Remote Desktop Restart/Shutdown in Vista and Windows 7

Within Windows Remote Desktop on Vista and Windows7, Microsoft has removed the restart and shutdown commands from the Task Manager Window. To shutdown or restart a computer remotely within Remote Desktop, press Alt + F4 and a window will give you choices for logging out, restarting or shutting down.

nVidia Boot Agent Hang Up

After reconfiguring the hard drives on my computer and installing a new motherboard (nVidia nForce 730i/GeForce 9300) and booting up into Windows XP, the nVidia Boot Agent kicked in during the boot up process, showing its MAC ID and searching for a DHCP. After pushing ESC to exit, it gives an error of Insert Disk..... and then restarts itself looking for a DHCP in an endless loop.

Solution: Go into BIOS and reconfigure the Startup Device. Put the Start Up Hard Drive as # 1 in the boot order.

Play Matroska (.mkv) Videos on Windows Media Player 11

To be able to play Matroska Encoded Movie Files (.mkv) you will need to download the codecs to decode the files. The codecs can be downloaded for free. The pack of codecs necessary for Windows Media Player 11 is all included in the K-Lite Codec Pack. CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) is missing several codecs in its pack that Windows Media Player will give error on: Windows Media Player cannot play the file.....

Download and install the K-Lite codec pack at:
http://www.codecguide.com/

Cannot Unshare a Folder in Windows XP

I wanted to unshare a folder while using a hotel wireless network but after right clicking on the shared folder (the folder with a hand icon underneath it) and choosing Sharing and Security..., the box for sharing was checked but grayed out, so that it could not be unshared.

To correct this, reboot and press F8 to enter the menu to choose a boot up type. Choose Safe Mode with Networking. After Windows XP boots up in Safe Mode, go to your shared folder and right click it, choose Sharing and Security... and a whole new sharing menu appears that allows you to unshare the folder. Reboot back into normal Windows XP. Annoying Windows bullshit...

Lexus LS 460 Check Engine Error Reset

The Lexus LS 460 ran out of gas, oops. Got if filled with gas but an error appeared on the driver console to check engine at Lexus maintenance. Called the service department and was told it was an unresolved issue with the car and to reset the error, all that was needed was to unscrew the gas cap, screw it back on, wait 1 hour. Well, did what was told and the error disappeared the next time the car was driven.

2 Finger Scrolling for the PC

Have you always wanted to try the 2 finger scroll on a PC after trying it out on the Mac? If you have a laptop with a touchpad by Synaptics, you can try a little program that enables two finger scrolling on the PC.

Go to: http://code.google.com/p/two-finger-scroll/downloads/list

MSI Wind U100 Netbook Touchpad Driver Solution

We recently got the MSI Wind U100 US/French/German/Polish edition and found out the touchpad is missing the side scrolling function and has the default control of clicking and double clicking on the touchpad which could not be disabled. The Wind uses the default Windows XP mouse driver with no special touchpad driver. Apparently, this is something that MSI had downgraded for whatever cost saving reason (I assume someone at MSI did not pay enough for lap dances to some name brand touchpad company official) but it is highly annoying because you end up accidentally clicking on links, especially personal ads on Yahoo, because you have shaky fingers from alcohol withdrawal or early onset Parkinson's. There are a lot of forums incessantly discussing and howling at this atrocity but I just went to Synaptics and downloaded their driver and application and avoided the drama.

Solutions:

Go to Synaptics and download the appropriate driver:
http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

This bundled driver and application that you install is accessed through an icon in the lower right corner of the XP menu bar or the XP mouse control panel and allows you to control every aspect of the touchpad from disabling touchpad clicking, turning on touchpad side scrolling, etc.

There are forums out there that point you to a German MSI website that allows you to download the Sentelic touchpad driver which I tried and did absolutely nothing for me. I tried installing the Sentelic touchpad driver before the Synaptics driver. If you want to waste 10 minutes of your life, here it is:

http://www.msi-technology.de/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=driver&maincat_no=135&prod_no=1474