Tuesday, September 15, 2009

registry location for internet explorer homepage

You can always set your default homepage for your internet explorer by right clicking the internet explorer, and click properties, in the general tab (under home page) you can set your home page as you wish, but do you know where is the registry location for this? here is the location.
  • Open registry editor
  • Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
  • In the right side find the key Start Page and double click to open it
  • Now under value data you can see the default homepage set by you
  • If you want you can change the default homepage in here, just type the URL you want to use click ok to apply value data.

how to restrict control panel applets

There are several restrictions you can make to the Control Panel, for example we take display control panel, here is how to restrict display control panel.
  • Open registry editor
  • Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
  • Create a new key under policies called System
  • Now add new DWORD value in system and name it as NoDispCPL
  • Now change the value data to 1
  • Exit registry editor and restart pc
Here is some additional control panel applets you can restrict
  • NoDispBackgroundPage - Hide Background Page
  • NoDispScrSavPage - Hide Screen Saver Page
  • NoDispAppearancePage - Hide Appearance Page
  • NoDispSettingsPage - Hide Settings Page
  • NoSecCPL - Disable Password Control Panel
  • NoPwdPage - Hide Password Change Page
  • NoVirtMemPage - Hide Virtual Memory Button
  • NoFileSysPage - Hide File System Button
  • NoConfigPage - Hide Hardware Profiles Page
  • NoDevMgrPage - Hide Device Manager Page
  • NoProfilePage - Hide User Profiles Page
  • NoAdminPage - Hide Remote Administration Page
Note - to create restrictions, add new DWORD values (in system key) name the DWORD values properly (ex-NoConfigPage , NoAdminPage , ....) and change the value data to 1. you can always disable restrictions by changing value data to 0 or deleting the key

how to prevent changes to file associations

You can prevent users from changing associations in folder options (under file types tab) follow these steps.
  • Open registry editor
  • Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
  • In the right side, create new DWORD value and named it as NoFileAssociate
  • Double click to open the key and enter value data as 1
  • Restart the pc to changes go into effect

outlook 2003 error in registry for extension "exchange extensions"

When you open outlook 2003 the error message displayed as error in registry for extension "exchange extensions" then sometimes you have to close error message several times to go to the mail box, you can solve this problem by following these steps.
  • Open registry editor
  • Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions
  • In the right side delete the key Exchange Extensions
  • Exit registry editor and open outlook
  • Your problem will be solved

Monday, September 14, 2009

how to gain extra free disk space for C:Drive

Does your pc's windows partition (C: Drive) running low on disk space, then consider the following thing and you can gain more extra disk space.

Clear temporary files
  • In run window type temp and press enter, now delete all files and folders inside the temp folder
  • In run window type %temp% and press enter, now delete all files and folders inside the folder
  • Delete temporary internet files, for internet explorer read this for mozilla firefox read this

Turn off system restore
  • If you want you can disable system restore feature, this saves some disk space, click here to read how to disable system restore

Disable hibernation
  • Open control panel, double click power option, click hibernation tab, then deselect "enable hibernation" click apply and ok

Empty recycle bin
  • Always delete files from recycle bin

Change page file to another drive
  • Right click on my computer
  • Click properties
  • Click advanced tab
  • Under "performance" area click settings
  • Click advanced tab,
  • Click change under "virtual memory"
  • Now in the drive list select another drive (that has more free space)
  • Click custom size and enter value (megabytes) for initial size and maximum size, then click set
  • Now select the C:Drive, click no page file and click set
  • Restart pc, this will clear page file from C:Drive and move page file to the drive you specified

Change temporary folders path
  • Right click on my computer
  • Click properties
  • Click advanced tab
  • Click environment settings button
  • In the upper area (under user variable) you see variables for temp and tmp, click on each one and select edit, in the variable value field specify new locations for temporary folders
  • (ex - for temp -D:\temp and for tmp D:\tmp)
  • Now in "system variable" you see variables for temp and tmp, click on each one and select edit, in the variable value field specify new locations for temporary folders
  • (ex - for temp -D:\temp and for tmp D:\tmp)
  • After all done click apply and ok

Change my documents path
  • Right click on my documents, click properties
  • Under "target folder location" click move and specify new path (drive that has more space)
  • When prompt click yes and files begin to moving to new location

Extra tips
  • Use disk cleanup frequently
  • Do not save files on desktop
  • Change email store folder path to another drive