Clear Recent Commands From the Run Dialog in Windows XP

Has it ever bothered you that there isn’t an obvious way to remove the previous items in the Run box in Windows? It’s often very useful, of course… but if you are just a little bit paranoid you might want to clean out that list on occasion.
Of course there are many cleaner applications that will do this for you, but we’ll explain how to do it manually.

Clear Recent Run Dialog Entries Through Regedit
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu run box, and then navigate down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU

You’ll see all your recent commands on the right, and you can delete any of the keys that contain your commands. You’ll have to logoff and then back on, but the list should be clean.
Note that this will also work for Windows Vista’s Run dialog, although most people have switched to using the search box instead.

Completely Clear Recent Run Dialog Entries The Easier Way
Reader Ayush pointed out a much more easy solution that this registry hack-happy geek overlooked.
Right-click on the taskbar and choose Properties, then choose Start Menu.

Select the “Classic Start menu” option, and choose the Customize button. (Don’t worry, we’ll cancel out of the dialogs so you can keep the XP menu style)
Now just click the Clear button to remove all of the recent documents and applications from the start menu.

Once you’ve done that, hit Cancel and then Cancel again to make sure you don’t switch to the Classic Start menu.
Note that this method will clear out everything… so if you just want to remove a single entry you need to use the registry hack method.


References: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/clear-recent-commands-from-the-run-dialog-in-windows-xp/

Fix Temporary Profile in Windows 7 (Error message: "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded”)

If you get a message you have been logged into a temporary profile in Windows 7 computer, then it’s not your correct profile. You may miss your icons on desktop, any customized settings in Windows 7 by this temp profile issue. This post explains how easily you can fix temporary profile in Windows 7 issue.

By restarting or re logging to Windows 7 computer will not help you in this case. This temp profile issue rises because of a registry key.

Fix Temporary Profile in Windows 7 Issue

1)      Log in with temp profile.

2)      Start registry editor by typing regedit in find box in Windows 7.

3)      Navigate the following location in Windows 7.

4)      You can see similar keys under profile list with .bak difference, as shown below.

5)      Your correct profile key is marked as bak. Currently your Windows 7 computer logged in with fresh profile with same key. So, rename the new profile key ( which is not having.bak) and remove .bak from correct profile key. See below.

6)      That’s it. Log off and log in with your user name and password. You must get your icons and profile settings back in Windows 7. This is very simple and easy method to fix temp profile in Windows 7  issue. 

Method 1: Fix the User Account Profile

To do this, follow the steps below:

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

1. Click Start
   
2. In Start Search (Windows Vista) or Search programs and files (Windows 7) area, type in regedit, and press Enter.
3. If prompted by UAC, click Continue (Windows Vista) or Yes (Windows 7).
4. In Registry Editor, go to:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
5. In the left pane, look for the folder name starting with S-1-5 (SID key) followed by a long number. then click each folder and locate ProfileImagePath from the right pane, double click to verify that this is the user account profile that has the error.
   
   Expand this image

   
   • If you have two folders starting with S-1-5 followed by same long nubmers and one of them ended with .bak. Change the .bak folder to normal one. To do this, follow the steps below:
     1. Right click the folder without .bak and choose Rename. Then add .ba at the end of the folder name.
        
        
     2. Right click the folder with .bak and choose Rename. Then remove .bak at the end of the folder name.
        
        
     3. Right click the folder with .ba and choose Rename. Then change the .ba to .bak at the end of the folder name.
        
        
   • If you have only one folder starting with S-1-5 followed by a long numbers and ended with.bak. Right click the folder and choose Rename. Then remove .bak at the end of the folder name.
6. Choose the folder without .bak, in the right pane, double click RefCount and type 0 and then clickOK.
   
   
7. Choose the folder without .bak, in the right pane, double click State and type 0 and then click OK.
   
   
8. Close Registry Editor.
9. Restart the computer.
10. Log on again with your account. 

Method 2: Log on to Windows and copy your data to a new account

reate a new account and copy the data from the old account to the new account. 

Method 3: Delete the error SID and create a new profile

To delete the error SID and create a new profile, follow the steps below:

1. Delete the error SID.
   To have us fix this problem for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section. If you would rather fix it yourself, go to the "Let me fix it myself" section.
   
   

   Fix it for me

   To fix this problem automatically , click the Fix this problem link. Then click Run in the File Downloaddialog box, and follow the steps in this wizard.
   
   Fix this problem
   Microsoft Fix it 50446
   
   Note This wizard may be in English only; however, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.
   
   Note If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive or to a CD, and then you can run it on the computer that has the problem.
   

   Let me fix it myself

   Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   How to back up and restore the registry in Windows
   
   To resolve this problem yourself, follow these steps:
   1. Delete the profile by using the Computer Properties dialog box. To do this, follow these steps:
      1. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties.
      2. Click Change settings.
      3. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
      4. Under User Profiles, click Settings.
      5. In the User Profiles dialog box, select the profile that you want to delete, clickDelete, and then click OK.
   2. Click Start
      
      , type regedit in the Start search box, and then press ENTER.
   3. Locate and then expand the following registry subkey:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
   4. Right-click the SID that you want to remove, and then click Delete.
2. Log on to the computer and create a new profile. 

References: 

http://www.sysprobs.com/fix-temporary-profile-windows-7 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215 

How To Install Acronis TrueImage Version 10 on Windows 7

Many consider TrueImage 10 build 4942 to be the best release of TI to date. Subsequent versions like TI 11, TI 2009, and TI 2010 have introduced more features and along with them, more bugs. Those who want only basic imaging capabilities can't go wrong with Version 10. However, if you install version 10 on Windows 7 then you are greeted with the following compatibility warning when starting the program:



The purpose of this article is to present a solution to allow version 10 to work with Windows 7.

Warning: Do this at your own risk. While I haven't had any problems using Version 10 with Windows 7 RTM, that doesn't mean that they don't exist. The program was added to the list of blocked programs by Acronis for one of two reasons; first, because it may have technical incompatibilities with Windows 7, or second, because the program is old, no longer supported, and Acronis does not want to invest software resources to fix it but instead wants to sell you the newest version. While the latter is probably the reason for adding TI 10 to the blocked programs list, there are no guarantees that it isn't the former. And if there are technical issues, then data loss may occur.

Known issues with Version 10
Longtime users of version 10 are well aware of its limitations, but to recap:

1. All version of TI to date will create partition table entries using the established 63-sector offset rules where the first partition starts at sector 63 and all partitions start and end on multiples of 63 sectors and the sizes of partitions are a multiple of 63 sectors. If you restore a Vista or Windows 7 partition that was created by the Vista/Win 7 installer or by Vista/Win 7 Disk Management, both of which use the newer 2048-sector offset rules, then the partition will be realigned to 63-sector offset by TI upon restoration. This realignment will prevent Vista/Win 7 from booting until the Boot Configuration Database (BCD) is repaired. Newer TI versions automatically correct the BCD but Version 10 does not. If you use Version 10 with Vista/Win 7, then you need to have a Vista/Win 7 DVD available to repair the BCD, or else you need to generalize the BCD before imaging. Some PC manufacturers do not furnish original OS installation media, so before you use TI 10, make sure that you have a viable means of recovery. You can borrow a Vista/Win 7 DVD to use for repairs, or you can make your own recovery CD with Windows 7 by typing System Repair Disk into the Win 7 START search box and following the wizard.

2. When restoring Windows XP partitions, version 10 has the annoying habit of rearranging the order of entries in the partition table so that the restored XP partition is in the "slot" corresponding to its boot.ini entry. This was done so that a WinXP partition could be restored to a different location on the disk without the need to manually edit the boot.ini file. It also finds any other installations of WinXP on other partitions and modifies their boot.ini files. The result is that you can end up with a partition table where the entries are not in disk order, or what is referred to as a "Scrambled" partition table. This is mainly a cosmetic issue and does not affect the ability of the partition table to work correctly.

3. The Linux recovery environment will sometimes corrupt NTFS files that are restored to a different location on the disk in very specific circumstances (the files contain NTFS Alternate Data Streams). This is not an issue when cloning or when creating or restoring partition or disk images, and is never an issue when restoring individual files and folders from the Windows environment. It's only an issue when restoring individual files or folders from the boot CD.
There may be others that I've missed, but these were the big ones.

What I've Tested with Windows 7
I've had TI 10 build 4942 installed and working in Windows 7 x64 since early October and have been using it successfully since then. I have tested the following features with success:
1. Creating images from within Windows, including full, incremental, and differential
2. Mounting images created by TI 10
3. Exploring images with Windows Explorer
4. Validating image archives
5. Scheduling automatic image creation with the built-in Acronis scheduler
6. Restoring Windows 7 partitions from the TI recovery environment.

What I have not Tested with Windows 7
1. Initiating a restore operation while running Windows 7
2. Activating the ASRM
3. Creating a Secure Zone
4. Backing up and restoring individual files and folders
5. Using any of the other "bells and whistles" of the program.

How to Unblock the Program

Uninstall any version of TI that is currently installed on the disk and then install TI version 10. When you try to run the program the Windows 7 Program Compatibility Assistant will run and will check the name of the program against a list of blocked software. If the program is on the list, it will be blocked from execution. However, if you change the name of the executable, it will not be found on the list and will not be blocked. For TI version 10, the program's name is TrueImage.exe. Change it to something else; for example, TI.exe, to avoid being blocked. You must change the name in two places; first, in the Program Files folder, and second, in the registry. Changing the entry in the registry allows the right-click context menus to link to the new name of the program. The following are specifics for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7.

32-bit Win 7:
1. Change the name of the executable program in C:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\ from TrueImage.exe to TI.exe
2. Change the path to the executable program in the registry at this key:
HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Settings\MainExePath
Change the path to match the name in step 1, i.e. to
C:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TI.exe

64-bit Win 7:
1. Change the name of the executable program in C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\ from TrueImage.exe to TI.exe
2. Change the path to the executable program in the registry at this key:
HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Wow6432Node\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Settings\MainExePath
Change the path to match the name in step 1, i.e. to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TI.exe

Disclaimer
I had initially resisted requests to post this information. However, TI version 10 is an old program and Acronis no longer supports it. The last update was March 12, 2007 and the program has now been superceded by 3 newer releases, so by now version 10 can be considered to be obsolete. I don't see any harm in posting this information. But use this workaround at your own risk.

NOTE: The procedure below is required for TI 10 and earlier to be able to restore a Vista partition so that it does not require a repair. If you are using a version of TI later than 10 (TI 11, TI 2009, etc.), these changes are not needed as TI will make the necessary changes to the BCD file during the restore. However, if you wish to make the changes anyway to generalize Vista’s BCD entry so that it will boot from the Active partition (in preparation for duplicating a Vista partition, for example), the changes can be applied.

If you have a Vista system that is installed to a Vista created partition, then most of you know that you have to restore the entire drive in order to avoid a repair. Restoring just the Vista partition will require a repair the first time it's restored. This is very undesirable, especially for those without a Vista DVD or BartPE CD.

Mark (K0lo) has forwarded information to me along the same lines as what I was working on with repairing Vista using BartPE. (Thanks, Mark.) My method of repairing a Vista restore using BartPE can be found in this thread: How To Question - Restore and Eliminate one Partition starting at Post #14.

I have tested this procedure with an image restore using both BartPE and the Full (Linux) version of TI (version 10, build 4,942) and they both restored a Vista created partition without needing to be repaired. Others have reported success with cloning.

To prepare your Vista BCD file, start a Command Prompt in administrative mode (browse to the Command Prompt menu item, right-click and select Run as administrator):



If the Command Prompt directory is not the \windows\system32 directory then type the following commands (<ENTER> means to press the ENTER key):

Code:

c: <ENTER>
cd \windows\system32 <ENTER>

If your Vista partition is a drive letter other than C: then use that drive letter.

Once you're in the \windows\system32 directory, type the commands below:

Code:

bcdedit /set {default} device boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot <ENTER>

This assumes that the "default" booting entry in the BCD file is Vista.
After these changes, your bcdedit output will resemble this:

Code:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  boot
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {default}
displayorder            {default}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {default}
device                  boot
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Microsoft Windows Vista
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
osdevice                boot
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {d5f6f061-52c6-11dc-8f68-ff6d008c462c}
nx                      OptIn

instead of referencing a partition directly as in the example below:

Code:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=C:
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {default}
displayorder            {default}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {default}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Microsoft Windows Vista
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {d5f6f061-52c6-11dc-8f68-ff6d008c462c}
nx                      OptIn

Now, if you clone the Vista partition or image it and restore it, you should not have to run a repair. It should boot up properly.

I would be interested to hear any comments on this procedure.

---

Note: I tested this procedure on a clean install of Vista Ultimate. There were no "recovery" partitions or "media direct" partitons, etc. If you are unsure about doing this procedure, I would recommend that you create an Entire Disk image (check the Disk # checkbox) before you make these changes. Then proceed to make the changes, then clone or reimage and restore. If it works properly, you can delete the backup images as you see fit.

References:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5908
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1078316&postcount=1

Windows 8 Developer Preview

The developer preview is up for grabs now on the newly launched Developer site.There are two kinds of builds available over the Developer site.First is with Developer tools and a 64 Bit version while the other version is Without the Developer tools in 32 bit as well as 64 bit version.

Here are the details of the Developer Builds that are up now on the site dev.windows.com

Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64)

• 64-bit Windows Developer Preview
• Windows SDK for Metro style apps
• Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview
• Microsoft Expression Blend 5 Developer Preview
• 28 Metro style apps including the BUILD Conference app

Download Now

Windows Developer Preview English, 64-bit (x64)

Includes a disk image file (.iso) to install the Windows Developer Preview and Metro style apps on a 64-bit PC.

Download Now

Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86)

Includes a disk image file (.iso) to install the Windows Developer Preview and Metro style apps on a 32-bit PC.

Download Now

References: http://www.cybermania.ws/windows-8-developer-preview/

Steve Job - He did not.

• Steve Jobs did not create products. He created an organization that predictably and reliably created emotionally resonant products.
• Steve Jobs did not make movies. He made a company that predictably and reliably made blockbusters.
• Steve Jobs did not wrest market share from competitors. He created new markets that attracted and sustained competitors.
• Steve Jobs did not design anything. He gave others the freedom to think about what jobs products are hired to do.
• Steve Jobs did not re-engineer processes. He brought engineering processes to works of creativity and the creative process to engineering.
• Steve Jobs did not develop new management theories. He showed by example that innovation can be managed.
• Steve Jobs was not a visionary. He put the dots together and saw where they led.
• Steve Jobs was not a futurist. He just built the future one piece at a time.
• Steve Jobs did not distort reality. He spoke what he believed would become reality at a time when those beliefs seemed far fetched.
• Steve Jobs was not charismatic. He spoke from the heart compelling others to follow him.
• Steve Jobs was not a gifted orator. He spoke plainly.
• Steve Jobs was not a magician. He practiced, a lot.

He had taste.

He was curious.

He was patient.

He was foolish.

He was hungry.

These things many others can do. Maybe you can.

by Horace Dediu

References: http://www.asymco.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-didnt/