~ A Tip A Day ~ - Page 26

LoneRanger · #**376** 08-12-2008, 04:39 PM

12 August 2008:

What is ctfmon.exe And Why Is It Running?

You are no doubt reading this article because you are frustrated with the ctfmon.exe process that just won't stop opening no matter what you do. You remove it from the startup items and it just magically reappears. So what is it?

Ctfmon is the Microsoft process that controls Alternative User Input and the Office Language bar. It's how you can control the computer via speech or a pen tablet, or using the onscreen keyboard inputs for asian languages.

If you are using any of the above, you should leave it enabled. For everybody else, we'll get to the job of disabling this annoying service.

Depending on your system configuration, there are a number of different steps to disable it. I've tried to list all the methods below.

Step 1: Disabling in Microsoft Office 2003

We can remove the alternative text input from Microsoft Office 2003 by just removing that feature in the setup.

Note: I haven't figured out where the equivalent setting is for Office 2007 (if there is one), but we can also disable it a different way below.

Go to Add/Remove programs, choose to Change your installation of Microsoft Office and make sure you check the box for "Choose advanced customization of applications" before you hit next.

Find "Alternative User Input" in the list and change the dropdown to "Not available" so it looks like this:

Step 2a: Disabling in Windows XP

There's an additional step we can take to make sure it gets turned off in Windows XP, which really seems to be the best answer for XP users.

Open up Control Panel and choose Regional and Language Options.

Choose the Languages tab and then click on Details in the top section.

Now on the Advanced tab you can choose to "Turn off advanced text services", which should immediately close ctfmon.

You'll also want to take a look at the first Settings tab, and make sure that your "Installed Services" box looks similar to this one:

If you have more than one Installed service then ctfmon might come back… For instance on my system there was an input for my drawing tablet so I could use it as a text input… which I don't care about, so I clicked Remove on it.

Step 2b: Disabling in Windows Vista

The setting above for completely disabling text services doesn't seem to exist in Windows Vista as far as I can tell, but we can remove the additional input services using a similar method.

Open Control Panel, choose Regional and Language Options and then find "Change keyboards or other input methods".

On the Keyboards and Languages tab, you can select Change keyboards.

Now you'll finally be at the same screen as in Windows XP. You'll again want to remove the extra installed services in the list other than your default keyboard language.

Step 3: Remove From Startup

You won't want to perform this step before doing the others, because it will just be overwritten again. Open up msconfig.exe through the start menu run or search box, and then find the Startup tab.

Find ctfmon in the list and disable it by unchecking the box. Just remember that if you haven't disabled ctfmon through one of the other settings this won't help you a lot.

Step 4: If all else fails

You can just completely unregister the dlls that run the alternative input services by running these two commands from the run box (one at a time)

Regsvr32.exe /u msimtf.dll

Regsvr32.exe /u msctf.dll

If you perform this step, you should also use Step 3 to get rid of the startup entries.

Step 5: Reboot

Reboot your computer and then open a Microsoft Office application if you do have that installed. Verify that ctfmon.exe is not running.

LoneRanger · #**377** 08-13-2008, 03:26 PM

13 August 2008:

Install Windows XP on Your Pre-Installed Windows Vista Computer

The question I am asked most often is "How do I install a dual-boot with Windows XP on my new Windows Vista computer?" The answer is that it's not that difficult, it's just very time consuming, and you need to own a copy of Windows XP.

Note that you should not attempt this if you aren't ready to troubleshoot any problems that might occur.

The first issue we encounter is that computers with pre-installed operating systems take up the entire drive. Luckily Microsoft included the Shrink volume feature in Vista, so we can easily shrink the Vista partition down to make room for XP.

Open the Computer Management panel, which you can find under Administrative tools or by right-clicking the Computer item in the start menu and choosing Manage. Find the Disk Management item in the list and select that.

Now we'll shrink our volume down by right-clicking on the main hard drive and choosing Shrink Volume.

Now you can choose the size that you want to shrink, which really means you are choosing the size that you want your XP partition to be. Whatever you do, don't just use the default. I chose roughly 10gb by entering 10000 into the amount.

The next step might be confusing, because we need to change the cd-rom drive that's invariably taking up D: at the moment, because we want to use D: for the Windows XP partition, but it's already taken by the cd-rom drive. If you skip this step than XP will install onto the E: drive, which isn't the end of the world, but it's not quite as tidy.

Right-click on the cd-rom drive in the list and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the menu.

Now we'll change the CD drive to use E: by selecting that in the drop-down.

Now we can create a new partition for XP to live on and make sure that the drive letter is set the way we want. If you do not create a partition now the XP install will do so automatically, but it's easier and cleaner to do it this way.

Right-click on the Unallocated free space area and then select New Simple Volume from the menu.

Follow through the wizard and select whatever options you'd like, making sure to use D: as the drive letter.

Now you will need to close out of disk management and reboot your computer. This is because we can't do the next step until we reboot. (you can try, but it won't work)

So we've come back from rebooting… open up Computer from the start menu and then right-click on the D: drive and select properties. Give your partition a meaningful name like "XP". It would be wise to name the C: drive to "Vista" at this point as well.

Now you'll want to pop your XP cd into the drive and boot off it. You may have to configure your BIOS to enable booting off the CD drive, or if your computer says something like "Hit Esc for boot menu" you might want to use that.

Once you come to the screen where you can choose the partition to install on, then choose either the unpartitioned space or the new partition you created. Whatever you do, don't try and install onto your Vista partition! See how much cleaner it is now that we've labeled each partition distinctly?

We'll assume XP is completely installed at this point, and you will have lost your ability to boot into Windows Vista, so we'll need to use the VistaBootPro utility to restore the Vista boot loader.

Download and install VistaBootPro from vistabootpro.org

During the install you'll be forced to install the .NET 2.0 framework. Open up VistaBootPRO and then click on the System Bootloader tab. Check the "Windows Vista Bootloader" and then "All Drives" radio buttons, and then click on the Install Bootloader button.

At this point, the Windows Vista bootloader is installed and you'll only be able to boot into Vista, but we'll fix that. Instead of manually doing the work, we'll just click the Diagnostics menu item and then choose Run Diagnostics from the menu.

This will scan your computer and then automatically fill in the XP version.. click on the "Manage OS Entries" tab and then click in the textbox for Rename OS Entry, and name it something useful like "Windows XP" or "The Windows That Works"

Click the Apply Updates button and then reboot your computer… you should see your shiny new boot manager with both operating systems in the list!

If you get an error saying "unable to find ntldr" when trying to boot XP, you'll need to do the following:
Find the hidden files ntldr and ntdetect.com in the root of your Vista drive and copy them to the root of your XP drive.
If you can't find the files there, you can find them in the \i386\ folder on your XP install cd

This is a critical piece of information: Windows XP will be installed on the D: drive, even in Windows XP… so you'll need to keep that in mind when tweaking your system.

You can share information between the drives, but I wouldn't recommend messing with the other operating system's partition too much… it might get angry and bite you. Or screw up your files. What I do recommend is that you store most of your files on a third drive shared between the operating systems… you could call that partition "Data".

LoneRanger · #**378** 08-14-2008, 11:02 AM

14 August 2008:

Fix for COM Surrogate Has Stopped Working Error in Vista

If you've been getting the error COM Surrogate has stopped working whenever you browse folders containing video or media files, you have come to a good place for some possible solutions. This problem is caused because of codecs and other COM components installed by various softwares that aren't fully Vista-compatible, like some versions of DivX or Nero.

Here's the error message:

Right click on Computer, and choose Properties

Click on Advanced System Settings, and then under Advanced, click Settings

Select the "Data Execution Protection" tab, and then click â€œTurn on DEP for all programs and services except those I selectâ€?

Click on the Add button, and then browse to C:\Windows\System32\dllhost.exe as shown

Click Open, and then OK.

Here's what you should see…

Now you can browse video folders without problems!

LoneRanger · #**379** 08-15-2008, 02:08 PM

15 August 2008:

Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista

The Windows Vista BootScreen is pointless, but Microsoft decided to hide a more visually appealing boot screen that can easily be enabled with very little trouble. I'm not sure why they didn't make the boot screen better.

If you really want a better boot screen, you can check out my article on creating a custom boot logo.

Here's the default boot screen:

And here's the hidden one, called "Aurora"

All you have to do is type msconfig into the start menu search box, and hit enter.

Click the Boot tab, and then check the "No GUI boot" checkbox.

Hit OK and reboot the computer. You should see the new boot screen immediately.

Note: You may get a Windows Defender error on the next startup. You can enable the system config utility using the tray icon and this error will go away.

LoneRanger · #**380** 08-16-2008, 02:51 PM

16 August 2008:

Add "My Computer" to Your Vista Taskbar

I like to have the quickest access possible to folders on my desktop, which usually means putting something onto the taskbar if possible. You can add the Computer menu as a folder on the taskbar for the easiest access to your drives. You could also use this tip for any folder you want.

To add a folder to the taskbar, just right-click on the taskbar and choose the Toolbars menu, and then click on New Toolbar.

Just find the folder that you want… in this instance we'll select the Computer icon and then click on Select Folder.

Now you can see the Computer folder right there on the taskbar. If you click the little arrows it will pop up and let you browse through all your drives.

I always add the Desktop to the toolbar as well.

LoneRanger · #**381** 08-17-2008, 01:43 PM

17 August 2008:

Make User Account Control (UAC) Stop Blacking Out the Screen in Windows Vista

In Windows Vista, the screen goes dark when the User Account Control window comes up, which is extremely annoying. They call it the "Secure Desktop", but I think it's obnoxious.

Note that this will make your system less secure before proceeding.

Update: Windows Vista Home users should use the registry patch at the bottom of the article instead.

Windows Vista Business/Ultimate Users

To get to the configuration screen for this, type in security to the start menu search box. You should see the Local Security Policy as the top search item.

In the Local Security Policy window, browse down to Local Policies \ Security Options

Over in the right hand part of the window, scroll down near the bottom and find the item titled "User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation". Double-click on it to open it up, then change it to disabled:

At this point Secure Desktop should be disabled.

Windows Vista Home Users

For Windows Home users, you will need to open up regedit via the start menu search box. Browse down to this registry key:

Quote:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Policies\System]

Right-click in the right-hand pane and create a new 32-bit DWORD value called PromptOnSecureDesktop, setting the value to 0.

Downloadable Registry Tweak
Just download, extract, and double-click on the DisableSecureDesktop.reg file to enter the information into the registry. There's also an included EnableSecureDesktop.reg file to put things back to the way they were.

Quote:

DisableSecureDesktop.zip

LoneRanger · #**382** 08-18-2008, 02:11 PM

18 August 2008:

Dual Monitors: Use a Different Wallpaper on Each Desktop

Multi-monitor displays are becoming more and more common. Let's face it, computers are so powerful these days that we can run more applications at a time than we have monitor space for… so if you haven't tried it, it's time to upgrade to a dual-monitor display.

The immediate issue that you will notice is that the wallpaper displays the same image on both screens. This is especially annoying when you have a laptop and a second monitor, each running at different resolutions, because the second screen will have a "squashed" version of the picture.

Enter Desktop Items…. you can create a web item and put a picture on it to cover the second monitor. Here's how to do it.

First, you'll want to go to Display Properties, click Customize Desktop, and then the Web tab, like so:

Now you will want to click the New button, and you'll be presented with a dialog prompting you to select either a webpage or wallpaper. While it might be cool to use a wallpaper of a website, we're worried about background images today, so browse to a wallpaper file. We're going to choose Heart Broken by Pincel3d, but he's got some other wonderful wallpapers over there.

Now this next part is slightly tricky if you aren't familiar. You will see an item on your desktop similar to this… depending on the wallpaper you already have, it might be difficult to notice. Move your mouse near the top of the new image that is sitting on your screen, and you will see something similar to this. Note: resized the image down so you can easily see it.

Drag the titlebar of the image over to the monitor you want to cover with the wallpaper, and then click that Maximize button. The wallpaper will magically cover that window. We're almost done..

Next, you will want to right-click on the desktop, and choose Lock Web Items on Desktop… because we don't want the image accidentally moving around on us, afterall.

And that's all there is to it. You now have two seperate wallpapers! (or even three)

LoneRanger · #**383** 08-19-2008, 11:01 AM

19 August 2008:

Adding a TCP/IP Route to the Windows Routing Table

The Routing table dictates where all packets go when they leave your system. On most environments, all packets that leave your system will be forwarded over to your router or hub, and from there out to the internet.

In some circumstances, you may have a testing network configured to duplicate another environment, or you may be configuring a more complex network topology that requires the use of additional routes. Adding routes to your machine is a useful testing tool for some of these situations.

Syntax:

Quote:

route ADD xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx MASK xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Means:

route ADD "network" MASK "subnet mask" "gateway ip"

For example, if you were on the 192.168.1.0 network, and you had a gateway on 192.168.1.12 configured to access the 10.10.10.0/24 network, you would use a route add statement like this:

Quote:

route ADD 10.10.10.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.12

Your routing table should now reflect that change, and all traffic to the 10.10.10.x range will now be sent over to the gateway machine.

The route add change will only stick across reboots if you add it with the -p flag, as in the following:

Quote:

route -p ADD 10.10.10.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.12

LoneRanger · #**384** 08-20-2008, 04:05 PM

20 August 2008:

Remove Optional and Probably Unnecessary Windows Vista Components

In the never-ending quest to rid your computer of unnecessary bloat, Windows Vista has a lot less options than prior versions, but you can still get rid of some of the extra Windows components that you don't need.

Open up Control Panel and go to the Programs and Features section. Find the link for "Turn Windows features on or off" (or you could just search for it)

This dialog is quite self-explanatory… uncheck the things you don't want, and hit the OK button. Depending on the version of Vista you are running you might not see everything in the list.

Guidelines, Not Set In Stone

Just to get you started, here's a few tips on what an average user might want to enable or disable. The rules will be different for everybody, depending on your applications and needs, so don't take these as absolute.

LoneRanger · #**385** 08-26-2008, 09:14 PM

26August 2008:

Assign Keyboard Media Keys to Work in Winamp

Have you ever wondered how to make the media keys on your keyboard actually work for Winamp? Reader Shawn was asking me this question a while back, but then he figured it out on his own and sent me the instructions.

Turns out it's incredibly simple, and on most installations will be already set by default, but might not be enabled. If yours are not working, then you need to follow these instructions.

Open up the Winamp Preferences and the browse down to General Preferences \ Global Hotkeys.

The first thing you should check is whether the "Enabled" hotkey is checked. If it's not, then select that and most likely that will fix your issue.

If you need to manually change the settings instead, select the Action in the list, and then click inside the Hotkey textbox. Press the media key on your keyboard representing the function you are trying to do. For instance, I selected the Playback: Play/pause action in the list, so I pressed the Play button on my keyboard, which shows up as Play/Pause in the hotkey box.

Make sure you click the Set button when you make the change.

LoneRanger · #**386** 08-27-2008, 08:55 PM

27 August 2008:

Bring Misplaced Off-Screen Windows Back to Your Desktop (Keyboard Trick)

If you've ever hooked up your laptop to a secondary monitor and then disconnected without remembering to move the windows back to the primary desktop, you've probably encounter this problem:

The application is running. You can see it in the taskbar, but you can't see it on the screen, because it still thinks it's running on the secondary monitor. You try and use right-click, Move, but that doesn't do anything, and the window doesn't move anywhere. You end up rebooting and cursing Microsoft.

There's a simple trick to get around this. First make sure you've alt-tabbed to the window, or clicked on it once to bring it into focus. Then right-click on the taskbar and choose Move

At this point, you should notice that your cursor changes to the "Move" cursor, but you still can't move anything.

Just hit any one of the arrow keys (Left, Right, Down, Up), move your mouse, and the window should magically "pop" back onto the screen.

Note: For keyboard savvy people, you can just alt-tab to the window, use Alt+Space, then M, then Arrow key, and then move your mouse.

This should work on any version of Windows. It's really amazing how many people are not aware of this little trick.

LoneRanger · #**387** 08-28-2008, 09:02 PM

28 August 2008:

Change Default Wallpaper Folder to My Pictures on Windows XP

Have you ever wondered why Windows XP had such terribly ugly wallpapers to choose from? On top of that, there's no way to easily change the list of backgrounds to a folder you might actually use… like your My Pictures folder.

There's a fairly simple registry hack you can do to make Windows look in a different folder, but if you want to get rid of Blue Lace 16 you'll also have to delete it manually. (The standard warnings about registry editing apply here)

With a name like "Bliss" you would think I would be less tired of seeing this:

Change Wallpaper Folder

Open up regedit.exe using the start menu Run box, and then navigate down to the following key:

Quote:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion

On the right-hand side you should see a value called WallPaperDir, which defines the folder Windows uses to populate the list. If the key does not exist, then you can create a new string value with the same name.

Double-click to change the value, and then paste in the full path to your My Pictures folder. (Note that you could specify any path here if you wanted to.)

The change should be immediate, the next time you open the Desktop panel… but you'll notice a number of default images still in the list. Turns out that Windows also queries the Windows folder for images…

To get rid of those, browse to C:\Windows and then look for a set of horribly ugly Bitmap files:

You can delete these images to make them stop appearing in the wallpaper selection list, just be careful not to delete anything else in your Windows folder or you likely won't be able to boot anymore.