Customize your Vista

The "Wow" starts now!

Clear your product key from the registry

Many people have voiced their objections about having their product key held in the registry for anyone to steal. Any program can read your product key from the registry without requiring administrative privileges. However, using slmgr.exe in c:\windows\system32, you can remove your product key from the registry: 1) Open an instance of the command prompt that has elevated permissions. You can do this by right clicking on the cmd.exe icon and selecting "Run as Administrator". 2) At the prompt C:\Windows\System32>, type "slmgr -cpky" without the quotes. 3) At the prompt, type "exit". You are done.

Reset the licensing status your machine

Reset the licensig status of the machine using slmgr.exe in c:\windows\system32. You can use this program to reset the 30 day "trial" (it isn't really a trial period) period of use up to three times for a total 120 days of unlicensed use. Simply type the following command in an elevated command prompt: "slmgr -rearm". Visit our page on the Windows Software License Manager for more command prompt switches.

Click here more tips and tricks for SLMGR (Software License Manager)

Increase your WEI score... manually!

Navigate to C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore\xxxx-xx-xx xx.xx.xx.xxx Assessment.WinSAT.xml. Open it with notepad. Approximately one 'paragraph' down, you will see listings between the 'winspr' tags. These listings include 'system score','memoryscore', 'cpuscore', 'cpusubaggscore', 'videoencodescore', 'graphicsscore', 'gamingscore', and 'diskscore'. Simply change the value that appears between the opening and closing tags. Changing your graphics score to be over 3.0 allows you to have themes for the photo screensaver. Other effects are still unknown.

Turn off User Account Control/User Account Protection / Security Center Notifications

(Not recommended!)

This certainly is not advisable because it disables many important security technologies in Windows Vista, including Internet Explorer's Protected Mode. However, if it really is bothering you, there are many methods. Visit http://winvistainfo.org/ihateuac.aspx to disable security center notifications.

The easiest:
Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety > User Accounts > Turn User Account Control on or off

In Microsoft Windows 7, you can adjust UAC without completely disabling it. Switcher - an improved Windows Flip3D
Ok - it looks like Exposé for the Mac, but what's wrong with that? It's a great third party application.
Download from here: http://insentient.net/
Get NetMeeting 3.02 for Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927853

Keyboard shortcuts to remember:

Internet Explorer
Ctrl + A: Select all
Ctrl + B: Organize Favorites
Ctrl + C: Copy
Ctrl + D: Bookmark a page
Ctrl + E: Place cursor in search box
Ctrl + F: Find on page
Ctrl + H: View History
Ctrl + I: View Favorites
Ctrl + J: View Feeds
Ctrl + L: Open
Ctrl + N: New instance of IE
Ctrl + O: Open
Ctrl + P: Print
Ctrl + Q: Quick tabs, view open tabs as thumbnail preview images
Ctrl + R: Refresh
Ctrl + T: Open new tab
Ctrl + V: Paste
Ctrl + W: Close current tab
Ctrl + X: Cut
Ctrl +: Zoom in
Ctrl -: Zoom out

Windows Explorer

F1: Help!
F3: Search
Windows key: Open start menu with cursor on search box, useful for Instant Search
Windows key + 1-9: Open quick launch applications
Windows key + tab: Tab through openned applications using Flip 3D
Windows key + space: Bring sidebar to top
Alt + tab: Tab through openned applications