Category: Tweaks & hacks

How To Stretch Your Wallpaper Across Multiple Monitors in Windows

Even Mr Bolt-on knows

Even Mr Bolt-on knows this.

Everyone with some experience with Windows and more than one monitor connected, knows that Microsoft’s good old operating system just can’t handle multiple monitors very well.

Little has improved in Windows 7, and I was therefore faced with some odd challenges just trying to make a simple 3840×1080 pixels wide wallpaper fit properly.

The only built-in “wallpaper mode” that works with multiple monitor wallpapers is the “tile” mode. However, it didn’t work correctly on my setup, as it kind of started on the wrong display due to the internal “ranking” of my monitors, making the result look like so:

After a quick Google query or two, I happened upon the perfect tool to MacGyver this problem away: Continue reading

Adding Custom Cities to the HTC Weather App

htcweather

In the summer time I like to follow the weather more than usual, so as to not miss a single day of fun in the sun, as we get it so rarely where I live by the arctic circle. However, my new HTC Touch Diamond 2 did not have my town in the weather application! So I set out to get my small town added in, and eventually succeeded thanks to the forum over at xda-developers.com. So, here’s my recipe which takes into account more possible issues than the forums do.

  1. Download and install ActiveSync, .NET Compact Framework 3.5 Redistributable and CeRegEditor.
  2. Browse your HTC phone using Explorer and copy the file “2330fc3c_manila” from the Windows directory onto your PC. Right-click this file and select properties. Untick the box that says “Read-only”.
  3. Download SQLite Administrator. This program does not require installation.
  4. Open the “2330fc3c_manila” file from step 2 using SQLite Administrator on your PC (make sure you select “Any files” when browsing for it).
  5. Select the “Edit Data” tab and click to select the “Cities” table in the tree on the left.
  6. Pick a city you won’t need and edit the “CityName“, “Country” and “accuweatherCode” to match the city you plan to add. You should also edit the timezone and msid values to match another city in the same country and timezone. To find your correct accuweatherCode and other values, look up your desired city on AccuWeather and see the last part of the URL string in your browser that looks something like this: “EUR|NO|NO007|VADSOE“.
    Tip: If your city name contains special characters you may need to substitute them. Check for a city with the same special character and copy from it. This also applies to the city name in the “accuweatherCode” field, except for that the replacement characters may be different. For instance, The “CityName” field may use “Ã,” to replace “ø” in the HTC interface, while the “accuweatherCode” field uses “OE” or “O” to replace the same character. In the address bar of your browser, these characters may be displayed similarly to “%F8%7C”, but do not let that confuse you.
  7. Close the editor. Right-click the now updated database file and select properties. Tick the box that says “Read-only”. Copy the new file back to your HTC, replacing the existing file.Tip: To accomplish this on my HTC Touch Diamond 2 I had to use TotalCommander for Pocket PC. Install TotalCommander by downloading the CAB file to your HTC and running it. Browse to the Windows directory and scroll down to the “2330fc3c_manila” file. Open the properties and remove the “Read-only” attribute. Copy the new “2330fc3c_manila” file from your computer to any folder on your HTC except the Windows folder. Then copy it in TotalCommander to the Windows folder, replacing the old file.
  8. Almost done! Using CeRegEditor, add the following registry key:
    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\HTC\Manila]
    “Weather.ServerURLOverride”=”http://weather.not2advanced.com/htcweather/forecastdata.php?ac=XDADevs&locCode=%25ls&version= 1&device=innovation”

    Tip: Do not include the “s. Add a new “String” with the name being the first part before “=” and value being the long URL.

  9. Shut down and start your HTC (aka soft reset) and it should now work when you add your new city (or cities)!
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\HTC\Manila]
"Weather.ServerURLOverride"="http://weather.not2advanced.com/htcweather/forecastdata.php?ac=XDADevs&locCode=%25ls&version= 1&device=innovation"

Expand Your Windows Vista Media Center Options

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.

How To: Enable Automatic Logon in Windows 7

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 Windows 7 or Vista. (Please bare with me, and pretend that the Norwegian screenshots are in English for now.)

Continue reading

How To: Administrative Shares in Windows XP

When you have more than one computer in your local network, you may want to be able to access all your files on all your machines, whichever one you’re sitting at. Here’s how you can accomplish that in Windows XP:

To be able to access all files you will be using something called Administrative Shares. These are default hidden shares of your local hard disks and optical drives that are automatically created by Windows on boot-up. These shares are not like normal shared folders, as they require administrative access to open via the network.

An administrative share is a hidden share, as indicated by a trailing dollar ($) sign. These shares do not show up by default when you access a computer through Windows Explorer. To access the C:\ drive via its administrative share for instance, you would type this in the address bar of Windows Explorer: \\computername\c$ 

 

[important]In Windows XP Service Pack 3, access to the administrative shares through the network is disabled by default.

To enable administrative shares you have to:

1. Open Explorer and select Tools -> Folder Options
2. Select the View tab and scroll all the way down to the bottom of Advanced Settings
3. Make sure that “Use simple file sharing (Recommended)” is not selected

This should work instantly without need for rebooting.

Note: Windows XP Home editions do not have this option, so they cannot show administrative shares.[/important]

 

You will also need administrative rights as a local user to access these shares on a different computer via the network. To achieve this, all you have to do is to create an identically named account on each computer, with the same password. Make sure it has administrative rights (select “Administrator” when you set it up). To do this, open Control Panel and go to User Accounts and make the necessary account and/or password changes there.

Now, whenever you want access to your files on your other machines, just open Windows Explorer and type in \\Computername\c$ in the address bar – replacing the letter c with the drive letter of the hard disk you want to access.

There’s an additional administrative share that’s standard on all Windows computers, and this is the Windows folder. To access this share, type \\Computername\admin$. If Windows was installed on a different drive than the C:\ drive, it doesn’t matter when you use this share. Pretty useful when you want to view Windows log files on remote machines.

Windows 7 / Vista troubleshooting:
In Windows 7 / Vista you will get prompted to enter a username and password. Enter the username and password, and tick the box to remember the password if you don’t want to be bothered again. You may get problems here, being denied access even if you entered the correct username and password. Should this be the case, you should read my article on enabling admin shares in Windows 7 / Vista.