Vista on my HP Compaq 6710b doesn’t recognize inserted CD/DVD

I am running a 64 bit Vista on my Compaq 6710b computer. It was running perfectly fine. Lately, one day it started refusing to read my cd/dvds that I insert in the drive ( my one is D: ).

As usual, by ‘googling’ I found the following helps:

• Article at techarena forums: DVD Drive E: Drive disappearing from Vista Home Premium 64
• Another article at techarena forums: Disappearing DVD drive–not an upper or lower filter issue
• Microsoft Support(kb-939052) on: When you insert a CD or a DVD, Windows Vista may not recognize the disc
• Microsoft Support(kb-929461) on: The CD drive or the DVD drive does not work as expected on a computer that you upgraded to Windows Vista

Deleting the UpperFilters and LowerFilters as mentioned in Microsoft Support kb-929461 didn’t help the drives, rather created more problems of totally eliminating the drives from the face of the explorer window

Nevertheless,even with the other helps above, I haven’t got the solution to my problem yet! Help me, if anyone can. please!

Console is not showing the menu bar or the toolbar!

Those of you who are in love with the Console2′s interesting feats, but on windows sometimes fall into ditches, as usual, here is a problem I ran into before doing the following twick.

I installed the console in a windows box, but couldn’t see its menu, neither it’s toolbar! Tried to find any related issues by googling online but now help.

At last I thought, let me have a look into the console.xml which contains the runtime configurations. And I found this:


<controls show_menu=“0” show_toolbar=“0” show_statusbar=“0” show_tabs=“1” hide_single_tab=“0” show_scrollbars=“0”/>

Bingo! Just what I was looking for. The Console started functioning normal again after I have changed the above to the following:


<controls show_menu=“1” show_toolbar=“1” show_statusbar=“1” show_tabs=“1” hide_single_tab=“1” show_scrollbars=“1”/>

Voila!
Hope this helps those who may need it in a hurry

Update: Dec. 30, 2009

I forgot to mention the easy way first , sorry — you can also go to the settings by pressing Ctrl+S after running the Console2 window.

On the search I found these invaluable articles in different sites. Have a look you might find something more interesting there

• Console2 — A command window replacement
• A Mac-type RAILS dev env in windows
• E-TextEditor for windows mode setting : add .rb files to RAILS syntax
• Although inexpensive, E-TextEditor is a paid tool with a 30-day trial period. You may instead try the free editor PSPad.

e-TextEditor commands

While trying to find some e-texteditor knowhows, I found the following cheatsheet here:

Keyboard shortcuts for E Text Editor (http://www.e-texteditor.com/)
Was added some time ago under the Cheat Sheet Title “e” but was deleted somehow.

File Operations
===============

Ctrl+N               : New file
Double-Click tab bar : New file
Ctrl+O               : Open file
Ctrl+S               : Save file
Ctrl+Shift+S         : Save as
Ctrl+W               : Close file
Ctrl+Shift+T         : Go To File dialog

Editing
=======

Ctrl+K         : Delete to end of line; if the caret already is at 
                 end-of-line it deletes the newline.
Ctrl+Shift+K   : Delete the entire line
Ctrl+Backspace : Delete to start of word (same as Ctrl+H)
Ctrl+Delete    : Delete to end of word
Ctrl+(Shift)+U : Change case on word/selection
Alt+G          : Inverse case on word/selection
Alt+Shift+D    : Duplicate line/selection
Ctrl+Alt+U     : Title case
Ctrl+T         : Transpose, for swapping words or chars.
Ctrl+Alt+R     : Run current line/selection
Ctrl+C         : Copy (or: Ctrl+Insert)
Ctrl+V         : Paste (or: Shift+Insert)
Ctrl+X         : Cut
Ctrl+Z         : Undo
Ctrl+Y         : Redo. If there are multiple branches to choose from, 
                 undo history will be displayed.
Esc            : Word completion. 

Selection
=========

Ctrl+A           : Select all
Ctrl+Shift+arrow : Select entire word
Alt+Left-mouse   : column selection
Ctrl+Left-mouse  : Multi selection
Shift+Home       : Selects to the first non-whitespace char on the line, 
                   second time the white spaces will be selected as well 
Shift+Ctrl+Home  : Selects to the beginning of the document
Shift+Ctrl+End   : Selects to the end of the document
Shift+Ctrl+L     : Selects current line
Shift+Ctrl+W     : Selects current word
Shift+Ctrl+Space : Selects current scope. If you keep hitting it,
                   it will cycle through the available scopes.

Folding
=======

F1          : Toggle current fold
Alt+F1      : Open current fold and closes all others
Ctrl+F1     : Fold all
Ctrl+Alt+F1 : Unfold all
Shift+F1    : Select current fold
Left-mouse  : Fold end or fold indicator: Select fold, twice to fold
Mouseover   : Fold end: Show fold preview
              Fold indicator: Highlight fold (useful for nested folds)

Navigation
==========

Ctrl+Tab           : Go to last active tab (or next tab if used repeatedly)
Ctrl+Shift+Tab     : Go to previous tab
Alt+Ctrl+R/L-arrow : Next/previous tab
Alt+Ctrl+Up-arrow  : Go to header/source
Ctrl+L             : Go to Symbol
Ctrl+G             : Go to line
Ctrl+F             : Find
Ctrl+G             : Find next
Ctrl+R             : Replace
Home               : Move cursor to the beginning of the line
End                : Move cursor to the end of the line
Ctrl+Home          : Move cursor to the beginning of the document
Ctrl+End           : Move cursor to the end of the document
Ctrl+Up/Down-arrow : Scroll up/down, without moving the caret
Ctrl+1-9           : Go to tab
Ctrl+Alt+0         : Go to last tab
Ctrl+0             : List open tabs

View
====

Ctrl+P       : Show/hide Project Pane
F5           : Show/hide Symbol List
F6           : Show/hide Revision History
F7           : Show/hide Undo History
F1           : Toggle Fold
Ctrl+F1      : Fold All
Alt+F1       : Fold Others
Alt+Ctrl+F1  : Unfold All
Ctrl+Alt+P   : Show/hide Web Preview

Document
========

Ctrl+M : Make milestone

Bundles
=======

Ctrl+Shift+B : Show bundle editor
Ctrl+Alt+T   : Select bundle
Esc          : Kill current running bundle command

Projects
========

Ctrl+P       : Show/hide project pane
Ctrl+Shift+P : Switch focus between editor and project pane 
               (opening it if needed). 
Arrow keys   : Up/down and expand/close folder
Enter        : Open file in editor
F2           : Rename
F5           : Refresh project view
Shift-F10    : Show context menu

Mouse Shortcuts
===============

Double-click    : Select word
Triple-click    : Select line
Alt-doubleclick : Select scope

Command Line Options
====================

--clearstate    : Don't reload files from last session.
--clearlayout   : Resets window layout and positions.
--clearundo     : Clear undo history for all un-milestoned files.

Bundles: http://tmbundles4win.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
Version 2, updated 139 days ago.

‘Disk Clean’ button alternative in vista !

Apart from the previous post Disc Cleanup in vista can also be performed in the following way:
Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Performance Information and Tools
Now on the left column choose Open Disk Cleanup. The rest is the same as it is in the General Tab of disk properties box.

UPDATE : 11-Dec-2009

The location should be the following:

Control Panel -> Performance Information and Tools

‘Disk Clean’ button gone from Vista drive properties in General tab

I found the following techguy help digging through internet:

disk cleanup missing from Properties

1. If you right-click a drive, select Properties, then select the Tools tab, you’ll see buttons for backing up and defragmenting your disk. On the General tab, you’ll also see a button labeled Disk Cleanup. By default, Win2K and later run the following programs for Disk Cleanup:
   • Disk cleanup–C:\Windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /D %c
2. Navigate to the

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer

   registry subkey. Under the subkey are three keys: BackupPath, cleanuppath, and DefragPath. Under each of these keys, the (Default) value specifies the program to be used. If any of the keys don’t exist (by default, BackupPath doesn’t exist in Win2K), go to the Edit menu; select New, Key; then enter the name of the missing key under the MyComputer subkey.

3. Double-click the (Default) value under the path you want to modify, change the value to reflect the program you want to use, (C:\Windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe /D %c) then click OK.
4. Close the registry editor.

Cygwin corruption of $Recycle.Bin in Vista

When installing Cygwin sometimes it corrupts the $Recycle.Bin folder with it’s permission setting somehow. That in turn makes problem in your Vista OS while operating through the explorer.

Work around through it is a bit tricky for Vista. Here is what you can do :

Option #1

Restore to previous version the root drive

Alternatively, if you can’t succeed doing that or do not have any option for doing that try the following:

Option #2

Start a command prompt or type cmd at the run prompt with admin rights.
Type the followings:

cd \
attrib -S -H /S $Recycle.Bin
del /F /S /Q /ASH $Recycle.Bin\
exit

Helpful sites for non-vista users:
Setup32.com
Microsoft support

How NOT to elevate an installer application in Vista

Like many others I had problems installing softwares in my Vista(Business) laptop since long as it always forces me to install it with Admin authority, which I didn’t want! I just wanted to install a software or a program for a testing purpose some of which didn’t even need to register in the windows registry.

Vista has a way to force the setup programs to elevate the current user if the user is not the administrator. That way Vista ensures the security of the system, at least that’s what there defenses are.

But in order to install my programs without elevating my user credentials, I searched the web with the help of Google Search and landed on a helpful msdn blog of Andrew Arnott

The important bit of code that helped me at the moment was the following:

There is a way to coerce Vista to not elevate a process that it otherwise would.

REM The next command MUST be run from an elevated command window.
REM It launches regedit.exe WITHOUT elevated privileges.
runas /trustlevel:0x20000 regedit.exe

I have modified it to take a parameter that would help you run this for any program from an elevated command prompt

Here is what is done to do the job:

@ECHO OFF
REM =====================================
REM source: http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewarnottms/archive/2008/10/15/how-to-force-vista-to-not-elevate-an-application.aspx
REM =====================================
REM The next command MUST be run from an elevated command window.
REM It launches regedit.exe WITHOUT elevated privileges.
REM runas /trustlevel:0x20000 regedit.exe
REM =====================================
setlocal
if {%1}=={} set _empty=Syntax: UnUAC "[-e{xit current window}] [path\]file to run" &goto :message
if EXIST %~$PATH:1 (set _File=%~$PATH:1) ELSE (set _File=%~f1)
if NOT EXIST %_File% ( set _empty=File NOT found in the path or in local directory. &goto :message )
goto :runthis
:message
echo %_empty%
endlocal&set _empty=%_empty%
:runthis
if exist %_File% runas /trustlevel:0x20000 %_File%

I have saved it as UnUAC.cmd in the folder c:\Windows\System32\. That way it remains available at all levels and under any directory path. That’s how I’d be able to run any application without the admin elevation of the user