Never knew anything wierder. Sony Playstation 3 seems to be a hub for all the softwares out there, whatever it may be. mopx0 has managed to install a Windows Vista OS on the Sony Playstation 3. Although the entire process is useless in the way that it takes 24 hours to install.

After the 24 hour install, it takes about 25 minutes for the Vista to boot. But still the system is damn slow, so think before you do something. You can also install windows xp on the Playstation 3 which is slightly faster.

Look at the video for more information.

Via PS3Scene

It has been 7 years since Windows XP was launched. During its lifetime it got many upgrades including 3 Service Pack releases (Service Pack 3 being the latest). The Service Pack added many new and useful features so as to increase the life shell of Windows XP.

After the release of Windows Vista many Windows Users wanted to shift to Windows Vista but could not because of the high system requirements of Vista. Soon after the release of Windows Vista many transformation packs were launched, which transformed the looks of Windows XP to Windows Vista giving the users of XP the feel that they were using Windows Vista.

Even though these Transformation packs were not able to provide the performance of Vista but they managed to copy the looks of Vista pretty well. These transformation packs were able to copy all the eye candies of Vista except one – the Start menu of Vista. There were many themes which copied the look of the taskbar of Windows Vista, but failed to provide the same functionality. Being a Vista user myself, I can easily say that I really miss the Vista Start bar in Windows XP.

So today Techunknown.com presents to you Windows Vista start menu for Windows XP!

Download it: http://vistastartmenu.com

As you can see from the above image, Vistastart menu provides functionality similar or better than Windows Vista start menu can provide.
The search box is similar to Vista’s start menu and it even saves your last search. When you search for any file/application via the search box given, the search begins instantly but it is little slow compared to Windows Vista Start Menu but not that slow to irritate you. When you search for a file/application via the search bar and you type the full name of the application for example “paint”, the application also shows applications or files with similar name like Printers etc.

As you can see from the image, it even shows system files and folder. Also unlike Start menu in Vista and XP where you have to click on “Programs” to show you all the installed programs which you have in your PC, VistaStart Menu opens the “Program” group or slide by default thus saving you one mouse click when you open an application from the “Programs” menu.
There is also a quick start group where you can put in all the applications which you access frequently. All the applications present in the start menu have a shortcut, if you would have seen the previous images properly you would notice that there is a small straight line passing through the applications menu after certain intervals. These straight lines divide the “Program” menu into certain groups. The first group has “A” assigned as its shortcut so if you will press “A” you will be automatically taken to the first group and then all the applications in the first group will have a number assigned to them, pressing that number either launches that application or takes you to the sub group of the application. These shortcuts work only when you use the “Windows” key to access the start menu and not when you used the mouse to access the start menu.

You can also move the Start Menu to another location! Yes you read it right to another location! You can even resize the start menu. Amazing isn’t it. To move the Start Menu all you got to do is hover your mouse near the “Get Pro Version” and then just drag the start menu to the location you want it to.

Now from the next time whenever you open Start Menu it will open from the same position where you had placed it earlier.

The Bad Side-

After the good side comes the bad side. Sometimes whenever I used to click on the start menu, VistaStartMenu just did not pop-up. I had to click multiple times before it used to pop out. Also as I said earlier, searching via the Search Box is a bit slow compared to Windows Vista Start Menu. Also just for the information of its users or the user who are going to download it, it eats up 11Mb RAM usually with the max going to 20Mb.

Conclusion-

In the end I would like to conclude that Windows XP users who can’t shift to Vista because of its high system requirements should download VistaStartMenu immediately but for Vista users I would say if you can cope up with the slow searching time and the extra “11Mb RAM” I will say it’s worth it.

TechUnknown Rating – Very Good

Pro’s – Finally an alternative to Vista Start Menu, and for XP users finally a Vista style Start Menu

Con’s – Slow in searching via search box, Sometimes the Menu just does not pop-up even after clicking the Start Button multiple times

Customizing taskbar and Start Menu in Windows is very easy and comes in very handy, to make your PC look and work in the way you want.

To change these properties click on the Start button and then in the menu that pops up, choose properties.

Now in the window that comes there are two tabs for Taskbar and Start menu. By default Start tab is selected.

There are two display styles for Start menu. The new XP style Start menu and the Classic Start menu. You can choose anyone and further customize its features, look and feel by clicking on the Customize button next to it.

Next comes the Taskbar tab

From here you can choose and customize the appearance of the taskbar like: lock, auto-hide, quick launch, clock and inactive icons tec.

Select all the features that you like and click Apply then click OK. It is as simple as that.

Ever wondered what that particular processes like ‘jusched.exe’ in the Windows Task Manager does? Or want to find more details about the particular process? Look no more, ProcessQuickLink is here to help you. ProcessQuickLink is an application which searches the vast library about Windows’ processes and lets you know about it in simple language.

Install the software and goto the Windows Task Manager, just click any process and it lets you know about the task by searching Processlibrary. It recommends you whether to remove the process or not. When your computer runs like a turtle, ProcessQuickLink tells you which processes are unnecessary and you can remove it.

The freeware is available for Windows only. Head over here to download.

Via LifeHacker

Despite huge pleadings by users all over the world, for not discontinuing Windows XP, Microsoft officially announced:

“Monday, June 30 will be the last day Microsoft sells XP to the masses.”

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, stepped down from the company officially.

Gates leaves his full time duties as chairman of Microsoft.

According to Gates, he contributed whatever he can to the software giant company and now wants to spend most of his time in philanthropy. He will now be actively involved with the activities of philanthropic organization he founded with his wife in 2000 “Melinda Gates foundation”. The foundation boasts of being the biggest of its kind in USA in the financial report of 2007

This is in accordance with the Gates vision of creative capitalism.

Windows PC can be transformed into Mac (visually), without going into hassle of installing many visual themes, windowblinds, docklets….and the list goes on……
The solution is a simple all-in-one installer FlyakiteOSX.

“FlyakiteOSX is a transformation pack. It will transform the look of an ordinary Windows XP+ system to resemble the look of Mac OS X. The installer simply automates the process of replacing critical system files, setting registry tweaks, and installing extras such as cursors, sounds, visual styles, etc. FlyakiteOSX DOES NOT contain any spyware or ad-ware of any kind. All files needed for FlyakiteOSX are stored in the Windows directory in a folder named ‘FlyakiteOSX’ that is hidden by default. All registry values for FlyakiteOSX are written to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\FlyakiteOSX.”
All the documentation and FAQ’s about installer can be found at:

http://www.flyakiteosx.com/
http://osx.portraitofakite.com/

The installer is very simple, the whole visual system is light on the CPU, and is completely safe to install and remove.

Screenshots:

Download:

http://www.flyakiteosx.com/files/FlyakiteOSX%20v3.0.zip

You’ve read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it’s time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP’s secrets.

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options — they’re all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry and don’t bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.

9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. It’s well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com — and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

20. The next release of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is due out late next year or early 2003 and won’t be much to write home about. The next big release is codenamed Blackcomb and will be out in 2003/2004.