Tag: Windows

Chainging File Type Icons – Vista Style

Playing around with Vista has brought to my attention something which is thoroughly annoying. There is no UI to change icons anymore!

The reasons that a feature that has been included since Windows 95 would suddenly disappear are unfathomable, yet I can understand to a certain extent why it would happen. In today’s world of computer security, people who want to gain access to your system are nasty, crafty, and will try to trick you in anyway possible.

However, changing icons is easily done at the registry level. I doubt anyone wanting to take control of your system would sit in front of it and use the change file type tool.

So, for the rest of us who actually want to do that, we have to resort to hacking the registry or using 3rd Party Tools. As it happens, there’s a nifty little program out there called IPhile (or Icon Phile), which has been around for years. Suddenly, it has become useful. This will allow you to change icon file types with minimal effort, as long as you haven’t used ‘Open With…’ to change the default program. If you have, then we have another step (which I’ll cover in a moment).

Open up Icon Phile, select the file type you want, double-click and find the icon you want to change it to. Beautiful. Make sure that you run IPhile as administrator, otherwise it will either kick up an error, or have no effect.

Once done, the icons should change in your environment. If not, click the Options button, and the click Rebuild Icon Cache.

Now, if you HAVE used ‘Open With…’ to change the relationship of a program, then you’re going to notice that IPhile has had no effect. Windows likes to ‘help’ by putting the program icon on a default file type icon. As I wanted Windows to use it built-in compressed folders tool for ZIP files, I had an icon showing a picture of a computer (the default explorer icon) on a blank page. Not very helpful when looking for ZIP files.

To fix this, you just need to delete the registry entry that points to this. Here’s how it’s done:

  1. Open up the registry editor (Click on the start button and type ‘regedit’ and press Enter
  2. Click on ‘Continue’
  3. Follow the registry path to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\
  4. In the FileExts key, you should see a list of file extensions. For my example, I’ll go to .zip
  5. Finally, delete the UserChoice key

This will restore the icon to its default, which is what you may or may not have set in Icon Phile already. Although, this will also make the file association revert back to its original program. So make sure that the right program is associated by default.

Upgrading from Office 2007 BETA 2 to Trial

I recently downloaded the Office 2007 Trial to replace the buggy BETA 2 Technical Refresh that I had. I’ve encountered some issues that others probably will, and a few workarounds.

  • Cannot open files saved in BETA 2 with the Office Compatibility Pack
    This is not strictly an issue with using the trial software, but it is relevant if upgrading from BETA 2. The issue is that you cannot use the final conversion pack to open Office 2007 BETA 2 documents. The only way around this is to open and save any Office documents that you have created with BETA 2.
  • Cannot download the Save As PDF or XPS plugin
    The plugin can only be downloaded if you have a fully licenced version of Office installed on your computer to authenticate with the Office Genuine Advantage requirement. This was a nuisance to me as I’d quite happily been exporting PDFs in Office for some time.
    Anyway, the trick is that you can download the Save As PDF or XPS tool with any version of Office installed as long is it passes validation. I used a computer with Office 2003 installed to download the plugin. Just copy the installer to the Office 2007 Trial that you wish you install it on and install.
  • You get an error telling you that you need to uninstall Office 2007 prerelease versions and cannot upgrade.
    In fact, the error is

    The 2007 Microsoft Office system does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of the 2007 Microsoft Office system products and associated technologies.
    Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

    If you’re like me, you probably became quickly frustrated with the fact that you HAD uninstalled every component of Office 2007 BETA 2 already. There is a knowledgebase article which goes through the registry and other long-winded methods, but it’s much simpler to download MyUninstaller from NirSoft.
    Run MyUninstaller, and you will probably see some leftover Office 2007 MUL Packs. Uninstall everything related to Office 2007, and restart the Office 2007 Final installation. It should run through without a hitch.

Groovy Vista Shortcuts

Now that I’ve been using Windows Vista RC2 for some time now, I can definitely say that I’m impressed with the latest offering from Microsoft. The slowdowns are virtually non-existant on a 1GB system, and the window rendering is superb.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share some good Windows Shortcut Keys that are new to Vista:

WINDOWS + 1-9: Holding the windows key and pressing a number will launch an application in the Quick Launch bar on the Taskbar. This is very useful. I have the flip windows shortcut as WIN+1 and the Snipping Tool as WIN+2.

WIN+TAB: As most already know, this activates the Flip 3D view when you have a 3D graphics card onboard. Letting go of the WIN key will ‘flip’ the windows back to normal.

CTRL+WIN+TAB: A nuisance with RC1 was that just tapping CTRL+TAB would leave the flip view on screen. Instead, you now have to hold CTRL to keep the flip view on screen without holding the WIN key. Press the HOME key to scroll back to your original window, or press ESC to cancel.

WIN+T: Cycle through windows in the taskbar, shows live preview if available.

ALT+UP: In Explorer, ALT + UP will move to your parent folder. Very nifty when navigating around folders with the keyboard.

WIN+SPACE: Bring all Gadgets to the front

WIN+G: Move focus from one gadget to another on the desktop.

Phew!

There are loads more, but I think that these ones deserve special mention.

Just a note that both WIN+TAB and ALT+TAB allow mouse interactivity now. Flip 3D allows the wheel to be used as well as the back and forwards buttons used for web browsers.

Citrix non-admin woes

Recently I had some grief trying to allow non administrator / power users from using the Citrix web ICA client. Whenever the connection to the presentation server would happen, the connection would timeout with no error message.

After scouring the internet, I found an article where the system admin decided to make all users using Citrix a member of the Power Users group.

Thankfully, the solution of why the error was occurring was there too. Apparently you need write-access to the MSLicensing key for all users.

Once we did this through group policy, all of the users could connect succesfully to the Citrix applications. Hurrah!

The full key path is:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSLicensing

I hate dialogs

As I’m getting accustomed to the BETA2 release of Vista, I can only think of one thing.

I hate dialogs.

I especially hate the big, black, screen-blanking, in-your-face annoyance of a security system that Microsoft felt compelled to put in place.

I can see where they are coming from (Unix!), but it just doesn’t work. The idea of least administrative access is that admins can use lower accounts and bolt up to more access when required.

It seems Microsoft think everyone should still be an administrator, and that whenever people want to do a somple task like delete a desktop shortcut, all hell should break loose!

Oh, don’t get me started on the shortcuts. I think I counted about 8 (yes, eight!) confirmation shortcuts:

1) This is a file. Are you sure to want to do this?
2) Oh, hang on – this is a shortcut. It bears no problem on a program, but I’d better ask again.
3) You do know that you are only deleting a shortcut, don’t you?
4) Hmm, you’ll need to be an administrator – you are sure, right?
5) Because even though it’s just a shortcut on your desktop, I’ve assimilated it into the SYSTEM account. That alright?
6) Big black screen! ALLOW or DENY! Stop if you’re scarred!
7) Okay, now you’ve let me. You okay with this, big guy?
8) Right, I’ll do it!

OK – maybe I’m exaggerating by one or two.

Internet Explorer falls foul to this when activeX kicks in for the installer. A big black screen appears BEFORE you know what program wants to be installed:

1) BIG BLACK SCREEN: Whoa! Something’s installing – it could be ANYTHING. Allow or deny?
2) (Assuming you’ve allowed) Would you like to install flash?

I can see where this is coming from – but users don’t read popups like this. The bods at MS know this, yet they’ve strung a series of dialog boxes for the simple jobs! I’d say that too much security isn’t a bad thing. Unfortunately, this isn’t security – it’s a menace.