Tommy Nation

By installing the Media Control Plugin for Vista Media Center by Damien Bain-Thouverez, you can finally play back video files with subtitles, especially files using the Matroska container format (MKV). Multiple subtitles support, multiple audio streams support, FFDShow settings tweaking, and much much more is enabled.

The plugin can even hook on to the remote control driver and enable access to customizeable special functions and shortcuts when using a Media Center compatible remote control. There’s even a newly added feature that enables Windows Live Messenger integration. I haven’t tested this one myself yet, though.

If this is just what you’ve been looking for, then head on over to the homepage and download it now! Be sure to read the requirements section carefully before you install it.

Thank you Damien for this great plugin! Please show your support by donating to him if you find it useful.

To be able to access administrative shares and shut it down remotely, I added another user to my media center computer (HTPC) matching my usual username and password. Upon next boot, I discovered that instead of being logged on automatically, I was now presented with a logon screen, where I had to choose between the default (passwordless) user and my newly created “remote control” account.

“There’s got to be a way to get the automatic logon back”, I thought. Of course there is! Following is the simple solution to configure automatic logon in Vista. (Please bare with me, and pretend that the Norwegian screenshots are in English for now.)

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Even if your Windows Vista user account is a member of the Administrators group, you are still asked to give applications permission to access your system in different ways. To enable the hidden Vista Administrator account, and become free of these hassles, just follow these directions:

1. In the search field of the Start menu, type “cmd” and right-click the cmd.exe suggestion that pops up in the results.
2. Select “Run as administrator”.
3. In the command prompt window, type (without the quotes) “net user administrator /active:yes”.
4. Log out of your Vista session, and - voilà - the administrator account is now selectable.

Even if you consider yourself an advanced Windows user, beware that activating the Administrator account makes your system more vulnerable when you are logged in as this user. It’s the same as being logged in as the root user in Linux, in that applications will now get access to your file system like in Windows XP.

When getting into overclocking your rig - whether you just want more frames per second out of your old 6600 GT in Call of Duty 4, or to be able to brag about a score above 20k in 3DMark06 - you’ll need the right tools for the job.

Here’s an introduction to some of the most used overclocking and monitoring tools!

RivaTuner

Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / 2003 / XP / Vista (incl. 64-bit)
This application lets you overclock your NVIDIA graphics card. It was originally just a registry tweaking application for NVIDIAs old Riva TNT graphics card, but has since evolved into a much more useful tool. The most common use of RivaTuner is to set higher clock speeds on the core, shaders and memory of your graphics card(s), as well as letting you control fan thresholds and other settings. The registry tweaking is still an option however, shall you feel tempted.

ATITool

Windows XP / 2003 / 2000 (incl. 64-bit)
You guessed it - ATITool was made to overclock your ATI graphics card. However, today this application also works with NVIDIA graphics cards. If you have problems with RivaTuner, try this little bugger instead.

Prime95

Windows (incl. Windows 3.1) | Linux | FreeBSD | OS/2
This number crunching application lets you push your CPU to its limit of stability. The latest version supports multi-core processors using multiple threads. Tip: If you want to test only your CPU for stability, choose the “Small TTFs” torture test, and select “Round off checking” under the “Advanced” menu. This test uses the least amount of system memory, reducing the likelihood of your RAM being the culprit in case of failure, (but it will still be a factor).

External link: Guide to using Prime95 effectively.

SpeedFan

Windows 9x / NT / 2000 / 2003 / XP (incl. 64-bit) / Vista (not listed on the homepage)
This handy tool lets you monitor temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, and can even monitor hard disks with S.M.A.R.T. enabled. As a bonus feature it can adjust the FSB speed on some motherboards, but primarily I use SpeedFan to monitor the temperatures and voltages when overclocking. Tip: Disable SpeedStep (Intel) or Cool’n'Quiet (AMD) features in the BIOS to get accurate readings after OC’ing.

Core Temp

Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista (incl. 64-bit)
A simple, yet useful utility that lets you monitor the temperatures of your processor cores. A nice feature of Core Temp is that all CPU core temperatures can be displayed in your system tray at all times.

CPU-Z

Windows
One of the most widely used tools for overclockers. CPU-Z gathers information about your CPU, motherboard and memory timings (including SPD values).

GPU-Z

Windows 2000 / XP / Vista (incl. 64-bit)
As the name suggests, this tool is much like CPU-Z, only for graphics cards. GPU-Z gives you detailed information about your accelerator card, from make and model to clock speed and driver version. If you click the “Sensors” tab, you can handily monitor the GPU and PCB temperatures, fan speed (in per cent and RPM), and current core and memory clock speeds.

I daily enjoy the possibility to access the files on my other computers at home directly, without having to share the root of the harddisk using normal file sharing. I recently built a HTPC (Home Theatre PC), and as fate would have it, chose Vista for its fresh new Media Center possibilities. Problem? How to enable access to admin shares using a local administrator account remotely in Vista?

When you try to do this the same way you could in XP, you get prompted to log in, but get access denied. Apparently, for “security reasons” this option has been disabled. Thankfully, a small registry hack is all it takes to get around the issue:

1. Open regedit (<Windows> + R, type “regedit”).
2. Expand the tree to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft\ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ policies \ system.
3. Create a new key (Right click -> New -> choose “DWORD Value (32bit)”).
4. Name the key “LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy” and give it the value of “1″.
5. Click OK.

There’s a lot of different tricks and tools that are supposed to improve website loading times in Firefox, but whether they really make a difference or not is often hard to tell.

There are exceptions however, so follow the directions below to make your pages display faster in Firefox as they are loading:

1. In the address bar (where you type in website addresses), type “about:config” and hit Enter to access the hidden settings menu in Firefox.
2. In the “Filter:” field, type “network.prefetch”.
3. Right click the line that says “network.prefecth-next” and click “Toggle”.

If you’re so lucky to have an external hard disk drive that connects to your computer through USB / USB 2.0, then you can get increased performance from your hard disk in Windows Vista. This is because Vista treats your external drive differently than a FireWire (IEEE1394) or eSATA-connected drive, rather more like a USB pendrive. By switching off a feature called “Write Caching” might work swell for a thumdrive, it seriously hampers the performance of your external USB hard disk. Here’s how to disable write caching for your USB hard disk:

1. In Windows Vista, first click on “Start”, bringing up the Start menu.
2. Right-click “My computer” and select “Manage”.
3. On the left-hand menu, click “Device Manager”.
4. Locate your external hard disk drive in the list.
5. Right-click your disk and select “Properties”.
6. Click the “Policies”-pane and check “Optimize for performance” and “Enable advanced performance”.
7. Reboot your computer!

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