It might be easier to sometimes enter a specific command directly instead of the shell: substitute if a command for that specific function or folder exists. Make sure that there are no spaces in the command unless the name of the folder or app that should be opened contains one or multiple.

Here is a list of all possible shell: commands that should work in the mentioned operating systems:

AddNewProgramsFolder
Administrative Tools
AppData
AppUpdatesFolder
Cache
CD Burning
ChangeRemoveProgramsFolder
Common Administrative Tools
Common AppData
Common Desktop
Common Documents
Common Programs
Common Start Menu
Common Startup
Common Templates
CommonDownloads
CommonMusic
CommonPictures
CommonVideo
ConflictFolder
ConnectionsFolder
Contacts
ControlPanelFolder
Cookies
CredentialManager
CryptoKeys
CSCFolder
Default Gadgets
Desktop
Downloads
DpapiKeys
Favorites
Fonts
Gadgets
Games
GameTasks
History
InternetFolder
Links
Local AppData
LocalAppDataLow
LocalizedResourcesDir
MAPIFolder
My Music
My Pictures
My Video
MyComputerFolder
NetHood
NetworkPlacesFolder
OEM Links
Original Images
Personal
PhotoAlbums
Playlists
PrintersFolder
PrintHood
Profile
ProgramFiles
ProgramFilesCommon
ProgramFilesCommonX86
ProgramFilesX86
Programs
Public
PublicGameTasks
Quick Launch
Recent
RecycleBinFolder
ResourceDir
SampleMusic
SamplePictures
SamplePlaylists
SampleVideos
SavedGames
Searches
SendTo
Start Menu
Startup
SyncCenterFolder
SyncResultsFolder
SyncSetupFolder
System
SystemCertificates
SystemX86
Templates
TreePropertiesFolder
UserProfiles
UsersFilesFolder
Windows

Are there commands missing? Let us know.

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A good suggestion would be to backup the Windows Vista Registry before starting to apply the changes. Windows saves folder information in two Registry keys that need to be deleted prior to applying the changes to reset already stored settings and making it easier to identify the Registry key that needs to be changed.

Open the Windows Registry by pressing Windows R, typing regedit and hitting enter. Now navigate to the following two keys and delete them:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU


Logout from the computer system or restart it so that the changes can take effect. Now right-click on the Windows desktop and create a new folder. Open that folder afterwards and resize it the way you want the default folder to look like. You can also change the default view and other settings. Close the folder afterwards and open the Windows Registry again.

Go to the key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\

and notice that there is only one subkey now that should show up as a number. Expand that key, then the Shell subkey and the guid name afterwards so that the structure looks like the one on the image below:

The digit and the guid will most likely be different from the ones shown in the screenshot. Right-click the guid name and Export that key to the hard drive. Name it anything you want. Now locate the exported key on the hard drive and edit it with Notepad.

There should be a line looking like the following:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\4\Shell\{5C4F28B5-F869-4E84-8E60-F11DB97C5CC7}].

The digit 4 corresponds to the digit under the Bags Registry key, remember that it might be different on your computer system.

Replace the digit with AllFolders so that it looks like the following:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell\{5C4F28B5-F869-4E84-8E60-F11DB97C5CC7}].

Save the edited key and double-click it to import it to the Windows Registry again. Now open up any folder in Windows Vista and see that it will be displayed in the the default size and view mode that you picked up earlier.

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I have been using Ubuntu installed through Wubi, a very convenient and efficient way for anyone to try out Linux beyond a Live CD or Virtual machine.

While Wubi is great It does have a couple limitations, firstly with hibernation and suspend modes, neither of which work. Not an issue for a desktop PC, but for me using my laptop quite a big drawback. Secondly, apparently installing through Wubi gives a small performance hit to Ubuntu, although I wouldn’t know how true this is.

I decided to dual-boot my Vista system with Ubuntu, however had some difficulties with getting the Vista partitioning tool to shrink the main volume.

Vista has the disk management tool which is a little more advanced then the XP counterpart and allows you to shrink, expand and create partitions on the hard drives. It can be a pretty frustrating tool and has a particular aversion to shrinking partitions.

My first attempt got me this message:

There are a variety of reasons why there was no space to create a partition, here they are and also the method you can fix it with:

Not enough HDD space

• Delete as many files as you can
• Reduce the Recycle bin size (by default it takes 10% HDD space)
• Run the disk cleaner and get rid of hibernation and temporary files
• Remove all but the most recent System Restore points

Paging Files

• Disable virtual memory for now

Defragment

• Use a tool like Auslogic Defragmenter
• MFT files, such as you can see below, on the the end of a volume will prevent partition shrinking. They’re a pain to move and I don’t have an answer for that one.

Clean

• Use a tool like CCleaner to track down any temporary and junk files which Windows misses.

Hopefully this helps you if you find yourself in the same situation. However that said there are no guarantees, the longer you’ve been using your PC the harder it will be to resize partitions without a complete reinstall. Make you reactivate anything you turned off such as System Restore.

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Windows Vista users can either see the old five locations on the left side of Windows Explorer if an application makes a call to the function of the old Api which was left in for backwards compatibility or something that is called Favorite Links which provides access to way more folders and resources.

A location on the hard drive is being used to store shortcuts to all folders and special folders that are shown in the Favorite Links panel. That location is by default C:/Users/username/Links. It can vary depending on your setup.

The easiest way however to add links to the Favorite Links is by dragging and dropping them right into the Windows Explorer window. Another possibility would be to open the location on the hard drive and drag and drop shortcuts into it. You can naturally remove any shortcut in the folder to remove the link from the Favorite Links panel.

That panel can be deactivates as well. If you do not need the Favorite Links panel and prefer a full screen Windows Explorer view without a side panel you can deactivate it by pressing the Organize button and choosing Layout > Navigation Panel from the menu.

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The fix is rather straightforward, you need to run several commands in the command line as an administrator. Start with netsh interface tcp show global which displays the TCP Global Parameters. One parameter listed is called Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level which can be restricted, disabled, normal or highlyrestricted and probably several other that are not that important for the solution.

The command netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled disables auto tuning which should lead to a speed increase if your computer experienced slowdowns and connection errors. Setting autotuning=normal returns to the default state for the autotuning parameter. Some suggest to set autotuning=restricted before disabling it fully or to autotuninglevel=highlyrestricted.

I would begin with restricted, if that does not help I would change to highlyrestricted and if that does not have the desired effect I would disable the feature completely.

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