72XP: disabling libraries and installing 3rd party themes
Jan 5, 2010 Tech
Welcome to what is probably the last article in this series. lets get started :p
So, so far so good, its mostly acting like XP :p next we’re going to disable and remove libraries intergration. I prefer real folders.
Download these reg tweaks and apply them, then logoff or reboot for changes to take effect.
Disable Libraries in Windows 7 (removes the libraries).
Remove Library Context Menus (removes the library related context menus)
Now i know this doesnt disable intergration completely, i still need to find a way to remove it from the save dialog.
A few more little tweaks.
Once after rebooting i noticed a new icon on my desktop that wouldnt go away and didnt seem to have any use (or a delete option). So heres a reg tweaks to remove it. (logoff or reboot to see changes).
Remove_HomeGroup_Desktop_Icon (removes the “HomeGroup” icon from the desktop).
Another annoyance I noticed was a “shop for music online” option in the context menu of music folders. I quickly removed this with a reg patch which you can get below.
Remove wmp shop (removes the “shop” context menu entries from music folders).
Another optional hack you can apply is that of a hacked themeing system, which will let you run 3rd party themes that arent made by microsoft. Click the link below to download the Patcher. you can find more visual styles on sites such as deviantart.com and google :p
UniversalThemePatcher_20090409.zip (as always make sure you read the readme files and use the right version for your install).
I have also recently changed my default browser to chrome because its much quicker than any browser ive tried. I still use IE/Crazy Browser as my main browser though.
So, thats the last in the series for now, i will probably find/post more tweaks as i come across a need for them. right now im contemplating replacing the explorer filemanager with E++ because for the life of me i cant seem to find a hack or tweak that disables full row select in explorer, its really annoying. the only downside here is that some of the keyboard shortcuts do different things and the current version doesnt remeber view settings.
Hope you enjoyed this mini series! 
Tags: 72XP, browser, chrome, context menu, explorer, icons, libraries, themes, windows 7, xp
72XP: Modifying explorer and restoring the classic start menu
Jan 4, 2010 Tech
Hello! and welcome to the third installment of 72XP!
Today’s post is about hacking explorer and the start menu so lets get going :p
It took me a REALLY long time to find a decent replacment for this, the ones i did find were either buggy, had hardly any features or cost a stupid amount of money ($30 for a menu app?!).
I have eventually settled on True Launch Bar, this app isnt free, it is shareware and has a demo version, the paid for version costs around $15, i went for this option because at the time, the only alternatives were REALLY poor, or expensive. I use this in conjuction with “start killer” which removes the original start menu so that the true launch menu can take its place, TLB really does have a LOT of options and no bugs that i have found so far shortly after downloading true launch bar and setting it up to the way i like it, A decent looking, free start menu replacement called simply “Classic Shell” appeared, I havent tested it out, but i am using the app for its other functionality which i will mention later. I’m really glad i found a classic start menu replacment, i really cant stand 2-column menu’s, especially one that i would be using a lot. Some things that dont come with TLB though are things like shortcuts to the Run Dialog or the Control panel, so with the help of google i figured out how to do these myself
To make a shortcut to “All control panel items” which is basically the classic version of the control panel without any categorising, make a shortcut to the following and place it in the menu:
“C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\0”
Also, to get a shortcut to the run dialog, download this ( Run! ) shortcut and put it where you want on the menu, it doesnt seem to have an actual shell extension/location (it probably does, but I think its hidden).
Next up, Windows Explorer, the file manager, if your reading this you’ll most likely know that MS have removed pretty much all the toolbar buttons that used to be there in XP and replaced it with an “organise”, “view” and “burn” button. which to me is the most useless collection of menu items ever. do MS really think people burn stuff to CD so often that it requires its own button. also, i noticed that i use pretty much none of the options in either the “view” or “organise” menu, but you cant remove this bar, also known as the “folderband”, well at least not with a little bit of hacking 
Now before i go any further, make sure you have backups! dont complain to me if your system screws up because you cant follow instructions properly :p
Removing the folderband requires hacking of one of the system files with a resource editor such as ResHacker or Restorator 2007. if your install of windows 7 is x86 you can use reshacker which is a free download, if your install is an x64 install, then you must use Restorator 2007, as this is the only resource editor available right now that can compile 64-bit files, they do have a trial version on thier website though, thats what i used. once you have the correct editor follow these instructions:
in your resource editor, open this file: C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Aero\Shell\NormalColor\Shellstyle.dll
click “UIFILE”, click “1″.
in the code search for:
<style resid=”FolderBandStyle”>
add this code just below it:
<Element padding=”rect(0rp,0rp,0rp,-32rp)”/>
Compile & save the file.
now you will need to replace the file, to do this i booted with the XP that i already had installed along side windows 7, but you can use a live CD of some kind i guess. normally i would have used replacer, but it doesnt seem to work in Windows 7, i think its a permissions problem. Once this is done there will be no folderband. but most of the options in there are can be accessed by the main toolbar menu which you can enable by pressing Alt to show it and then right clicking it to enable it permanently.
Next were going to restore some of the toolbar buttons that MS decided we didnt need anymore, like cut,copy, paste, and the popular “up” button. These buttons are added by the app i mentioned earlier, Classic Shell. This app will add buttons to the main menu bar, and although the buttons are a little small, they do a pretty good job. after install, right click the main menu to enable the buttons permanently, if the option doesnt show logoff or reboot and then try to enable it.
Thats it for today, Yes i know it was a pretty long post, the next one will be shorter :p
bai! 
P
Tags: 72XP, classic start menu, explorer, hacking, replacer, start killer, true launch bar, windows 7, xp
72XP: Some GUI changes
Jan 3, 2010 Tech
Now for the next installment of 72xp, were going to make some GUI changes.
The superbar seems to be a pretty good idea, as in the idea of pinning items it, sortof like an advanced quicklaunch. pinning things to the start menu isnt really all that new though. now for me, i prefer my quicklaunch to just do one thing, launch stuff, i also prefer to keep it in one place so i know where it is, i only have 2 icoons in there anyway. having an advanced version that combines with the ttaskbar and spreads the whole length of it is just confusing and useless. to get it to act more or less like XP, apply the following tweaks.
First, unpin all the existing items on the superbar by right clicking them and choosing “unpin”, Then right click the taskbar/superbar and choose properties, select “lock the taskbar” and “use small icons”, this will lock the task bar and make it basically the same size as it was in XP.
If in XP you used the taskbar grouping feature, this feature is also available in windows 7, personally i never used this myself. you can choose how it acts in the taskbar buttons drop down menu, chose “never combine”. the notification area in windows 7 is also similar to XP, except it has its very own control panel item now, which you can access by clicking “customise” in the notifcation area section. personally i never hide any notification area/system tray icons. but you can choose which ones to show or hide in this dialog.
I also disabled aero peak (which is the little preview window that pops up when you put your mouse over a taskbar button). by unchecking the box in the bottom section. but this seems to be not enough to disable aero peak, so here are a couple of extra things i did:
disable aero peak in group policy:
click start
type “gpedit.msc“, hold down ctrl & press enter (this will start the process with admin priviledges so that there are no problems with permissions when you come to apply the policies.
once the window opens, click the + sign next to “administrative templates” under the “user configuration” section, then click “start menu ad taskbar”, a list of policies will appear in the right hand window, in list list scroll right down to the bottom and double click on the last one, to disable the aero thumbnails select “enabled”, this will enable the disablement of the thumbnails (confusing i know :p). usually to make sure this policy is applied i logoff and log back on again.
There is also a registry tweak you can try:
open registry editor (start > regedit > ctrl + enter).
navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
add a new DWORD Called “TaskbarNoThumbnail”, set the value to 1. logoff and log back on again for the changes to take effect.
If it still isnt gone, go here, and download the “7 Taskbar Tweaker”, this is a very handy little program that you can use to disable the aero peak as well as a lot of other things. to disable the aero peak thumbnails, click “disable” box in the “preview thumbnails” section.
Some of the other options I chose with this program was the changing of the middle click mouse button to “close window”, i was used to doing this in XP as I was running a taskbar tweaking app on there too which also modified the middle click button, so middle clicking a button and getting another instance of the same app was really irritating.
I also use this app to enforce the “no grouping” setting, when your happy with the changes you have made with this app, click apply. Now the only thing with this little app is that it has to be running to have the effects in place, if you click the “settings button” you will see that there is an option for running it when windows starts, i have that checked, i also have the icon in the notification area hidden via the option too, so although it runs in the background, i dont mind it using up a relatively small amount of resources for the customisation options it gives me.
Thats all for today, coming next, how to get the classic start menu from XP back, stay tuned!
72XP: Allow permanent installation of unsigned drivers
Jan 2, 2010 Tech
So over the past couple of months ive been attempting to transition from xp to windows 7, but some parts of the interface just bug me, i guess im just used to doing it a certain way in XP. (upgrading from from Windows 98 wasnt a problem all those years ago because XP was a much needed improvement). Sometimes i feel like windows 7 is an upgrade for the sake of an upgrade.
Anyways, after several attempts at trying to get used to the new interface/explorer, i just couldnt. So i set about changing what I didnt like into what i could live with. I will probably continue to tweak and change some other things in 7 as i continue to use it. but for now i thought i’d document my changes into some sort of guide incase anyone else wants to try it So over the next couple of days/weeks i’ll be posting a series of “72XP” articles (get it? :p ) that’ll let you change 7 to look and work more like XP.
so first off, some under the hood changes, allowing permanent installation of unsigned drivers, by default windows 7 (and vista) disable the use of unsigned drivers (in XP the default was to prompt) which is a bit annoying when your trying to install software suck as Daemon Tools of VMWare Server/Workstation. now there a various methods for doing this, you can add boot flags in your boot.ini or do it via a boot menu, I preferred the second option. (search google for details on the first one :p ) to do it via the menu, follow these steps:
1. reboot machine
2. press F8 during bootup
3. using the arrow keys on the keyboard choose the option” disable driver signature enforcement”.
when you reboot you will be able to install unsigned drivers without a problem. You will also notice that you now how a little bit of text in the corner of your desktop that says something similar to “Test Mode”, so called because MS wants you to only run Windows 7 like this if you are testing unsigned drivers. To remove this download the file below.
Make sure you read the Readme files included in the zip file, the zip file contains a version both for x86 and x64. make sure you use the right version for your install or it may not work.
Thats all for now, i’ll be posting another one tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Also, happy new year :p