNM script using which you can create advanced and complex tasks.

Firetask Task Creation Options:

• Ability to create and run tasks on a specific day of a week and time.
• Tasks can be run on Windows Startup
• Tasks can be repeated at a specific interval.
• Trigger the tasks using a hotkey.
• The task can trigger simple action like opening a file, message box, Active window can be minimized / maximized / restored, system can be shutdown / log off / reboot/ hibernate and can take incremental snapshot of desktop or current window.
• Advanced and complex tasks can be created using DNM scripting language.

There are some standard tasks that you can directly download from their website and start using those tasks. Firetask provides to export and import tasks which is a very useful feature using which you can easily use a set of tasks across multiple computers.

We tested this tool in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Download Ka Firetask

How many times in the dead of the night have you woken up due to IM, email alert or any other sound from your computer? If you answer yes and if it has happened many times then AutoMute is the tool that you should have with you. AutoMute is a free software using which you can mute and unmute the sound of your computer will be muted for time period that you specify.

To setup the software just enter the Mute at time i.e the time at which the sounds will be muted and enter the Mute Until time which is the time at which the sounds would be unmuted. We tested it Windows XP and found it be working without issues, this software does not require installation hence can be used as a portable application.

Download AutoMute

Windows Registry is a database that contains the settings and options of the Windows operating system. In addition to this it also stores hardware, software, user specific settings etc, in the event that it gets corrupted then Windows may get affected significantly to the event that it would refuse to boot hence it makes  lot of sense to backup this important database once in while. Let us discuss how to backup registry in Windows.

How to Backup Registry

1. Go to Start >> Run >> type ‘regedit’ and press enter.

2. Now Windows Registry Editor window will be opened.

3. To backup the Registry go to File >> Export as shown in the screenshot below

4. Select the directory to which you would like to save the backup Registry file.

5. Now the the registry will get exported in few seconds or minutes based on your computer’s performance. Do this regularly once in a while so that and keep the backup file safe.

Microsoft releases Windows updates and security patches regularly and when ever the system gets updated Windows puts up a nag screen that keeps on prompting you to restart the computer. In Windows the updates come into effect or some get installed during shutdown or restart only and hence it is necessary to restart the computer but this can get annoying if you are doing something really important and Windows keeps nagging for restart.

Windows XP Updates Restart Nag Screen

Windows Vista Updates Restart Nag Screen

How to Disable Windows Update Restart Nag

1. When you get the Windows update nag either in Windows Vista or Windows XP, open the command prompt by using the path StartMenu>Run>cmd or windows key + r and type cmd and then press enter.

2. In the Windows command prompt now type the below mentioned code:

sc stop wuauserv

3. Once you have put the above mentioned code and press enter and the Windows update service would be stopped and the nag screen will disappear. Windows update service will get restarted once you restart your computer hence you need not worry as your computer will keep receiving updates.

That’s it so now you can disable the Windows update restart nag whenever you are into something important.

There many occasions when we would like to copy the long path of file or folder to clipboard for further use. The file or folder path can be copied by manually opening the explorer or path of the file or folder can be found out by right clicking file or folder > Properties.

Both the above mentioned ways can become a pain if we have to do it frequently, Windows Vista comes with an inbuilt feature that can be used to copy the path of file or folder directly to clipboard. Let us see how we can achieve this.

How to copy path of file or folder to clipboard in Windows Vista

1. First select the file or folder for which you intend to copy the path.

2. Now hold the shift key and right click on the file or folder. Now you should see an option called “Copy as Path”.

That’s it the path of the file or folder now should be copied to the clipboard. Now just paste the copied path where ever you intend to use.

The ownership of system files are not with the user, even the administrator of the computer does not have the ownership for system used files. There may be instances where you may want to work with system owned files and Windows Vista would not allow that, there is a script developed by forum user that is called Take Control.

Take Control allows you to take the complete ownership and full control of the system files quickly and easily.

Download Take Control

Windows Vista’s hardware requirement is quite huge when compared to the Windows XP. There are lot of services in Windows Vista that run in background and consume CPU and RAM there by making your computer slow. Based on your computer usage number of services in Windows Vista can be disabled, this would improve the computers performance. You can do this from within Windows Vista using the service manager but it is not that user friendly for an average novice user.

Vista Services Optimizer is a free utility that will allow you to tweak and safely optimize Windows Vista services. Vista Services Optimizer can scan and display a report about your existing services configuration. This reports gives details about the current optimization status of the various services, this gives you an overall picture on how good your Windows Vista services are configured.

The program offers two options for services optimization they are: Automatic Tune up and Manual Tune up. In automatic tune up you define the typical usage of computer and the program does the optimization for you.

In manual tune up the various optimization options are presented under three categories, they are: performance, security and network. Each category has got options that belong to that category. So you can choose and optimize the exact services that you intend to optimize. For example if you are not connected to Internet and network then you can disable the services related to Internet and networks.

The there is rescue center that has been provided in the program to restore all changes that was applied using this program just in case you screw up something. This is pretty useful as you need not worry about screwing your computer as you can restore it to previous state using the rescue center.

This program only works with Windows Vista and requires .NET 3.5 framework to run.

Download Vista Services Optimizer

Many times to see the network activity on my computer, I have to get up from my chair and peep behind my monitor to look at the router to see if any activity is going on. I was just searching if there was a way to monitor using the hardware indicators like keyboard LEDs. After Googling for a while I found this wonderful free tool called Network Lights that allows you to convert your keyboard Scroll Lock and Num Lock LEDs as Network activity indicators.

This utility is pretty small and works out of the box, there is no installation required. When you run this utility it sits in your system tray and immediately you will be able to see that the keyboards Scroll Lock and Num Lock LED’s are now acting as network activity indicators.

The the blink rate of the keyboard LEDs can be controlled from the options that is provided in the program. The default blink rates is 100ms, if you intend to increase or decrease this then you can change it from the options that is provided.

Also you can view your network statistics using this program.

This utility works in Windows XP and Windows Vista. This is pretty useful program that I needed and has found a place for itself in my software collections.

Download Network Lights (Direct Download)(Home Page)

Windows 7 the successor to Windows Vista is expected to be released in late 2009. Here are some of the screenshots that you can preview of the upcoming Windows 7, the screenshots posted below are of Windows 7 Milestone 3 build 6780.

More images of Windows 7 Milestone 3 build 6780 can be found here. Let us know what you feel about Windows 7?