If you’re a system administrator (or like many developers), chances are you use PowerShell a lot and have the PowerShell console or PowerShell ISE on your Windows 7 taskbar. On Windows Vista and on Windows Server 2008 prior to R2 I was annoyed by having both ISE and console on the quick launch bar or [...]
Posts tagged Windows
Windows 7 Hack – Make the new taskbar MRU list work with Visual Studio
I love the new per-application MRU list that appears when you right click a pinned taskbar item. As I mentioned in a previous post, this seems to be driven off the existing API’s that the shell and applications use to populate the “Recent Documents” list in previous versions of Windows.
One annoying thing I noticed was that Visual Studio solutions were never showing up in the MRU list for Visual Studio. In fact, nothing was. It took about 5 seconds before I realized “duh… solutions aren’t associated with Visual Studio”. They’re actually associated with a stub called “Visual Studio Version Selector” which looks inside the .sln file and launches the appropriate version of Visual Studio if it is installed on your machine.
Personally, one version of Visual Studio is big enough for me so I always run the latest (currently Visual Studio 2008). I don’t need this version selector. Right Click –> Open With just screwed up the icons and didn’t help the MRU list problem but there was a very simply registry fix to make .sln files associate with Visual Studio 2008.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VisualStudio.Launcher.sln\Shell\Open\Command] @=”\”C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\\Common7\\IDE\\devenv.exe\” \”%1\”"
Put the above in a .reg file or go into regedit.exe and do it by hand. If you need more instructions then the hack probably isn’t for you. Note that this will eliminate the ability to double click a .sln file and have it open in the version of Visual Studio that created it. But who really does that anyway.
Don’t forget to occasionally clean up your wireless network list
Here’s a little tip for the security conscious. Over time, you will undoubtedly connect to various networks a couple of times or maybe even just once. But if you’re like me, you probably habitually check (or fail to uncheck) the box that saves the wireless network connection settings.
This can be an accident waiting to happen because let’s say you were living in a hotel for a week like I was while waiting for settlement on a new house. I had connected to an encryption-free wireless network called “lodgenet” which was how this particular hotel’s wireless was set up. Since there was no key, it wouldn’t be difficult for a hacker on a train to set up a fake access point called “lodgenet” and once I’m connected, well then it’s anyone’s guess what would happen next.
But where it’s particularly troublesome is when you connect to an open network called “linksys” or something that an out-of-the-box, unsecured access point defaults to. There’s so many of these that you may find your tablet, iPhone, or what not connecting to all kinds of unscrupulous networks. Hacking issues aside, some people have been *sued* over this crap believe it or not.
Anyway, from time to time, you should go into Network and Sharing Center, click Manage Wireless Networks link on the left, and delete any that you don’t want to automatically connect to.
Once Bitten, Thrice Shy – A Sad Vista Tale
Warning – This story does not have a happy ending so don’t read this whole thing if you’re looking for a heartwarming story or a solution to your corrupt Vista installation. I’m just writing this lengthy post so that search engines will index it effectively so that others with similar problems have some type of [...]
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