Alexander’s Blog

In Windows Vista, when you use the search feature, Windows automatically includes the file index search, which can be huge because it includes all the searchable files on your computer. To speed the search process in Windows Vista, you can modify the registry per instructions below.

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
3. Double-click Start_SearchFiles in the right-hand pane.
4. Set Value data to 0.
5. Restart your computer.

Keep in mind that by modifying the search this way you are reducing the scope of the search to exclude hard drive files. If this is not what you want to do, then you may want to leave the registry setting to the default.

After a period of internal beta testing, Microsoft today released the Family Safety service to public beta. At the same time, Microsoft announced plans to move Family Safety into the OneCare brand, along with the free Safety Scanner and OneCare Advisor toolbar.

Microsoft has worked with outside experts such as the American Academy of Pediatricians to define just what categories of content are appropriate for children of different ages.

Besides allowing or blocking each category, you can set the product to “warning mode”. In this mode it warns that the requested page may be inappropriate, but lets the user choose whether to visit it anyway. This warning mode can be useful even for administrators, to avoid visiting porn sites accidentally by mistyping a URL. For very young children you can restrict access to a user-defined list of allowed sites or use a Microsoft-defined list of kid-oriented sites.

If Family Safety blocks a page your child thinks is valid, she can click a simple link to request permission. A parent at home can grant permission “over the shoulder” by typing the administrator password. Otherwise Family Safety notifies each administrator of the request via e-mail. On receiving the notification at work or around the world you simply log on, click a link, and allow or deny the request. You can also view a log of each child’s surfing history, including whether each site was allowed or blocked. And you can quickly change any logged site to allow or block it.

You can download the beta version of Family Safety here. Click here for more information.

Windows PE 2.0 is the core deployment foundation for Windows Vista. It is designed to make large-scale, customized deployments of the new Windows Vista operating system notably easier. When Windows Vista launches, Windows PE 2.0 will be available to all Windows Vista corporate customers.

A pre-release version of Windows PE 2.0, built for Windows Vista, is available for download and testing, for all corporate customers participating in the Windows Vista pre-release program. This is now included as part of the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD 2007) solution, available here.

Microsoft Windows Pre-installation Environment (Windows PE) 2.0 is a bootable tool from Microsoft that provides operating system features for installation, troubleshooting, and recovery. Windows PE is not a general-purpose operating system. Instead, it is designed to be used for three specific tasks:

Everyone (except the hackers) would agree that having a built-in Administrator account with no password is not a good idea. Therefore, Microsoft has decided to disable the built-in Administrator account under most circumstances in Windows Vista. This is a good move. By default, new installations of Windows Vista will no longer have the built-in Administrator account enabled. However, if you upgrade from Windows XP and the built-in Administrator was the only account that was active, your account will stay active and will be placed in what Microsoft refers to as “Admin Approval Mode.” Keep in mind that a built-in administrator account by default cannot logon to Windows in safe mode.

The behavior on computers that have joined the domain is different than computers that are in a workgroup. In a domain environment, a disabled built-in administrator account cannot logon to the computer in safe mode. If your computer has joined the domain, the domain administrators can logon to the computer and create a local administrator account if it doesn’t exist.

On computers that are part of a workgroup, a disabled built-in administrator account will not be able to logon to the safe mode as long as you have at least one local administrator account that’s enabled. Obviously, you will be able to use any other local administrator account to logon to safe mode. Let’s say you have a total of three administrator accounts: two that are enabled, plus the built-in administrator account that is disabled. If you somehow delete, or disable the two enabled administrator accounts, you will be able to logon to your computer in safe mode with the disabled built-in administrator account for disaster recovery. Note that this behavior is different than the previous scenario where the computer has joined the domain. In that case the built-in administrator cannot logon in safe mode. However, a member of Domain Admins group can come to the rescue as explained earlier.

While this behavior is definitely more secure, you need to ensure that you do not forget your passwords for your administrator accounts. Whether you create a password reset disk or write down your password in a safe place, that’s up to you. Whatever you do, just make sure you don’t lock yourself out from your own computer.