Microsoft revealed some changes to their Windows Genuine Advantage protection scheme for Windows Vista which determines if the copy of Windows Vista is legit. A non validated Windows Vista operating system would reduce its functionality after 30 days and make only security updates available for that system.

Service Pack 1 will change that behavior. On the good side the functionality will remain and will no longer be reduced, on the bad site this will be compensated by nag screens known from shareware programs that nag the user to buy the application after x days. Windows will use those nag screens and have a 15 second timer before the user will be able to click on Activate Later to continue his work.

Users will still only be able to download system security patches for the system, all other downloads will fail like before. Users who have been using the Bios or Clock Timer hack to activate Windows Vista illegally will face troubles as well. The Service Pack 1 will be able to detect those hacks but there will not be dire consequences either.

continue reading "Windows Vista SP1 will annoy Pirates"

Auto logon should not be configured if more than one user is working with a computer or if the computer is part of a local area network. A PC that is only used by one user could be configured to automatically log that user in when he boots his computer. I have auto logon enabled in Windows XP and really enjoy the faster boot speed.

There is however a discrepancy among users on how to enable automatic logons in Windows XP. If you search for this on the Internet you will find the advice to configure it directly in the Registry. This works fine but has the disadvantage that the password of the user is stored in clear text.

While this is not really that problematic if you are the single user of the computer it still poses a greater security risk than storing the auto logon password unencrypted. Since it is not difficulty to store the encrypted password you should always use this way to store it.

continue reading "Auto logon into Windows"

If you are looking for a quick way to create and publish a beautifully looking photo album you should take a look at Photo On Web. This software is ideal for those who want to create photo albums without having deeper knowledge of html and design. Users simply create a new album, add the photos that they want to see in it to it, choose a template from the 20 available that fits it nicely and click on publish to generate the photo album.

Photo On Web has advanced features that make it an incredible piece of software. The templates can be altered right in the utility. Users can for instance change colors, the quality level of the images, the dimensions of the website and make changes to the overall layout.

Photo Albums can be password protected but this does only work if the location that you save them to supports .htaccess. If that is not the case everyone can view the photos, this is for example the case if you save them locally in Windows.

continue reading "Create and Publish Photo Albums"

The Windows XP guest account is not only used to allow guests to login to Windows XP but also to authenticate the computer in peer to peer networks. Disabling the XP guest account is therefor only advised if you do not use file sharing, printer sharing or Internet connection sharing. Please note that file sharing refers to the build in Windows XP functionality and not applications like Bittorrent or Emule.

Disabling the account in the User Accounts menu of the Control Panel does not disable it but simply removes the icon from the login screen. Users who connect to the computer in Peer to Peer networks still authenticate as guests.

To fully disable the Windows XP guest account you need to use the following command in the command line. Open the command line by pressing Windows R, entering cmd and return afterwards.

continue reading "Disable the Windows XP Guest account correctly"

My friend experienced a problem after installing a new hardware device on his Windows XP operating system. Windows XP would restart immediately and he was puzzled why this was happening. A quick lookup in the Microsoft Knowledgebase revealed that this was a rather common problem that could appear after installing new hardware.

The computer would either restart or show a bluescreen. The solution posted on the official Microsoft website was to disconnect the device and see if Windows XP would restart afterwards. If the system indeed starts normally the device most likely needs a driver update which can be obtained from the manufacturer of the device.

If Windows XP does not start after disconnecting the device you should try starting it with the last good configuration. You do that the following way:

continue reading "Windows restarts or shows Bluescreen after installing new hardware"