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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Secret - Phantom Devices

Instructions - Go to "Start", "Programs", "Accessories" and select "Command Prompt". At the command prompt, type "set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1" and press Enter. At the command prompt, type "start devmgmt.msc" and press Enter. Select "View" and Show hidden devices. You can see devices that are not connected to the computer. - Source

Notes - When you close the command prompt window, Windows clears the "devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1" variable that you set and prevents phantom devices from being displayed when you select "Show hidden devices".

Secret - Hidden Uninstall Options

Instructions - Warning: Proceed at your own risk! Browse to C:\Windows\inf\ and make a backup copy of sysoc.inf. Then open the original file C:\Windows\inf\sysoc.inf in notepad. Go to "Edit" and select "Replace". In "Find what:" type ,hide and in "Replace with:" type , then select "Replace All", save and close the file. Go to the "Control Panel", "Add/Remove", select "Add/Remove Windows Components". You will now see many more Windows components to uninstall. Do not remove anything with no label or that you do not recognize or fully understand what it does. Doing so can break certain functionality in Windows.

keyboard shortcut key's

Some of the keyboard shortcut keys, which are familiar to me:

Windows Hotkeys

* Shift + F10 right-clicks.
* Win + L (XP Only): Locks keyboard. Similar to Lock Workstation.
* Win + F or F3: Open Find dialog. (All Files) F3 may not work

in some applications which use F3 for their own find dialogs.
* Win + Control + F: Open Find dialog. (Computers)
* Win + U: Open Utility Manager.
* Win + F1: Open Windows help.
* Win + Pause: Open System Properties dialog.
* Win + Tab: Cycle through taskbar buttons. Enter clicks, AppsKey or Shift + F10 right-clicks.
* Win + Shift + Tab: Cycle through taskbar buttons in reverse.
* Alt + Tab: Display CoolSwitch. More commonly known as the AltTab dialog.
* Alt + Shift + Tab: Display CoolSwitch; go in reverse.
* Alt + Escape: Send active window to the bottom of the z-order.
* Alt + Shift + Escape: Activate the window at the bottom of the z-order.
* Alt + F4: Close active window; or, if all windows are closed, open shutdown dialog

* F1 / right arrow: Repeats the letters of the last command line, one by one.
* F2: Displays a dialog asking user to "enter the char to copy up to" of the last command line
* F3: Repeats the last command line
* F4: Displays a dialog asking user to "enter the char to delete up to" of the last command line
* F5: Goes back one command line
* F6: Enters the traditional CTRL+Z (^z)
* F7: Displays a menu with the command line history
* F8: Cycles back through previous command lines (beginning with most recent)
* F9: Displays a dialog asking user to enter a command number, where 0 is for first command line entered.
* Alt+Enter: toggle fullScreen mode.
* up/down: scroll thru/repeat previous entries
* Esc: delete line
* Note: The buffer allows a maximum of 50 command lines. After this number is reached, the first line will be replaced in sequence.