Windows Vista Tips and Tricks II

Q: I purchased two copies of Vista, Home Premium 32 bit and Ultimate 64 bit. I was not sure which one I wanted, so I took two 500GB hard drives and put one OS on each. After a few days of switching back and forth from one boot drive to the other in the BIOS, I decided which one I wanted. But now the system comes up with a dual-boot message at start-up. I've removed the other drive, but I'm still getting the dual-boot screen. How can I remove this without starting from scratch and losing everything? Can I do this without a large headache?—William Watson
A: Cleaning up an unwanted dual boot is a lot easier in Windows XP than in Vista. XP's System Configuration Utility (Start | Run | msconfig) has the ability to delete dual-boot information for any operating systems that are no longer present automatically. See "Remove Windows 98 from Dual-Boot" for the skinny on this technique. In Vista it's rather more of an effort, but you can still do it.

Click Start and type cmd, but don't press Enter. You'll see cmd.exe up above; right-click it and choose Run as Administrator. When the Command Prompt opens enter the command BCDEDIT /enum. You should see several entries, including one labeled Windows Boot Manager and two labeled Windows Boot Loader. The latter two represent the two operating systems. There may be other items listed.

Each item will have a number of lines under it including an identifier line, like identifier {current}. Probably the identifier for the Dear Departed OS will take the form of a GUID (globally unique identifier) like cbd971bf-b7b8-4885-951a-fa03044f5d71. The command BCDEDIT /delete {identifier} /cleanup should do the job—here you will replace {identifier} with the actual identifier of the unwanted OS.

This is not something I have done myself; I've just read the instructions you get when you enter BCDEDIT /? and perused Microsoft's documentation on the Web. BCDEDIT will not remove the active operating system, so you should be safe from mistakes. But I'd be remiss if I said there was no chance of screwing up. Why couldn't it be simple, the way it is in XP?

Avoiding OS Conflict
System Restore supposedly gets deleted on Vista every time one boots to XP. Is there any way to avoid this?
by Loyd Case
Q: My new computer should be here any day now. It was set up with Windows Vista on drive 1 and Windows XP Pro on drive 2. I've read about a problem with the System Restore being deleted on Vista every time one boots to XP; is there any way to avoid this? Also, can a user put one kind of program—such as a certain brand of antivirus—on Vista and a different kind on XP without conflict? In other words: Is each OS invisible to the other?—Alton Macilroy
A Generally speaking, an OS on one hard drive is indeed "invisible" to the OS on another. If you boot one system, it simply treats the other OS as a collection of files. That's likely why Vista's System Restore files are being deleted—Windows XP creates a System Restore file per drive and sees the Vista file as a corrupted duplicate.

There are two things you can do: One is to use Vista's BitLocker feature to encrypt and hide the Vista Restore file. If you don't want to do this (or you don't have BitLocker), you can get a third-party boot manager, such as the one built into Acronis's Disk Director Suite, to hide one partition or one OS from the other completely. That includes any applications, including antivirus.
Note that you may see references to using a free utility called TweakUI to "hide" one drive from XP. This doesn't really work.

Avoid Confirmation at Start-Up in Vista
Here's a way to let specific programs run with automatic user authorization at PC start-up.
by Neil J. Rubenking
Q. Can I allow specific programs to run with automatic user authorization at PC start-up? I have two programs (mounting an external drive and background backup) that I have to authorize every time I boot my PC. I was advised to disable Vista's User Account Control, but this would be overkill and not very safe.—Jean A. Hassoun
A. It seems you're using an Administrator account, and the problem is only that you have to click Continue. In that case, you can indeed automate the process. Don't launch the program at start-up in any of the usual ways—if it's already in the Startup group or launched by a Run key in the Registry, you can use System Configuration (msconfig) to disable it from running in that way. Now do this:
•Launch the Task Scheduler by clicking the Start orb, typing task scheduler, and pressing Enter.
•Click the Create Task link in the Actions panel.
•Give the task a name and check the box Run with highest privileges (near the bottom).
•Click the Triggers tab and click the New button on that tab.
•There's a drop-down at top titled Begin the task; choose At log on.
•Choose the option Specific user or group (it will indicate the current user account) and click OK.
•Click the Actions tab, click New, and fill in the program you want to run as well as any arguments.

That should do the job. Why do they make it so hard? In short, most of the normal, launch-at-start-up system areas are vulnerable, because non-administrative programs can access them. And changing those start-up mechanisms would break a lot of existing programs. But non-admin-privilege programs cannot create scheduled tasks, so this method seemed safe enough for Microsoft to allow.

Unblock Start-Up Programs in Vista
It would be great if the end user could modify the authorized list.
by Neil J. Rubenking
Q. I downloaded and installed the latest rendition of Startup Cop Pro from PC Magazine. It works great, but I am not happy with the way it interfaces with Windows Vista. I always get the bubble stating that Windows has blocked some programs from starting. The only program that is blocked is Startup Cop Pro. I have not been able to find any way to authorize this program to run without my intervention each time I start the computer. Is there a way to add it to an authorized list, or does the author of the program have to create it as an authorized Windows Vista program? It would be great if the end user could modify the authorized list, but I cannot find such a reference at the Microsoft site.—Gordon Gipson
A. I recently answered a question about how to prevent that "blocked some programs" balloon when it's caused by MSConfig. In that case the solution is simple—you manually let MSConfig run once so that you can tell it to stop trying.

Startup Cop Pro is another story entirely. It's a program that must run at start-up but that requires User Account Control authorization to proceed. For security, Vista just won't let such a program launch from any of the standard start-up locations. So what can you do?
The solution lies in scheduling a task that runs at start-up. You might think Vista would block this too, but there's a reason it doesn't. Any process can tweak the standard start-up locations without triggering UAC, so those locations are considered dangerous. But launching Task Scheduler requires UAC confirmation, and thus Vista trusts scheduled tasks. Here's what you do:
• Click the Start orb and enter Task Scheduler.
• Enter an Administrator password or click Confirm as required by UAC.
• Click the Create Task link (not Create Basic Task).
• On the general tab name the task Startup Cop Pro.
• Select a user account that has Administrator privileges.
• Check the option Run only when user is logged on.
• Check the box Run with highest privileges.
• Click the Triggers tab and click the New button.
• Select At log on from the drop-down list at the top.
• Check the Any user option.
• At the bottom under Advanced Settings, check the Enabled box and click OK.
• Click the Actions tab and click the New button.
• Click Browse and locate the utility.
• In the Add arguments box enter /Startup.
• Click the Settings tab.
• Check the box Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed.
• Uncheck the box Stop the task if it runs longer than:
• Click OK, OK].
Whew! Now launch Startup Cop Pro, click Settings, and uncheck the Run Startup Cop Pro at startup box. When you reboot, Startup Cop Pro will launch at start-up with no gripes from Vista. Of course, you can apply this technique to any program that's blocked from ordinary start-up by Vista's UAC

Use a Vista Restore Point to Log On to a System
If you've recently set a new password and forgotten it, this is a quick way around the problem.
by Oliver Rist
If you've recently set a new password and forgotten it, this is a quick way around the problem. The only caveats are that you must have had System Restore enabled and that you need to remember your previous password. If this applies, then drop your Vista installation DVD into your drive and reboot. Start the installation process and designate the system language, the time, and your keyboard format.
At this point the option Repair your PC will pop up, so select that and click Next. Now select the System Restore option and again click Next. Select the restore point you'd like to use, confirm your selection, and click Finish, then Yes when it's time to restart. Once the system restarts, close the System Restore process and log on using your older credentials. You may have lost a little bit of data, but if your backup process runs often enough you should be able to restore that from your NAS or server.

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